The Massachusetts Slave Trade.

it until after it had been prohibited by the state. It was firmly established before the end of the seventeenth century, and during the eighteenth it became one of the most prosperous branches of commerce. Negroes were supplied in large numbers to the southern colonies, both in the islands and on the continent, and some were brought to Massachusetts from the West Indies and occasionally direct from Africa. A considerable part of the Rhode Island trade, also, was supported by Massachusetts capital.
In European countries, and in the United States as a whole, it was the slave trade which first attracted the attention of reformers, and which was therefore abolished before slavery. This would seem to be the natural order, for it is a simpler matter to prevent the growth of an evil than to do away with conditions which have become a part of the institutions of the land In Massachusetts, owing to the fact that the use of slaves had begun to decline for economic reasons before any moral sentiment was aroused, this natural order was reversed, and her citizens continued to engage in the slave trade when slavery had no legal existence in the state.
In regard to both the use of slaves and the slave trade Massachusetts displayed neither more nor less conscience than the rest of the civilized world. Until it became evident that in the New England climate and industrial economy slaves were not a profitable investment, they were brought in and held by leading citizens. The economic disadvantages were recognized comparatively early, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were attempts in the legislation of the colony to discourage the importation of negroes. The humanitarian element was added to the opposition in the latter half of the century, increasing the desire to banish slavery from Massachusetts soil. This was finally declared by a decision of the Supreme Court of the state to have been accomplished by a clause in the Bill of Rights prefixed to the state constitution.
The trade in general, on the other hand, grew more and more profitable, as the use of slaves in the state lost favor, and no efforts were made to prevent Massachusetts citizens from participating in it until after the Revolution. Looking back from the end of the nineteenth century it is easy to criticise and hard to feel anything but shame for the role assumed by Massachusetts. But the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cannot with fairness be judged according to the standards of to-day. It is not surprising that when Cromwell was selling Irish boys and girls to planters in the West Indies the enslaving of African savages failed to excite indignation. Nothing is detracted from the respect due Massachusetts for her real attainments by denying to her a moral standard far in advance of the rest of the world. If she is to be excused for her sins on the plea that they were common to the times, it is no less true that her moral awakening is to be explained by the spirit of the age. The agitation against slavery in Massachusetts, as in other parts of the country, has been attributed to the struggle the colonies were engaged in for political freedom. This was the exciting cause; but the Revolution itself was not an isolated phenomenon, but part of the larger movement for liberty which was then beginning in the writings of the French philosophers, and was soon to find passionate expression in the revolution of 1789.

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