Note 683 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES (continued 2)

In 1700 Sewall, then a judge of the superior court, wrote an anti-slavery tract entitled The Selling of Joseph. It is reprinted in the Procds. Mass. Hist. Soc. (1863-64), 161-65; with the Diary in 5 Mass. Hist. Coll., VI, 16-20, note; and in Moore, Notes on Hist. of Slavery in Mass., 83-87. The next year John Saffin, a judge of the same court, replied to Sewall in A Brief and Candid Answer (Boston, 1701); reprinted by Moore, op. cit., 251-56. Compare Sewall's letter To the Revd. & aged Mr. John Higginson (Apr. 13, 1706), and his extract from the Athenian Oracle, II, 460-63, both reprinted by Moore, op. cit., 89-94. Sewall favored a law requiring "that all importers of Negroes shall pay 40 shillings per head to discourage the bringing of them." Cf. Bliss, Side Glimpses from the Col. Meeting-House, 21; Weeden, Ecc. and Soc. Hist., II, 450.