Unity of American colonies in Yielding to slavery.
But the
South yielded to slavery, we are told.
Yes; but did not all
America do likewise?
Do we not know that the
Pilgrim fathers enslaved both the
Indian and
African race, swapping young Indians for the more docile blacks lest the red slave might escape to his native forest?
Listen to his appeal to
Governor Winthrop: ‘
Mr. Endicott and
[
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myself salute you on the
Lord Jesus.
We have heard of a division of women and children, and would be glad of a share—viz., a young woman or a girl and a boy, if you think good.’
Do we not hear
Winthrop himself recount how the Pequods were taken ‘through the
Lord's great mercy, of whom the males were sent to
Bermuda and the females distributed through the bay towns, to be employed as domestic servants’?
Did not the prisoners of King Philip's war suffer a similar fate?
Is it not written that when one hundred and fifty Indians came voluntarily into the
Plymouth garrison they were all sold into captivity beyond the seas?
Did not
Downing declare to
Winthrop, ‘if upon a just war the
Lord should deliver them (the Narragansetts), we might easily have men, women, and children enough to exchange for
Moors, which will be more gainful pillage to us than we can conceive, for I do not see how we can thrive until we get in a stock of slaves sufficient to do all our business’?
Were not choice parcels of negro boys and girls consigned to
Boston from the Indies, and advertised and sold at auction, until after independence was declared?
Was not the first slaveship in
America fitted out by the
Pilgrim Colony?
Was not the first statute establishing slavery enacted in
Massachusetts in 1641, with a certain comic comprehensiveness providing that there should ‘never be any bond slavery unless it be of captives taken in just war, or of such as willingly sold themselves or were sold to them’?
Did not the United Colonies of
New England constitute the first American Confederacy that recognized slavery?
and was not the first fugitive slave law originated at their bidding?
All this is true.
Speak slowly, then, O! man of the
North, against the
Southern slave owners, or the
Southern Chief, lest you cast down the images of your ancestors, and their spirits rise to rebuke you for treading harshly on their graves.
On days of public festival, when you hold them up as patterns of patriotism, take care lest you be accused of passing the counterfeit coin of praise.
Disturb not too rudely the memories of the men who defended slavery; say naught of moral obliquity, lest the venerable images of
Winthrop and
Endicott be torn from the historic pages of the
Pilgrim Land, and the fathers of
Plymouth Rock be cast into utter darkness.