Note 369 — Chapter XV

The reader who will consult a paper in the fourth volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (p. 194), written by Dr. Belknap, in 1795, will find that slavery, in the sense in which the term is now commonly understood, existed in Massachusetts Bay as early as 1630. The proof of it consists,—1. In the provisions of the colonial laws and ordinances, which recognize and regulate a relation very different from that of service for hire. On this subject, the early colonists of Massachusetts held and practised the law of Moses. They regarded it as lawful to buy and sell "slaves taken in lawful war," or reduced to servitude by judicial sentence, and placed them under the same privileges as those given by the Mosaic law. But they punished man-stealing capitally, re-enacting expressly the 16th verse of the 21st chapter of Exodus; and when there were any negroes in their jurisdiction who had been stolen, or "fraudulently" acquired in Africa, they endeavored to send them back again. 2. In the actual presence of negro slaves, brought from Africa, who had been "lawfully" acquired, that is, by fair purchase from those who held them as prisoners of war. These existed to some extent in the Colony in 1638, and were numerous in 1673; and of course were included in all the legislation of that period respecting service, being sometimes described as "slaves," and sometimes by the more general and comprehensive term of "servants."—Slavery by judicial sentence was inflicted for no higher crimes than theft and burglary. Thus at a Quarter Court holden at Boston the 4th day of the 10th month, 1638, "John Hazlewood being found guilty of severall thefts and breaking into severall houses, was censured to be severely whipped and delivered up a slave to whom the Court shall appoint." (Shurtleff's Edition of Records of Massachusetts, I. 246.) Many of the Indians taken prisoners in King Philip's war, who had formerly submitted to the Colonial government and had been called "Praying Indians" from their supposed conversion to Christianity, were adjudged guilty of "rebellion," and were sold into slavery in foreign countries. Dr. Belknap says that some of them found their way back again, and took a severe revenge on the English in a subsequent war. (Hist. Soc. Coll. ut supra.)