["ENDORSED] NEGRO MARRIAGE."[332]

Where a likely Negro woman was courted by the slave of another owner,
and wanted to marry, she was sold, as a matter of humanity, "with her
wearing apparel" to the owner of the man. "A Bill of Sale of a Negro
Woman Servant in Boston in 1724, recites that 'Whereas Scipio, of
Boston aforesaid, Free Negro Man and Laborer, proposes 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."[333] Within the next twenty years the Governor and
his Council found public opinion so modified on the question of
marriage among the blacks, that they granted a Negro a divorce on
account of his wife's adultery with a white man. But in Quincy's
Reports, page 30, note, quoted by Dr. Moore, in 1758 the following
rather loose decision is recorded: that the child of a female slave
never married according to any of the forms prescribed by the laws of
this land, by another slave, who "had kept her company with her
master's consent," was not a bastard.

The Act of 1705 forbade any "christian" from marrying a Negro, and
imposed a fine of fifty pounds upon any clergyman who should join a
Negro and "christian" in marriage. It stood as the law of the
Commonwealth until 1843, when it was repealed by an "Act relating to
Marriage between Individuals of Certain Races."

As to the political rights of the Negro, it should be borne in mind,
that, as he was excluded from the right of Christian baptism, hence
from the Church; and as "only church-members enjoyed the rights of
freemen, it is clear that the Negro was not admitted to the exercise
of the duties of a freeman.[334] Admitting that there were instances
where Negroes received the rite of baptism, it was so well understood
as not entitling them to freedom or political rights, that it was
never questioned during this entire period. Free Negroes were but
little better off than the slaves. While they might be regarded as
owning their own labor, political rights and ecclesiastical privileges
were withheld from them.

"They became the objects of a suspicious legislation, which
deprived them of most of the rights of freemen, and reduced
them to a social position very similar, in many respect