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was aroused until "the British Parliament attempted to enslave the colonists by arbitrary acts."1 Throughout the seventeenth century property in human beings was regarded as part of the natural order of things by the most conscientious of men. After 1700 occasional protests are heard, but they seem to be voices crying in the wilderness and cannot be regarded as expressive of public opinion. The scruples which wished to prevent the importation of slaves into Massachusetts did not, however, extend to the traffic in other parts of the world, and no attempts were made to restrain it in the colonial period. So much more potent are economic forces than ethical considerations!
A letter written to the elder Winthrop in 1645, by his brother-in-law Emanuel Downing, affords "a most luminous illustration" of the views of the early Boston settlers on the subject of slavery. They not only did not deprecate the institution but even looked to it to solve their labor problem. Downing is writing of a war with the Narragansetts which seemed imminent and not undesirable, for "if upon a Juste warre the Lord should deliver them into our hands, wee might easily haue men, woemen & children enough to exchange for Moores (Africans), which wilbe more gaynefull pilladge for vs than wee conceive, for I doe not see how wee can thrive untill wee gett into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our busines, for our children's children will hardly see this great Continent filled with people, soe that our servants will still desire freedom to plant for them selues, & not stay but for verie great wages. And I suppose you know verie well how wee shall maynteyne 20 Moores cheaper than one Englishe servant."2 The first public protest was a tract by Chief Justice Sewall, printed in Boston in 1700, under the title, "The Selling of Joseph, A Memorial."3 The introduction states that the "Numerousness of Slaves . . . . in the Province, & the Uneasiness of them under their Slavery" had "put many upon thinking whether the Foundation of it be firmly and well laid." Judge Sewall replies to the current justifications of the slave trade, which are: first, "These Blackamores are of the posterity of Chain, and therefore are under the curse of Slavery"; second, "The Nigers are brought out of a Pagan Country, into places where the Gospel is Preached"; third, "The Africans have Wars one with another: Our Ships bring lawful Captives taken in those Wars"; and finally, "Abraham had Servants bought with his Money and born in his House." The first argument is answered by proving that "Black Men are the Posterity of Cush," and therefore are not under the curse pronounced upon Chain, or Canaan; the second, by the assertion that "evil must not be done that good may come of it." To the third he replies that the wars the Africans have with one another are unlawful, and that "an unlawful War can't make lawful Captives"; to the fourth, that the standard of social morality has changed since Abraham's day. His conclusion is that "These Ethiopians, as black as they are; seeing that they are the Sons & Daughters of the First ADAM, the Brethren and Sisters of the Last ADAM, and the Offspring of GOD; They ought to be treated with a Respect agreable." This stands alone as an objection on moral grounds. The economic disadvantages of slavery were more generally recognized. In 1701 Boston instructed her "Representitives" to promote "the Encouraging the bringing of white servts and to put a Period to negroes being slaves."4 The restrictive legislation began in 1705 with an act passed by the General 2 4 Mass. Hist. Coil., VI, 65. 3 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1863-4, pp. 161-165. 4 Selectmen's Records, May 26, 1701.
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