THE SUPPRESSION OF THE
AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE
TO THE
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
1638-1870
Volume I
Harvard Historical Studies
1896
Longmans, Green, and Co.
New York
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Preface
This monograph was begun during my residence as Rogers Memorial Fellow
at Harvard University, and is based mainly upon a study of the sources,
i.e., national, State, and colonial statutes, Congressional documents,
reports of societies, personal narratives, etc. The collection of laws
available for this research was, I think, nearly complete; on the other
hand, facts and statistics bearing on the economic side of the study
have been difficult to find, and my conclusions are consequently liable
to modification from this source.
The question of the suppression of the slave-trade is so intimately
connected with the questions as to its rise, the system of American
slavery, and the whole colonial policy of the eighteenth century, that
it is difficult to isolate it, and at the same time to avoid
superficiality on the one hand, and unscientific narrowness of view on
the other. While I could not hope entirely to overcome such a
difficulty, I nevertheless trust that I have succeeded in rendering this
monograph a small contribution to the scientific study of slavery and
the American Negro.
I desire to express my obligation to Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart, of
Harvard University, at whose suggestion I began this work and by whose
kind aid and encouragement I have brought it to a close; also I have to
thank the trustees of the John F. Slater Fund, whose appointment made it
possible to test the conclusions of this study by the general principles
laid down in German universities.
W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS.
WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY,
March, 1896.
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Contents
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
1. _Plan of the Monograph_ 9
2. _The Rise of the English Slave-Trade_ 9