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After the war's end in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified by the states, including Massachusetts, which legally abolished slavery in the United States and ended the threat of enslavement or re-enslavement once and for all. This was the final date when slavery was formally outlawed in Massachusetts ...
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first legal code established in New England, compiled by Puritan minister Nathaniel Ward. The laws were established by the Massachusetts General Court in 1641. The Body of Liberties begins by establishing the exclusive right of the General Court to legislate and dictate the "Countenance of Authority".
Some number of these individuals appear to have been treated like indentured servants, since slave laws were not passed until later, in 1641 in Massachusetts and in 1661 in Virginia. [53] But from the beginning, in accordance with the custom of the Atlantic slave trade , most of this relatively small group, appear to have been treated as slaves ...
Slavery in the United States was legally abolished nationwide within the 36 newly reunited states under the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, effective December 18, 1865. The federal district, which is legally part of no state and under the sole jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress, permitted slavery until the American Civil War.
Massachusetts was the first state in the United States to abolish slavery. (Vermont, which became part of the U.S. in 1791, abolished adult slavery somewhat earlier than Massachusetts, in 1777.) The new constitution also dropped any religious tests for political office, though local tax money had to be paid to support local churches.
First enslaved Africans brought to Boston aboard the slave ship Desire. 1641 Massachusetts enacted Body of Liberties defining legal slavery in the colony. 1770 In 1770, Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, was the first colonist killed in Boston Massacre. He was a national symbol of black men, like the black Revolutionary War soldiers, who helped ...
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Massachusetts played a major role in the causes of the American Civil War, particularly with regard to the political ramifications of the antislavery abolitionist movement. [4] Antislavery activists in Massachusetts sought to influence public opinion and applied moral and political pressure on the United States Congress to abolish slavery.