Hurd, the ableſt writer on this ſubject, ſays: "The involuntary ſervitude of Indians and negroes in the ſeveral colonies originated under a law not promulgated by legiſlation, and reſted upon prevalent views of univerſal juriſprudence, or the law of nations, ſupported by the expreſs or implied authority of the home Government." Law of Freedom and Bondage, § 216, i., 225.
Under this ſanction ſlavery may very properly be ſaid to have originated in all the colonies, but it was not long before it made its appearance on the ſtatute-book in Maſſachuſetts. The firſt ſtatute eſtablithing ſlavery in America is to be found in the famous Code of Fundamentals, or Body of Libertiss of the Massachusetts Colony in New-England—the firſt code of laws of that colony, adopted in December, 1641. Theſe liberties had been, after a long ſtruggle between the magiſtrates and the people, extracted from the reluctant graſp of the former. "The people had [1639] long deſired a body of laws, and thought their condition very unſafe, while ſo much power reſted in the diſcretion of magiſtrates." Winthrop, i., 322. Never were the demands of a free people eluded by their public ſervants with more of the contortions as well as wiſdom of the ſerpent. Compare Gray in M. H. S., iii., viii., 208.
The ſcantineſs of the materials for the particular hiſtory of this renowned code is ſuch as to forbid the attempt to trace with certainty to its origin the law in queſtion. It is, however, obvious that it was made to provide for ſlavery as an exiſting, subſtantial fact, if not to reſtrain the application of thoſe higher-
