ollowed was not much better than slavery.

[7] The office of Secretary to the Stipendiary Magistrates was
established in order to assist Governor Sligo to get through the
enormous amount of correspondence entailed by the complaints sent to
him in connection with the administration of the laws with regard to
the apprenticeship system.

THE RELATIONS OF NEGROES AND INDIANS IN MASSACHUSETTS

One of the longest unwritten chapters of the history of the United
States is that treating of the relations of the Negroes and Indians.
The Indians were already here when the white men came and the Negroes
brought in soon after to serve as a subject race found among the
Indians one of their means of escape. That a larger number of the
Negroes did not take refuge among the Indians was due to the ignorance
of the blacks as to the geographic situation. Not knowing anything
about the country and unacquainted with the language of the white man
or that of the Indians, most Negroes dared not venture very far from
the plantations on which they lived. Statistics show, however, that in
spite of this impediment to the escape of Negroes to Indian
communities, a considerable number of blacks availed themselves of
this opportunity. From the most northern colonies as far south as
Florida there was much contact resulting in the interbreeding of
Indians and Negroes.

In no case was this better exemplified than in Massachusetts. Because
of the cosmopolitan influences in that State where the fur trade,
fisheries, and commerce brought the people into contact with a large
number of foreigners, the Indian settlements by an infusion of blood
from without served as a sort of melting pot in which the Negroes
became an important factor. There was extensive miscegenation of the
two races after the middle of the seventeenth century. In the course
of ten or twelve generations there was an opportunity for "foreign
blood early introduced to permeate the whole mass and when it is
considered that the intermixture was constantly kept up from the
outside, it is a wonder that Indians of pure native race
remained."[1]

According to the first authentic census of Massachusetts, published in
1765, all of the counties of the State except Hampshire, Hampden, and
Franklin had both a Negro and Indian population. Barnstable had 231
Negroes and 515 Indians; Berkshire had 88 Negroes and 221 Indians;
Bristol, 287 Negroes and 106 Indians; Dukes, 46 Negroes and 313
Indi