Thus, the trade of which the good ship Desire, of Salem, was the harbinger, grew into grand proportions; and for nearly two centuries poured a flood of wealth into New England, as well as no inconsiderable number of slaves. The General Court of Massachusetts recognized the trade as legal, imposing a duty of £4 per head on each negro sold in the province, with a drawback for those resold out of it, or dying in twelve months.[19] The weight of this duty is only evidence of a desire to raise revenue, and to discourage the settlement of numbers of negroes in Massachusetts; not of any disapproval of the traffick in itself, as a proper employment of New England enterprise. The government of the province preferred white servants, and was already aware of the unprofitable nature of African labour in their inhospitable climate; but the furnishing of other colonies with negroes was a favoured branch of commerce. The increase of negro slaves in Massachusetts during the seventeenth century was slow. But the following century changed the record.
In 1720, Governor Shute states their numbers at two thousand. In 1754, a census of negroes gave four thousand five hundred; and the first United States census, in 1790, returned six thousand.[20]
Meantime, the other maritime colonies of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and Connecticut, followed the example of their elder sister emulously; and their commercial history is but a repetition of that of Massachusetts. The towns of Providence, Newport, and New Haven became famous slave trading ports. The magnificent harbour of the second, especially, was the favourite starting-place of the slave ships; and its commerce rivalled, or even exceeded, that of the present commercial metropolis, New York. All the four original States, of course, became slaveholding.[21]
No records exist, accessible to the historian, by which the numbers of slaves brought to this country by New England traders can be ascertained. Their operations were mingled with those of Englishmen from the mother country. While the total of the operations of the latter, including their importations into the Spanish colonies, was greatly larger than that of the New Englanders, the latter probably sustained at least an equal share of the trade to the thirteen colonies, up to the time of the Revolution; and thenceforward, to the year 1808, when the importations were nominally arrested, they carried on nearly the whole. So that the presence of the major part of the four millions of Africans now in America, is due to New England. Some further illustrations will be given of the method and spirit in which that section conducted the trade. The number of The Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser for September 12th, 1763, contains the following:
"By a gentleman who arrived here a few days ago from the coast of Africa, we are informed of the arrivals of Captains Morris, Ferguson, and Wickham, of this port, who write very discouraging accounts of the trade upon the coast; and that upwards of two hundred gallons of real rum had been given for slaves per head, and scarcely to be got at any rate for that commodity. This must be sensibly felt by this poor and distressed Government, the inhabitants whereof being very large adventurers in the trade, having sent and about sending upwards of twenty sail of vessels, computed to carry in the whole about nine thousand hogsheads of rum, a quantity much too large for the places on the coast, where that commodity has generally been vended. We hear that many vessels are also gone and going from the neighbouring Governments, likewise from Barbadoes, from which place a large cargo of rum had arrived before our informant left the coast, of which they gave two hundred and seventy gallons for a prime slave."
When it is remembered that the Massachusetts ports were then small towns, the fact that they had more than twenty ships simultaneously engaged in the trade to the Guinea coast alone, clearly reveals that it was the leading branch of their maritime adventure, and main source of their wealth. The ingenuous lament of the printer over the increasing cost of "a prime slave," gives us the correct clue to the change in their views concerning the propriety of the trade. When the negro rose in value to two hundred gallons "of real rum" (the sable slave hunters were becoming as acute as Brother Jonathan himself, touching the adulterated article), the conscience of the holy adventurer began to be disturbed about the righteousness of the traffick. When the slave cost two hundred and fifty gallons, the scruples became troublesome; and when his price mounted up towards three hundred, by reason of the imprudence of the naughty man with his large cargo, from Barbadoes, the stings of conscience became intolerable. By the principles of that religion which "supposeth that gain is godliness,"[22] the trade was now become clearly wrong.
The following extracts are from the letter of instructions given by a leading Salem firm to the captain of their ship, upon its clearing for the African coast:[23]
"Captain——: Our brig, of which you have the command, being cleared at the office, and being in every other respect complete for sea, our orders are, that you embrace the first fair wind, and make the best of your way to the coast of Africa, and there invest your cargo in slaves. As slaves, when brought to market, like other articles, generally appear to the best advantage; therefore too critical an inspection cannot be paid to them before purchase, to see that no dangerous distemper is lurking about them, to attend particularly to their age, to their countenances, to the straightness of their limbs, and, as far as possible, to the goodness or badness of their constitution, etc., etc., will be very considerable objects. Male or female slaves, whether full grown or not, we cannot particularly instruct you about; and on this head shall only observe that prime male slaves generally sell best in any market."
"Upon your return, you will touch at St. Pierre's, Martinico, and call on Mr. John Mounreau for your further advice and destination. We submit the conducting of the voyage to your good judgment and prudent management, not doubting of your best endeavours to serve our interest in all cases; and conclude with committing you to the almighty Disposer of all events."
The present commercial and manufacturing wealth of New England is to be traced, even more than that of Old England, to the proceeds of the slave trade, and slave labour. The capital of the former was derived mainly from the profits of the Guinea trade. The shipping which first earned wealth for its owners in carrying the bodies of the slaves, was next employed in transporting the cotton, tobacco, and rice which they reared, and the imports purchased therewith. And when the unjust tariff policy of the United States allured the next generation of New Englanders to invest the swollen accumulations of their slave trading fathers in factories, it was still slave grown cotton which kept their spindles busy. The structure of New England wealth is cemented with the sweat and blood of Africans.
In bright contrast with its guilty cupidity, stands the consistent action of Virginia, which, from its very foundation as a colony, always denounced and endeavoured to resist the trade. It is one of the strange freaks of history, that this commonwealth, which was guiltless in this thing, and which always presented a steady protest against the enormity, should become, in spite of herself, the home of the largest number of African slaves found within any of the States, and thus, should be held up by Abolitionists as the representative of the "sin of slaveholding;" while Massachusetts, which was, next to England, the pioneer and patroness of the slave trade, and chief criminal, having gained for her share the wages of iniquity instead of