conſider what all the riſks of health and life were to be, and whether the increaſe of ſtock would reimburſe the loſs of ſervice.[1]
The breeding of ſlaves was not regarded with favor.[2] Dr. Belknap ſays, that "negro children were conſidered an incumbrance in a family; and when weaned, were given away like puppies." M. H. S. Coll., i., iv., 200. They were frequently publicly advertiſed "to be given away,"—ſometimes with the additional inducement of a ſum of money to any one who would take them off.
At the ſame time there is no room for doubt that there were public and legalized marriages among ſlaves in Maſſachuſetts, ſubſequently to the paſſage of this act of 1705. Mr. Juſtice Gray ſtates that, "the ſubſequent records of Boſton and other towns ſhow that their banns were publiſhed like thoſe of white perſons.[3]
- ↑ A Bill of Sale of a Negro Women Servant in Boſton in 1724, recites that "Whereas Scipio, of Boſton aforeſsaid, Free Negro Man and Laborer, purpoſes Marriage to Margaret, the Negro Woman Servant of the ſaid Dorcas Marſhall [a Widow Lady of Boston]: Now to the Intent that the ſaid Intended Marriage may take Effect, and that the ſaid Scipio may Enjoy the ſaid Margaret without any Interruption," etc., ſhe is duly ſold, with her apparel, for Fifty Pounds. N. E. Hiſt. and Gen. Reg., xviii., 78.
- ↑ So early as the poet Heſiod, married ſlaves, whether male or female, were eſteemed inconvenient. Works and Days, line 406, alſo 602–3.
- ↑ Mr. Charles C. Jones, of Georgia, in his work on the Religious Inſtruction of the Negroes in the United States, publiſhed at Savannah, in 1842, gives, pp. 34, 35, memoranda of four inſtances of the kind, which he ob-
Supreme Judicial Court of Maſſachuſetts in 1817, not only recognizing the fact of the abſolute legal continuance of ſlavery in that State in the years 1770–1777; but ſettling a point of law which is intereſting in this connection. At that time "no contract made with the ſlave was binding on the maſter; for the ſlave could have maintained no action againſt him, had he failed to fulfil his promiſe [a promiſe to emancipate] which was an undertaking merely voluntary on his part." Maſs. Reports, xiv., 257.
