making slaves of the "heathen," and their only anxiety seems to have been to preserve the checks and guards of the Mosaic code, and to prevent the harsh and cruel treatment of the slaves.

The Indians were not a tractable race, and the men, especially, had so many resources for escape, that it was a little difficult to apply the discipline necessary to make them obedient and serviceable. But the near vicinity of the West Indies provided a remedy for this difficulty; and when prisoners were captured it seems to have been the custom to distribute the women and girls to the colonists, but to send away such of the men and boys as were obstinate to be exchanged for Negroes. Hence, after the exterminating war which was waged against the Pequods in Massachusetts in 1637, Governor Winthrop, of the Bay Colony, in writing to Governor Bradford, of the Plymouth Colony, says:

The prisoners were divided; some to those of ye river (Connecticut) and the rest to us. Of these we send the male children to Bermuda by Mr. William Peirce, & ye women & maid children are disposed of about in ye tounes. Ther have now been slaine or taken, in all, about 700.*

Winthrop records in his journal the return of Mr. Peirce, in the Salem ship "Desire," "with some cotton, tobacco, and Negroes." Hubbard, the contemporary historian of the Indian wars, according to Moore, confirms this statement. He says: "Of those who were not so desperate or sullen as to sell their lives for nothing, but yielded in time, the male children were sent to the Bermudas. Of the female, some were distributed to the English towns, and some were disposed of among the other Indians." That is to say, Indians who had assisted the English in prosecuting the war.

A little later, after the King Philip war, (1676,) this plan of disposing of Indian captives was pushed further, and some hundreds of Indians were sent out to be exchanged for Negroes. Among them seems to have been the wife and son of Philip; and Mr. Everett, in one of his orations, refers to the matter thus:

And what was the fate of Philip's wife and son? The boy is the grandson, his mother the daughter-in-law, of good old

*"Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts." By George H. Moore, Librariar to the New York Historical Society, and corresponding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. New York: Appleton & Co. 1866.

Massasoit, the first and best friend the English ever had in New England. Perhaps-now that Philip is slain and his warriors scattered to the four winds they will allow his wife and son to go back-the widow and the orphan -to finish their days and sorrows in their native wilderness. No! They are sold into slavery-West Indian slavery! An Indian princess and her child sold from the cool breezes of Mount Hope, from the wild freedom of a New England forest, to gasp under the lash beneath the blazing sun of the tropics.

Among the earliest laws passed by the General Court of Massachusetts was one touching this subject. It does not indicate, as some have contended, that the colonists were averse to slavery, and only tolerated it out of regard to English interests. It provides, indirectly, for the slavery of both Negroes and Indians, as follows:

There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage, or captivitie amongst us, unless it be lawfull captives taken in just warres or such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us, and these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons doth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authoritie.*

It will be observed that the word strangers, which was evidently inserted to give it a remote reference to the Mosaic code, does not cover the enslaving of children born of slave mothers. Still, in any slave-holding community the unless would be regarded as giving about all the privileges that the slave-holder would deem requisite for the security of his supply; but the boundaries were still further enlarged at a later date by substituting the words such as for strangers, making it include Indians "taken in just warres," Negroes brought from Africa or the West Indies, criminals condemned to slavery by the courts, and Negroes other than strangers-that is to say, such as were born of slave mothers. Mr. Palfrey, Mr. Sumner, and some other distinguished antislavery leaders have declared that "no person was ever born into legal slavery in Massachusetts;" but Mr. Sumner prudently added in his famous speech of June 28, 1854, "If, in point of fact, the issue of slaves was sometimes held in bondage, it was never by sanction of any statute law of colony or commonwealth." This will probably strike the reader as a pretty liberal construction * "Slavery in Massachusetts," page 12.

of the law above cited; but whatever was the theory, there was no dispute about the practice. The children of slave mothers were constantly held in bondage, not only in Massachusetts, but in all the other colonies. In a fugitive-slave case which was carried before the Connecticut General Assembly in 1704, the facts of usage were thus stated:

According to the laws and constant practice of this colony and all other plantations (as well as by the civil law) such persons as are born of Negro bondwomen are themselves in like conditionthat is, born in servitude. Nor can there be any precedent in this government or any of her Majesty's plantations produced to the contrary. And, though the law of the colony doth not say that such persons as are born of Negro women, and supposed to be mulattoes, shall be slaves, (which was needless, because of the constant practice by which they are held as such,) yet it saith expressly that " no man shall put away or make free his Negro or mulatto slave," etc., which undeniably shows and declares an approbation of such servitude, and that mulattoes may be held as slaves within this government.*

Considering what was the inevitable result of "just warres with the Indians, it is not surprising that they were matters of no small interest to some of the colonists. Moore quotes an interesting letter touching this point. It seems that the father of the famous Sir George Downing married a sister of Governor Winthrop, and, on coming from England to Massachusetts, he took an active interest in the affairs of the colony. He was much troubled about the "paw wawes" of the Narragansetts, and was particularly aggrieved that they should be suffered thus "to maynteyne the worship of the Devil." His remedy is stated in a letter to his brother-in-law, as follows:

If, upon a Just warre, the Lord should deliver them into our hands, we might easily have men, women, and children enough to exchange for Moors, which will be more gayneful pilladge for us than wee conceive; for I do not see how we can thrive until we gitt into a flock of slaves sufficient to do all our business. †

Indians, as has been said, were somewhat difficult to manage; but the practice of sending them to the West Indies to exchange for Negroes, or, as Mr. Downing calls them, Moors, offered a feasible plan for getting into "a flock of slaves." But the extract is valuable not only as showing the use of "just + Ibid., page 10.

"Slavery in Massachusetts," page 25.

warres," but the value that was put upon slavery. It is often said that slavery was abolished in the Northern States because it was not profitable; but whether it was profitable or not, the slave-owners clung to it with a wonderfully tenacious grip, and there were others besides Mr. Downing who felt that the one thing needful was to "gitt into a flock of slaves."

At first the slaves were not numerous, and were not regarded as of much account; but their value appreciated as the colonies advanced, and their number rapidly increased. Even in Pennsylvania the number of slaves had swelled to ten thousand at the breaking out of the war; and although the Quaker colony was in advance of the others in dealing with inferior races, it does not seem to have been exempt from the common weakness in regard to slavery. The article on slavery in the American Cyclopedia says: "The Quakers were opposed to slavery and the slave-trade from the beginning of their existence." If this was so, how did it come to pass that the Quaker Legislature of Pennsylvania allowed it to take root and grow to such enormous proportions? On this subject Mr. Moore gives us some very instructive facts. In 1688 a small body of Quakers living at Germantown, who had come from a town in Germany not far from Worms, were disturbed in mind by complaints from home about the usages in Pennsylvania touching slavery; and at one of their meetings they determined to draw up a protest and send it to "the monthly meeting held at Richard Worrells." It was accordingly written and signed by four leading Friends. In it they say:

Pray what thing in the world can be done worse toward us than if men should rob or steal us away and sell us for slaves to strange countries, separating husbands from their wives and children?

And they conclude by this appeal:

Now, consider well this thing, if it is good or bad. And in case you find it to be good to handle these blacks in this manner, we desire and regard you hereby, lovingly, that you may inform us herein, which at this time never was done, viz., that Christians have such liberty to do so, to the end we shall be satisfied on this point, and satisfy likewise our good friends and acquaintances in our native country, to whom it is a terror or fearful thing that men should be handled so in Pennsylvania.

ye

18th

This paper, "from our Meeting in Germantown held of 2d month, 1688," was duly considered at the monthly meeting; but no action was taken on it, for the reason that "We find it so weighty that we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here, but rather commit it to ye consideration of ye quarterly meeting." It accordingly went up to the quarterly meeting at Philadelphia, where it was read "on ye 4th of ye 4th month, '88," and recommended to the attention of the yearly meeting, which met at Burlington in July of the same year; and the minute of the yearly meeting in regard to this very difficult question, as to whether one Christian can buy or sell another, is in the following words:

At a Yearly Meeting, held at Burlington the 5th day of the 7th month, 1688: A paper being here presented by some German Friends Concerning the Lawfulness and Unlawfulness of Buying and Keeping of Negroes, It was adjudged not to be so proper for this Meeting to give a Positive Judgment in the Case, it having so general a Relation to many other Parts, and, therefore, at present they Forbear It.-Page 78.

Their answer does not take the color of a very obstinate opposition. Slavery "had so general a relation to many other parts" that they "adjudged" it best not to give any opinion, but to let the buying and selling of Christians go on. A little later (1699) William Penn proposed to his Quaker Legislature that they should provide by law for the marriage, religious instruction, and kind treatment of slaves; and a bill was reported in accordance with his suggestions, but when it came to a vote it was rejected. Still later, in 1712, a petition was sent up to the Legislature, praying for the passage of a bill which provided in some way for the emancipation of the slaves. But the committee to which it was referred reported that "it was neither just nor convenient to set them at liberty."

This action, or want of action, explains why slavery continued to grow in Pennsylvania; and we may well believe that it was "inconvenient" to part with it. But the facts cited are further important, as showing that slavery had as firm a grip on the people of these colonies as on those of South Carolina and Georgia. It is probably true that the hardships of slavery were lighter in the North than in the South, and that the

"Blake on Slavery," page 381.