The traffic in
slaves began among the colonists in the winter of 1645-6, and in the
following November the court placed on record this outspoken
denunciation of the practice:
"The Gen'all Co'te conceiving themselves bound by y'e first opertunity
to bear Witness against y'e haynos & crying sin of man stealing, as also
to prscribe such timely redresse for what is past, and such a law for
y'e future as may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have
to do in such vile and odious courses, iustly abhored of all good and
iust men, do order y't y'e negro interpreter w'th others unlawfully
taken, be y'e first opertunity (at y'e charge of y'e country for psent),
sent to his native country in Ginny, & a letter w'th him of y'e
indignation of y'e Corte thereabout, and iustice hereof, desiring o'r
hono'red Gov'rnr would please put this order in execution."
How men so clear in their convictions of the rights of Africans could be
guilty of the most heartless injustice to Quakers and their friends, it
is not easy to explain; and yet they mercilessly persecuted one of their
own fellow-citizens, Nicholas Upsall, and made him an exile from his
home, for no greater crime than that of countenancing and befriending
members of the Society of Friends.
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