 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/10}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF
SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS.
I.
WE find the earlieſt records of the hiſtory of ſlavery in Maſſachuſetts at the period of the Pequod War—a few years after the Puritan ſettlement of the colony. Prior to that time an occaſional offender againſt the laws was puniſhed by being ſold into ſlavery or adjudged to ſervitude; but the inſtitution firſt appears clearly and diſtinctly in the enſlaving of Indians captured in war. We may hereafter add a ſketch of the theories which were held to juſtify the bondage of the heathen, but at preſent limit ourſelves to the collection of facts to illuſtrate our general ſubject. And at the outſet we deſire to ſay that in this hiſtory there is nothing to comfort pro-ſlavery men anywhere. The ſtains which ſlavery has left on the proud eſcutcheon even of Maſſachuſetts, are quite as ſignificant of its hideous character as the
1
