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As a result of this, Massachusetts was the only state to have zero slaves enumerated on the 1790 federal census. (By 1790, the Vermont Republic had also officially ended slavery, but it was not admitted as a state until 1791.) Maine, in the 1790 Census, also lists no enslaved people among its population but did not become a state until 1820.
Abolitionists brought in lecturers, including former slaves, to speak about the horrors of slavery. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and resident of the town, became an eloquent and moving orator on the lecture circuit. Slave narratives, produced by former slaves who lived in New Bedford, also provided insight about the experiences of slaves ...
The legal status of slavery in New Hampshire has been described as "ambiguous," [15] and abolition legislation was minimal or non-existent. [16] New Hampshire never passed a state law abolishing slavery. [17] That said, New Hampshire was a free state with no slavery to speak of from the American Revolution forward. [9] New Jersey
A former slave, Ken bought his own freedom, but was not necessarily a freeman with the right to vote. For humanitarian reasons he mortgaged his house and land to free another slave, making him technically the first African American to "purchase" a slave. [6] Zipporah Potter Atkins bought land in 1670, on the edge of what is now the North End.
Tyrannicide: Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina and Massachusetts (U of Georgia Press, 2014). Bremer, Francis J. John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (2003) online; Bremer, Francis J. "John Winthrop and the Shaping of New England History." Massachusetts Historical Review 18 (2016): 1–17.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Salem was involved in the Atlantic slave trade, surpassing Boston in terms of the town's engagement with the triangular trade. Beginning in 1701 there was a steady political and social effort in Massachusetts to end slavery and by 1770 the practice was all but eliminated, with many slaves winning their freedom.
The provision that only war captives or purchased slaves could be kept was enforced: in 1645, the owners of a ship that was determined to have brought two black men who had been kidnapped in Africa were sentenced to send them back, together with an apology from Massachusetts. [7] Slavery was legal in Massachusetts until 1780 and ended with the ...
Slavery led to a gradual shift between the American South and North, both before and after independence, as the comparatively more urbanized and industrialized North required fewer slaves than the South. [42] By the 1750s, the native-born enslaved population of African descent outnumbered that of the African-born enslaved.