Puritan's recognition of the
brotherhood of man in sin, suffering, and redemption, his estimate of the
awful responsibilities and eternal destinies of humanity, his hatred of
wrong and tyranny, and his stern sense of justice, which led him to
impose upon the African slave-trader the terrible penalty of the Mosaic
code.

But that brave old generation passed away. The civil contentions in the
mother country drove across the seas multitudes of restless adventurers
and speculators. The Indian wars unsettled and demoralized the people.
Habits of luxury and the greed of gain took the place of the severe self-
denial and rigid virtues of the fathers. Hence we are not surprised to
find that Josselyn, in his second visit to New England, some twenty-five
years after his first, speaks of the great increase of servants and
negroes. In 1680 Governor Bradstreet, in answer to the inquiries of his
Majesty's Privy Council, states that two years before a vessel from
Madagasca "brought into the Colony betwixt forty and fifty negroes,
mostly women and children, who were sold at a loss to the owner of the
vessel." "Now and then," he continues, "two or three negroes are brought
from Barbadoes and other of his Majesty's plantations and sold for twenty
pounds apiece; so that there may be within the government about one
hundred or one hundred and twenty, and it may be as many Scots, brought
hither and sold for servants in the time of the war with Scotland, and
about half as many Irish."

The owning of a black or white slave, or servant, at this period was
regarded as an evidence of dignity and respectability; and hence
magistrates and clergymen winked at the violation of the law by the
mercenary traders, and supplied themselves without scruple. Indian
slaves were common, and are named in old wills, deeds, and inventories,
with horses, cows, and household furniture. As early as the year 1649 we
find William Hilton, of Newbury, sells to George Carr, "for one quarter
part of a vessel, James, my Indian, with all the interest I have in him,
to be his servant forever." Some were taken in the Narragansett war and
other Indian wars; others were brought from South Carolina and the
Spanish Main. It is an instructive fact, as illustrating the retributive
dealings of Providence, that the direst affliction of the Massachusetts
Colony--the witchcraft terror of 1692--originated with the Indian Tituba,
a slave in the family of the minister of Danver