+Processes of Enslavement: Warfare+
Of the processes in vogue among the English for the acquisition of
Indian slaves, the most productive was that of warfare.[409] With the
exception of the Pequot War and King Philip’s War in New England, the
Indian wars in the English colonies were confined to the south, and
there the greatest number of Indian war captives were enslaved.
After the Indian massacre of 1622 in Virginia, there was published
in London, in the same year, a tract entitled: “_The Relation of the
Barbarous Massacre in Time of Peace and League, treacherously executed
by the native infidels upon the English, the Twenty-second of March,
1622, published by Authority_.” The general trend of the tract is to
show the good that might result to the plantation from this disaster.
Number five of the possible results reads: “Because the Indians, who
before were used as friends, may now most justly be compelled to
servitude in mines, and the like, of whom some may be sent for the use
of the Summer Islands.”[410]
The policy advocated by the tract was carried out in succeeding
Indian wars in Virginia. The accounts of a certain Thomas Smallcomb,
lieutenant at Fort Royal on Pamunkey, who was probably killed in the
war with Opechancanough, show him possessed at the time of his death,
1646, of several Indian slaves.[411] It seems probable that these
slaves were captives in war. After his rebellion, 1676, Bacon sold some
of his Indian prisoners.[412] The rest were disposed of by Governor
Berkeley.[413]
From the beginning of the colony, the settlers of Carolina were in
trouble with the Indians. In September, 1671, war was declared against
the Kussoe, a tribe on the southern frontier who posed as allies of the
Spaniards, and who vexed the Carolina settlers with petty depredations.
The Kussoe were quickly defeated, and the prisoners sent to be sold out
of the colony, unless ransomed by their countrymen.[414] During the war
with the Stono Indians in 1680, the captive Indians were brought to
Charleston and sold by Governor West to the traders in the colony to be
carried to the West Indies as slaves.[415]
The breaking out of the war of the Spanish Succession in 1701 gave
Governor Moore a chance to attack the Spanish Indians, capture and
sell them under the excuse of the rules of war. Therefore, in 1702,
he led a force of militia and Indians against St. Augustine, burned
the city, and carried off, as slaves, whatever Indians he could
obtain from the Spanish Indian villages along the way.[416] A second
attack on St. Augustine was made by Moore in 1704, with the purpose of
destroying missions and carrying off slaves.[417] An advance into the
territories of the Apalachee resulted in the destruction of several
missions, and the capture of more than a thousand Indians, some free,
some slave.[418] Nearly all the Apalachee were distributed as slaves
among the Carolina settlers.[419] The enslavement of Indians, indeed,
was carried on wholesale. A letter to the proprietors, July 10, 1708,
states that “the garrison of St. Augustine is by this war reduced to
the bare walls, their cattle and Indian towns all consumed, either by
us in our invasion of that place, or by our Indian subjects ... they
have driven the Floridians to the islands of the cape, have brought in
and sold many hundred of them, and maybe now continue that trade, so
that in some five years, they’ll reduce the barbarians to a fearless
number.”[420] In 1708, Colonel Barnwell of South Carolina made an
expedition to the Appalachian province of Florida. It is thought that
this was the time when Captain Nairn of South Carolina, with a party
of Yamasee Indians, advanced to the vicinity of Lake Okechobee and
brought back a number of captive Indians as slaves.[421] A similar
expedition of Colonel Palmer in 1727 against the Yamasee resulted in
the destruction of many Indian towns, the slaughter of many natives,
and the carrying off of great numbers to Charleston as slaves.[422]
As the result of the three expeditions sent by South Carolina from
1702 to 1708 against the Yamasee, Apalachee, and Timucua of northern
Florida, there was carried back to Charleston, for sale as slaves,
almost the entire population of seven towns, in all, some 1400
persons.[423] The captives taken in 1715 when the Yamasee and Creek
Indians made a foray upon the South Carolina frontier, were sold as
slaves. Mr. Johnston, a South Carolina missionary of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in his letter to
the Society, December 19, 1715, states: “It is certain many of the
Yammousees and Creek Indians were against the war all along. But our
military men were so bent upon revenge, and so desirous to enrich
themselves by making all the Indians slaves that fall into yr hands ...
that it is in vain to represent the cruelty and injustice of such a
procedure”.[424]
Throughout the Tuscarora War in North Carolina, Indian captives
were retained or sold as slaves.[425] At the beginning of military
operations, following the Indian massacre of 1711, the friendly Indians
agreed to help the English against their enemy upon promise of a reward
of six blankets for each man killed by them, and the usual price of
slaves for each woman and child delivered as captives.[426] During
the course of the war several hundred Indian allies were used by the
English,[427] and these allies took advantage of the opportunity to
obtain large number of Indian captives to sell to the slave traders of
the time.
In an attack on an Indian fort in 1711, thirty-nine women and children
were captured and disposed of in the settlements as slaves.[428] The
two chief expeditions during the war were those of Colonel Barnwell,
who was sent by South Carolina in January, 1712, and of Colonel Moore
in January and February, 1713. Colonel Barnwell’s expedition took two
hundred Indian women and children prisoners.[429] The expedition of
Colonel Moore virtually ended the war by capturing the fort in which
the Tuscarora had taken refuge.[430] Nine hundred men, women and
children were killed or taken prisoners.[431] In both expeditions the
allied Indians secured as many as possible of the captured Indians
whom they took along with them to sell as slaves in Charleston,[432]
and they still further increased their supply of slaves by attacking
the peaceful Indians along the route of their return to South
Carolina.[433] During the course of the war more than seven hundred
Indians were sold into slavery.[434]
The earliest of the slave-producing wars in New England was that with
the Pequot in 1637. The war consisted of two battles: the Mistick
Fight, and the Swamp Fight. In the first of these two events, but
seven captives were taken.[435] In the second, the Swamp Fight, about
one hundred and eighty captives were taken.[436] Two of the sachems
taken in the Swamp Fight were spared, on promise that they guide the
English to the retreat of Sassacus. The other men captives, some
twenty or thirty in number, were put to death.[437] The remaining
captives, consisting of about eighty women and children, were divided.
Some were given to the soldiers, whether gratis or for pay does not
appear. Thirty were given to the Narraganset who were allies of the
English, forty-eight were sent to Massachusetts and the remainder
were assigned to Connecticut.[438] The women and girls of the
Massachusetts captives were distributed among the towns.[439] It
seems probable that Connecticut made a similar disposition of its
share of the captives regardless of sex.[440] The male children among
the Massachusetts captives were ordered by the Massachusetts general
court, 1637, to be carried to the Bermudas by William Pierce, and sold
there as slaves.[441] The shipload of Indians, however, consisting of
fifteen boys and two women was taken by Captain Pierce to the West
Indies., instead of to the Bermudas, and disposed of at the island
of Providence.[442] One Pequot seized near Block Island was sent to
England.[443]
It is possible that this single cargo of women and children was not
the only one sent to the islands at this time. A letter from the
Company of Providence Islands, replying from London, July 3, 1638, to
letters from authorities on the island, and directing that special
care be taken of the “cannibal negroes brought from New England,”[444]
and a second letter written in 1639, when the company, fearing the
danger that might arise from too large a number of negroes on the
island, suggested that the negroes be sold or sent to New England
or Virginia,[445] may possibly have been called forth by a further
purchase of Indians, or by an exchange of negroes for them.
By the time of King Philip’s War, 1675–1676, the colonists were well
accustomed to the sending of Indian captives out of the country, and
to the use of them in their homes.[446] The policy followed toward the
Indians captured in this war was the same as that shown in the Pequot
War. The captives were either exported for sale in the European or West
Indian slave markets, or were retained in servitude in the colonies. In
the beginning of the war, Captain Moseley captured eighty Indians, who
were retained at Plymouth. In the following September, one hundred and
seventy-eight were put on board a vessel commanded by Captain Sprague
who sailed from Plymouth with them for Spain.[447] In this same year,
1675, Indians, probably from the coast of Maine, were landed as slaves
at Fayal, one of the Azores.[448] Again in 1675, fifteen Indians were
captured and sent to Boston, “tied neck to neck, like galley slaves.”
Much against the will of the populace they were given a trial. All
were finally acquitted except two who were sentenced to be sold out
of the country as slaves.[449] During the years 1675 and 1676, one
finds mention of the sale of Indians in Plymouth in groups of about a
hundred,[450] fifty-seven,[451] three,[452] one hundred and sixty,[453]
ten,[454] one.[455] From June 25, 1675 to September 23, 1676, the
records show the sale by the Plymouth colonial authorities of one
hundred and eighty-eight Indians.[456]
In the Massachusetts Bay colony a similar disposal of captives was
accomplished. On one occasion about two hundred were transported and
sold.[457] There is extant a paper written by Daniel Gookin in 1676,
one item of which is as follows: “a list of the Indian children that
came in with John of Packachooge.” The list shows twenty-one boys and
eleven girls distributed throughout the colony.[458]
With the close of the war after Philip’s death, many of the Indian
chiefs were executed at Boston and Plymouth, and most of the remaining
chiefs with their captive followers were sold and shipped off as
slaves outside the colonies.[459] Those transported were carried to
various parts: the Spanish West Indies, Spain, Portugal, Bermuda,
Virginia,[460] and the Azores.[461]
Not all the Indians whose lives were spared were transported.[462]
Generally the men, rather than the women and children, were thus
disposed of, though such was not always the case. One finds instances,
like that of Philip’s wife and son,[463] when women and children were
transported, and other instances when grown male Indians were retained
in the colonies and sold to the colonists.[464]
Not only were the Indians who themselves engaged in the war sold as
slaves at home and abroad, but the wives and children of the captive
males were also seized and consigned to slavery. In 1677, the
Massachusetts general court ordered that the Indian children, boys and
girls, whose parents had been in hostility with the colony or had lived
among its enemies in the time of the war, and who were taken by force
and given or sold to any of the inhabitants of the colony, should be at
the disposal of their masters or their assignees.[465] In the case of a
certain Praying Indian, who withdrew from the English side and joined
the Indian enemy, not only himself, but his wife and children were
taken prisoners and held as slaves until redeemed by Eliot.[466] The
same policy was followed in Plymouth. A case in point is that of the
chief, Popanooie, whose wife and children were retained in the colony
as slaves, while he himself was transported and sold into slavery.[467]
Both Plymouth and Massachusetts made a distinction between the
children of those Indian enemies who were taken by force, and those
who voluntarily gave themselves up to the colonial authorities. The
children of the latter were to serve as slaves only until twenty-four
years of age. The term of service of the former was not specified.[468]
Neither Rhode Island nor Connecticut transported Indian slaves to
the West Indies. Both colonies, however, retained Indian captives
of King Philip’s War, but only for limited periods of time, not for
life. During the war numerous bands of the Indians surrendered to
the English at Providence and Newport. The sentiment of the colony
against enslaving Indians, here, as in Connecticut, the result of
Quaker influence,[469] had already been shown. So, in accordance with
the spirit already expressed, it was voted by the town of Providence,
August 14, 1676, to appoint a committee of five persons to dispose
of the Indians there.[470] The town agreed to abide by the action of
the five men.[471] The committee decided to sell the Indians in the
colony for a term of years; one-half the proceeds of the sale to go to
the captors, and the other half to the public treasury. The length of
service was to depend upon the Indians’ ages. Those under five years
were to be simple bondsmen till thirty; all above five years, and under
ten, till thirty-eight; above ten and under fifteen, till twenty-seven;
above fifteen and under twenty, till twenty-six; such as were above
thirty, seven years. Several receipts signed by this committee show
that such sales occurred.[472] A few days before, the Rhode Island
companies had brought in forty-two Indian captives. These, and all
other Indian prisoners held at the time, were sold into service in the
colony for a period of nine years.[473] The Indians thus sentenced did
not become actual slaves according to the strictest interpretation of
the term, since the persons who acquired them purchased only their
services for a stated period of time, and not for life. Their condition
is better explained by the term “involuntary indenture”.
During King Philip’s War Connecticut suffered nothing on its own soil
from hostile Indians. In consequence the number of captive Indians
enslaved was small, and only infrequent mention is found of these
captives. A certain amount of the booty which the Connecticut troops
assisted in taking fell to their lot, and among this booty were some
of the captive Indians. An interesting record of such a slave is found
in the account book of Major John Talcot (1674–1688) which includes
his accounts as treasurer of the colony during King Philip’s War. On
opposite pages of the ledger occurs the following account (54–55):
“1676. Captain John Stanton of Stonington, Dr., to Sundry Commissions
given Captain Stanton to proceed against the Indians by which he gained
much on the sale of captives”. “Contra, 1677, April 30. Per received
an Indian girl of him, about seven years old, which he gave me for
commissions on the other side, or, at best, out of good will for any
kindness to him”.[474]
In consequence of the small number of Indian captives enslaved in the
colony, none was transported by colonial action. The privilege of thus
getting rid of undesirable and troublesome Indian slaves by selling
them out of the colony, was, however, conferred upon individual
owners, when, May 10, 1677, the general court decreed: “for the
prevention of those Indians running away, that are disposed in service
by the Authority, that are of the enemy and have submitted to mercy,
such Indians, if they be taken, shall be in the power of his master to
dispose of him as a captive by transportation out of the country”.[475]
During the Indian wars in Virginia Governor Berkeley himself in a
letter, 1668, to Robert Smith, militia commander in the Rappahannock
country, not only proposed that, with the consent of the council of
war, a war of extinction be waged against the northern Indians, but
also suggested that the colonial government defray the expenses of
the undertaking by the disposal of the women and children.[476] Smith
submitted Governor Berkeley’s letter to the Rappahannock court for
approval. In rendering their decision, the justices declared that
the conduct of the northern Indians, notably the “Doagges” and the
neighboring Indians, justified the taking of severe measures against
them; and accordingly advised “with the assistance of Almighty God, by
the strength of our northern part, utterly to eradicate [them], without
further encroachment than the spoils of our enemies”.[477]
During Bacon’s rebellion in 1676, the assembly at his instigation
declared the enslavement of Indians for life to be legal, and made
provision for granting captive Indians to soldiers as a partial
inducement to volunteer.[478] This act was repealed by the general act
setting aside all the acts of this assembly that sat in 1676 under the
rule of Bacon.[479] But it was again revived by the assembly of 1679
called by Deputy-Governor Chicheley.[480] Legal enslavement of Indians
was prohibited by implication rather than by the terms of the act of
1691.[481] But the North Carolina Indian troubles in November, 1711,
once more brought the old law forward, and captive Indians belonging
to tribes at war with the English were directed to be transported and
sold, those capturing them to have the money of the sale.[482]
It will be noted that, though in the case of Virginia, as in that of
the other colonies, the disposal of the Indians captured in war was
sanctioned by the colonial government, the action of the Virginia
government in the matter ended with that sanction. By the acts of
1643[483] and 1658,[484] the colony lost the right to possess servants.
Therefore, the government during the Indian wars decreed that the
captive Indians were the property of their captors who were entitled to
the proceeds of their sale.[485]
In the case of Maryland is found another colony in which the government
intended that Indian captives taken in war should be sold for the
benefit of the colony. At the time of the Puritan ascendency the
Indians began to be troublesome.[486] The Nanticoke of the Eastern
shore began a war upon the settlers. March 29, 1652, on petition of
the settlers, the general assembly attempted to pass a militia act. An
expedition was planned, and a levy of troops made.[487] The captive
Indians were to be sold. But the government never had a chance to carry
out any such sale, for the Puritans of Anne Arundel County refused to
make their levies, and the expedition had to be abandoned.[488]
During the Tuscarora War in North Carolina, one again finds an
instance of a colonial government taking possession of the captive
Indians, selling them as slaves, and depositing the proceeds of
the sales in the colonial treasury. At the breaking out of the war
Governor Hyde instructed the agents whom he sent to South Carolina to
ask for military aid to represent to the colonial authorities there
“the great advantage that may be made of slaves, there being many
hundreds of them, women and children; may we not believe three or four
thousand”.[489] The colony, indeed, found the disposal of the captives
to be as profitable as had been hoped. The promised reward of slaves
as pay for services rendered brought the desired Indian allies. On one
occasion, Tom Blount, chief of a tribe of friendly Indians in the area
of disturbance, in making arrangements with the colonial government
for an attack on a certain tribe, specified that his warriors receive
payment in captives, and failing these, in other commodities.[490]
The journals of the North Carolina council for June 25, 1713, show
negotiations between acting Governor Pollock and the council for the
purchase of a number of Indians for shipment to the West Indies.[491]
It was sometimes a problem to provide for the captured Indians;
consequently in the same year the assembly chartered a private sloop to
carry away captives brought by friendly Indians.[492]
In South Carolina, the Indian captives taken in the early war with the
Kussoe were sold as slaves by governor and council with the sanction
of the proprietors, who, though they had forbidden the enslavement
of Indians in the temporary laws sent out to Governor Sayle in 1671,
were nevertheless the first to grant the privilege of selling Indian
captives from Carolina to the West Indies, as the cheapest means of
“encouraging the soldiers of the infant colony”.[493] Accordingly,
when war broke out with the Stono Indians in 1680, Governor West,
taking advantage of the precedent already established and the expressed
sanction of the proprietors for such an action, offered a price for
every Indian that should be taken and brought to Charleston,[494] and
obtained the funds he needed for defense by selling the Indians to the
traders.[495] The plan proved successful, so successful, in fact, as to
arouse the jealousy of the proprietors, for West appropriated some of
the profits for his own benefit. The proprietors sanctioned the sale of
Indians taken in actual warfare for the benefit of the colony, which
meant for their own benefit. Their title to the colony rested upon the
claims of England to this territory by right of conquest.[496] The
Indians were the captives and the conquered people of that conquest. By
the rules of war the conquered people were at the mercy and disposal
of the conquerors, and since the proprietors found more profit in
selling than in killing the captive Indians, they naturally resented
West’s taking their profits for other purposes.
By the time of the wars in the early eighteenth century, the power
of the proprietors was broken, and the assembly took charge of the
matter of disposing of captives in war. An act passed September 10,
1702, provided that the Indian slaves taken by the Yamasee and the
other Indian allies on the expedition to St. Augustine in 1702,
should be bought only by a committee of four named by the assembly.
The slaves would then be disposed of to help meet the expenses of
the expedition.[497] But the committee neglected to carry out its
instructions, and another act of May 8, 1703, provided that the slaves
taken on the expedition might be bought by anyone, and the Indian
allies be thus encouraged.[498]
That all the Indian captives taken on the second expedition to St.
Augustine in 1704 were not sold as slaves was due to an order of the
assembly expressed through the governor.[499] Moore lamented this fact,
as the plunder of his men, which he estimated should have been £100
to a man, would thus be much diminished. That he still hoped with the
governor’s assistance “to find a way to gratify them for the loss of
blood”, may mean that he had not yet given up the idea of selling those
Indian captives whom he called “free”.[500]
As a part of the preparation for self-defense made by South Carolina
in 1707 and 1708, acts were passed giving the commanding officer of
any expedition the power of commissioner to buy all prisoners of the
Indian enemy above the age of twelve years that should be taken captive
by the white forces or the Indian allies. The slaves so bought were to
be delivered to the public receiver, who was directed to pay for them
not to exceed the sum of £7 for every Indian, and then to ship them to
the islands of the West Indies for sale, or to dispose of them within
the colony for the use of the public to any person who would enter into
bonds, with the penalty of £200, not to send or carry any slave so
bought to any place within the province, or to the northward thereof.
Any white person refusing to sell such slave to the commanding officer,
must dispose of the slave himself, as before described, within the
space of one month, or forfeit the same to the receiver for the use of
the public, to be disposed of as aforesaid.[501] In 1715, however, the
law was changed so as to read that all Indian enemies captured should
be handed over to the public receiver for the use of the public, the
receiver to sell such as slaves to those who would pay the highest
price, and who would promise to export them from the colony within the
period of two months after the sale.[502]
During the French and Indian War, the Cherokee Indians began
hostilities with the English. North Carolina, in the provisions made
in 1760 for raising troops against them, offered to anyone who took
captive “an enemy Indian” the right to hold him as a slave.[503] By
the treaty concluded by South Carolina with the Cherokee at the close
of the war, it was provided that the captives on each side should be
given up. The North Carolinians, however, followed the policy advocated
in 1760, and the Indians accordingly retaliated by carrying off two
white girls from South Carolina to Pensacola, and demanded, before
releasing them, that those of their own people held in captivity should
first be given up.[504]
In both of the New England Indian wars discussed, the disposal of
the captives fell under the immediate jurisdiction of the respective
colonial governments, and was carried on either by the general court,
as in the case of Massachusetts, or by a council of war which was a
committee of the general court, as in the case of Plymouth. Though
during the Pequot War Connecticut sent no Indians to the West Indies,
still it was customary for the government to sell them out of the
colony during the period following the war. This appears from a law
passed in 1656 by the general court, forbidding such sale outside
the boundaries of “the other three colonies”, without the consent of
the authorities of the plantation “under the penalty of £10 for each
default”.[505]
The attitude of the New England colonial governments, so definitely
expressed during the Pequot War, was continually shown from that time
until King Philip’s War. During that period, 1636–1675, New England
was the scene of constant intertribal Indian difficulties between the
Mohegan and Narraganset tribes. Because of the danger resulting from
these disturbances, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New
Haven entered into confederation for mutual defense, under the name of
the United Colonies of New England. The articles containing the terms
of the intercolonial agreement, drawn up May 19, 1643, expressed the
same spirit that was shown during the Pequot War, for they provided
that “the whole advantage of the war ..., whether it be in lands,
goods or persons, shall be proportionally divided among the said
confederates”.[506]
Continued disturbances led the commissioners of the United Colonies to
prepare for a campaign against the Narraganset Indians in 1645. Captain
John Mason was put in command of the forces raised. In keeping with
the provision of the articles already mentioned, his commission, dated
July, 1645, concluded thus: “what booty you take or prisoners, whether
men, women or children, you may send to Seabrook fort, to be kept and
improved for the advantage of the colonies in several proportions
answering to their charges, etc.”[507]
During King Philip’s War the various New England governments, with
Massachusetts and Plymouth in the lead, again took charge of the
disposal of the captive Indians. Various methods were adopted to
convert their Indian captives into a source of immediate revenue. One
was to sell them outright outside of the colonies, or, on occasion,
within the colonies, and thus replenish the exchequer, and, so far as
might be, defray the expenses of the war. At a meeting of the Plymouth
Court in 1676 to consider the disposal of more than a hundred captives,
the conclusion was reached, “upon serious and deliberate consideration
and agitation” concerning them, “to sell the greater number into
servitude”.[508] A little later, in the same year, several more were
sold.[509] In each case the colonial treasurer was ordered to effect
the sale for the benefit of the colony. A fiscal report of Plymouth for
the period from June 25, 1675, to September 23, 1676, gives among the
credits the following, which relates to the sale of the one hundred and
eighty-eight Indians already mentioned: “By the following accounts,
received in, or as silver, viz.: captives, for 188 prisoners at war
sold, £397 13s.”[510]
Records of similar events are found in Massachusetts Bay. On November
4, 1676, the magistrates and deputies adopted a report of a committee
of the general court providing for the selling abroad of several
Indians.[511] Again, on September 16, 1676, the general court passed an
act for handing over the disposal of certain captured Indians to the
council. The general court expressed the opinion that such of them as
had shed English blood should suffer death. The inference concerning
the remainder is that they were to be sold.[512]
A second method of paying debts by the use of captives was to direct
the treasurer of the colony to dispose of a certain number of Indians,
and turn the proceeds to the account of a certain individual in whose
debt the colony stood; or to give a certain number of Indians to such
a person, usually with the stipulation that the Indians be at once
sold out of the colony. An instance of the first kind occurred in
Plymouth, October 4, 1675, when the general court voted with “reference
to such emergent charges that have fallen on our honored governor,
the summer past, the court have settled and conferred on him, the
price of ten Indians of those savages lately transported out of the
government”.[513] The second method is illustrated by a later act of
the Plymouth court, August 24, 1676, when, along with ten Indians
ordered by the court to be delivered to Captain Benjamin Church and
Captain Anthony Low for transportation out of the colony, one Indian
was ordered “to be at the disposal of Henry Lilly, which he receives
in full satisfaction for his attendance at this court.” This Indian,
like the others, was to be transported.[514] How far the receipts from
the sale of captives went toward meeting the expenses of the colony is
not known. It must, however, have been but a short way, if one is to
judge by the condition of the colonial exchequer at the time and the
expedients adopted by the colonial government to obtain money to defend
the frontiers and meet the other expenses of war.[515]
Still a third way was to grant the captured Indians directly to
those who took them prisoners, as a bounty for their capture. The
Massachusetts act of 1695, which, along with the rewards for killing
Indians,[516] conferred on the soldiers for their own use all plunder
and provisions taken from the enemy, appears to have been the earliest
relinquishment by the provincial government of its sovereign right
to prisoners and captives.[517] In the later laws liberal premiums
were continued for scalps, and volunteer captors of Indians were, by
the law of 1706, granted the benefit of captives and plunder.[518] A
law of 1703 provided that the governor and council, in the absence of
the general assembly, possessed the power to pay for Indian captives
under ten years old the sum of £3, and stated that they could use the
Indians thus obtained, either for the redemption of English captives
among the Indians, or else they could sell them across the sea.[519]
Another law of the same year granted the regular forces the benefit
of the sale of all Indian prisoners under the age of ten years taken
by them to be transported out of the country, the profits of the
sale to be shared among the officers and men of the company engaged,
proportionally to their wages. All volunteers were, likewise, to have
the benefit of all Indian prisoners under the age of ten years by them
taken.[520] By such legal action Massachusetts was in reality putting a
premium on slave catching.
The colonial governments not only sold the Indian captives themselves,
but sometimes authorized their military commanders so to do. On January
15, 1676, the governor of Massachusetts issued instructions to Captain
Benjamin Church to go against the Indians, and to distribute among his
men the plunder and captives according to such agreement as captain and
company might make. The instructions read: “And it shall be lawful, and
is hereby warranted, for him to make sale of such prisoners as their
perpetual slaves; or otherwise to retain them, as they think meet (they
being such as the law allows to be kept)”.[521] On August 28, 1676,
also, the governor of Plymouth wrote to the governor of Rhode Island
that Captain Church had been chosen and authorized by Plymouth “to
demand and receive of the governor of Rhode Island” all the captive
Indians, and to guard and conduct them to Plymouth, or to sell and
dispose of them, as he chose, to the “inhabitants or others for terms
of life, or for shorter times, as there may be reasons”.[522]
No exception to this custom of enslavement was made in the case of the
Praying Indians. During the course of the war several of these Indians,
“through the harsh dealings of the English”, and because of neglect to
provide them with “sufficient shelter, protection and encouragement”,
joined the warring Indians.[523] Such of these Indians as were taken
in arms were declared by the Massachusetts general court to be in
rebellion, and were tried and sentenced, some to be killed, but the
most of them to be transported and sold as slaves.[524]
Captives were also retained as slaves in the colony, especially
the women and children. For instance, in 1675, in return for the
privilege granted by Mr. Shrimpton of Noddle’s Island to quarter one
hundred Indians upon that island free of charge, the general court of
Massachusetts ordered five Christian Indian prisoners to be delivered
to him to be employed on Noddle’s Island, “he returning them to the
order of the council”.[525]
It is very probable, as Gookin asserts, that instances are not lacking
in which some of the Praying Indians were sold as slaves under
accusations which were false.[526] Such happened also in the case
of other Indians. Their promises were not considered sincere by the
colonial authorities, for a result of the war was an intense hatred and
suspicion of all Indians.[527] The Praying Indians were sufficiently
numerous to be a dangerous factor, and the colonial authorities
intended to give them no chance to gain the advantage.[528]
Whatever may have been the number of enslaved Indian captives retained
in Massachusetts, that number was sufficiently large to cause some
uneasiness on the part of both authorities and people. On July 22,
1676, the general court of Plymouth confirmed an act of the council of
war declaring that, because of the danger to the peace and safety of
the colony incurred by having Indian captives residing there, no male
captive above the age of fourteen years of age should reside in the
colony; and that, if any such captive above that age was then resident
in the colony, he was to be disposed of out of the colony before
October 15, 1676, or be forfeited to the government.[529] It is not
likely that the act was rigorously enforced during its brief existence.
Exceptions to the law were doubtless made by the court from time to
time.[530]
Another act of similar tenor was passed March 29, 1677, when the
Massachusetts council in an order, the preamble of which shows much
alarm on the part of the people, decreed that no one within the colony
should thereafter buy or keep, more than ten days after the publication
of the council’s decree, any Indian men or women already bought, above
the age of twelve years, without allowance from authority. A fine of
£5, and the forfeit of the Indian or Indians concerned were fixed as
a penalty for violation of the law.[531] Toward the end of the year
Plymouth still further extended governmental supervision of captives
by decreeing, March 5, 1678, that no one was to buy the children of
the captive Indians taken during the late war, “without special leave,
liking and approbation of the government of this jurisdiction”.[532]
The seizure of Indians by authority of the colonial governments, and
their subsequent sale, were not always above suspicion. At the time of
the Narraganset troubles, in 1646, Plymouth gave legal sanction for
the seizure of peaceable and unsuspecting Indians whose tribes were at
peace with the English.[533] A second instance of the same character
occurred during King Philip’s War shortly after the destruction of
Dartmouth in 1675. The Dartmouth Indians had not been concerned in the
burning of the town, so the whites entered into negotiations of peace
and friendship with them, and the captains of the resident militia and
the Plymouth forces sent thither promised them protection. But through
other influences they were conducted to Plymouth, and, by order of the
council, August 4, 1675, they were sold and “transported out of the
Country, being about Eight-score Persons”.[534] On September 2, 1675,
the council took similar action in the case of “a parcel of Indians
lately come into Sandwich, in a submissive way to this colony. They
were adjudged to be “in the same condition of rebellion”, and were
condemned, fifty-seven in number, to perpetual servitude.[535]
A fourth, and far more notable instance of bad faith on the part of the
English, occurred at Cocheco (Dover, New Hampshire) during the Indian
difficulties in that section, contemporaneous with and following King
Philip’s War. Major Waldron was in command of the local garrison, and
had gathered about him four hundred Indians, about two hundred of whom
were refugees who had fled there for protection after the death of
King Philip, which Waldron had promised them. The depredations of the
Androscoggin Indians at Casco and the devastation of the settlements
on the Kennebec caused the Massachusetts government to send a military
force into that locality, with orders to seize all southern Indians
wherever they could find them. In obedience to this order the leaders
of the Massachusetts troops wished to seize the Indians at once, but
Waldron hesitated to break his promise and proposed a stratagem to
avoid disastrous results. His suggestion was followed, and all the
Indians were disarmed and made prisoners, September 7, 1676. The
“strange Indians”, or those who had come from the south, two hundred
in number, were retained and sent to Boston. Seven or eight who were
convicted of having shed English blood were condemned to death; the
rest were sold into slavery in foreign parts.[536]
Toward the close of the war orders were given by certain of the New
England colonies to the constables to seize all Indians remaining in
the colonies after a specific date. All who had been concerned in the
death of a colonist or the destruction of property were to be summarily
executed. Those who remained friendly or had finally assisted the
English, were allowed to retain their lands and continue their regular
life. The others were to be sold by the treasurers of the various
colonies for the benefit of their respective governments.[537]
The locating of those Indians that remained after the war, and the
necessity of maintaining order, resulted, 1677, in the government
of Massachusetts settling the groups of Indians, Praying as well as
unconverted, in various localities, and the distribution of some to
“remain as servants in English families” where they were to be taught
and instructed in the Christian religion. Both the captive male Indians
and their families were held as slaves. Massachusetts and Plymouth
limited the time of servitude of the children of “friendly Indians”, or
those who surrendered and assisted the English, to the time when they
should become twenty-four years of age.[538] The time of service of
the children of the warring Indians was not so limited.
Since King Philip’s War was never carried into Connecticut territory,
the problem of disposing of Indian captives never assumed the same
importance there as in Massachusetts, and the Connecticut government
did not export its captive Indians. On October 23, 1676, as a measure
intended to induce the surrender of the warring tribes and so hasten
the conclusion of the war, the general court ordered that all Indians
who surrendered before January 1, 1677, should not be sold out of
the country as slaves. The measure, however, permitted their use as
temporary slaves in the colony. They were to receive good usage in
the service of those to whom the council might dispose of them, and
after ten years, all over sixteen years of age, on certificate of good
behavior from their masters regarding their good service during that
period, were to have their liberty and be allowed to dwell in the
colony and work for themselves, provided they observed English law. If
the master should refuse such certificate, then the Indian could apply
to the authorities and have his case decided. The council was given
power to lengthen the term of servitude if it should see cause, but
could not shorten it. All Indians under sixteen years of age were to
serve until twenty-six years of age.[539]
At a meeting, November 24, 1676, the Connecticut council decided upon
its method of procedure. A committee was appointed to meet at Norwich
on the second Wednesday of the following December to “dispose and
settle all surrenders according to order”. All Indians expecting
to have the benefit of the declaration must then and there appear.
After that time all those who had shown hostility to the English were
excluded from the privilege and were to be dealt with as enemies, as
were also those who should hide or harbor them. The notice of the
council’s action was to be sent among the various Indians of the
colony. The instructions of the committee appointed directed them,
among other things, to take all young and single persons of all sorts
to put into English families to be apprentices for ten years. After
that they were to be returned to their parents on proof of their own
and their parents’ fidelity. Otherwise they were to be sold into
slavery. The general court appointed certain persons in each county
to receive and distribute these Indian children proportionally, and
to see that they were sold to good families. Those counties which had
already had some share of the surrendered Indians and captives or which
had too many Indians already, were not to receive as many as the other
counties.[540]
The Rhode Island authorities also limited the bondage of Indians to
a period of years. On May 18, 1652, the colony passed a law “that
no black mankind or white” should be “forced by covenant, bond or
otherwise, to serve any man or his assignees longer than ten years,
or until they became twenty-four years of age, if they be taken in
under fourteen, from the time of their coming within the limits of
the colony; and at the end of the term of ten years, they were to be
set free, as the manner is with English servants”.[541] Either the
framers of the law intended that Indians be included under the terms
“black mankind or white”, or else the subject of Indian slavery had not
yet attracted the attention of the law makers at this time. Probably
the latter is the true explanation of the omission of the term “Indian”
from the act, though at a later time the same restriction of service
was applied to Indians without legislation.
On March 13, 1676, the general assembly convened at Newport and
discussed the Indian situation. An order was given that “no Indian in
this colony shall be a slave”, save only for debts, covenant, etc., “as
if they had been countrymen not at war”.[542] But Rhode Island did not
avail itself of every opportunity to retain captive Indians. On one
occasion the assembly voted, June 30, 1676, to send back to Plymouth
a number of Indians whom Roger Williams had sent there, because they
believed the Indians rightly belonged to the northern colony.[543]
Again, on August 23, 1676, the government held a court martial for
the trial of some Indians whom the Rhode Island troops had captured.
Several of these Indians were sentenced to death for crimes against the
English. Others were freed. None was retained in the colony.[544]
The assembly made an earnest effort to prevent the indiscriminate and
unfair sale of Indians not taking part in the war, by forbidding during
its session in August, 1676, that any Indians be brought into the
colony without permission of the governor and two assistants, under
penalty of a fine of £5 and the forfeit of such Indian or Indians.
The sum of the fine and the forfeited Indians were “to return to the
treasurer of each town”. All persons were declared to be entitled
to half the produce of the Indians whom they might legally bring to
Newport. The other half was to go to the treasury. If such an amount
was not paid in, the said Indians were to be forfeited to the treasurer
of the colony. It was also forbidden to carry any Indian away from
the colony without a permit from the governor, deputy-governor or
two magistrates, upon penalty of the forfeiture of £5. All acts,
orders, commissions, verbal orders, etc., which had been issued by
town councils, councils of war, private orders of officers and “other
ministers of justice”, which related to Indians, were declared legal by
the assembly.[545]
Such action as that referred to in this measure was taken at a town
meeting in Portsmouth, March 8, 1675. The meeting, fearing that the
holding of Indian slaves might prove “prejudicial”, ordered that all
persons of the town having any Indian slave of either sex should be
given but one month to sell and send such out of the town, and that no
inhabitant after that time should buy or keep an Indian slave under
penalty of £5 fine for each month thus holding such a slave, the amount
of the fine to be paid to the town treasurer.[546]