+Processes of Enslavement: Kidnapping+
The process of obtaining Indians by kidnapping was common to the early
English explorers in America, as well as to those of Spain and France.
In 1498, the expedition of Sebastian Cabot brought back to England
three natives from the New World.[547] Lord Bacon states that two of
the Indians “were seen two years afterward, dressed like Englishmen,
and not to be distinguished from them”.[548] The Cabots had set off,
promising to bring home heavy cargoes of spices and oriental gems. They
returned with empty ships and with nothing to relate concerning the
sought-for land of Cathay. Their expedition had not reached its desired
destination, but some of the natives would serve as proof of another
land discovered, and would, perhaps, provoke sufficient interest to
assure the fitting out of a second expedition.[549] These Indians
were not destined for the slave markets, and were probably kept as
curiosities.
England still hoped to find the northwest passage to the Orient. In
1576, Frobisher made another attempt in that direction. He desired to
take away some token as proof of his having been in the New World, and,
as it was supposed the Indians had destroyed or stolen three of his
men who were lost, he decided to take some savages captive by luring
them to trade. In this way one was captured, but died on reaching
England.[550] A similar instance occurred on the second voyage in 1577.
Frobisher planned to seize several Indians, bestow gifts upon them,
and send them to their own people, hoping thus to win the friendship
of the natives, after keeping one of them as interpreter. An attempt
was made to seize two, but one escaped. As a companion for this man, an
Indian woman was afterward captured. Frobisher attempted to trade these
captives for some lost Englishmen, but was unsuccessful;[551] so it is
probable that they were carried to England. The relation of the third
voyage, 1578, mentions a similar man and woman, but the narrator does
not state whether these were the same two taken on the second voyage,
carried to England, and brought back to America on the third voyage,
or two others taken on the third voyage. These Indians provoked much
curiosity and comment in England, and pictures of them were made for
the queen and others.[552]
The search for the northwest passage was continued by Captain George
Weymouth in 1605, under the patronage of Lord Popham and Sir Ferdinando
Gorges. Weymouth reached the coast of America at the mouth of the
present Penobscot River in Maine. By making presents to the Indians
and by treating them kindly, he induced five of them to come on board
his ship. These five Indians were kidnapped and carried to England,
along with their canoes and the personal belongings which they had with
them at the time of capture. There appears to have been no feeling
of opposition shown to such an act. Three of them were presented by
Weymouth to Gorges, and two to Popham.[553] Gorges declared that
“this accident must be acknowledged the means under God of putting on
foot and giving life to all our plantations”.[554] Weymouth did not
propose to obtain financial profit by the sale of these Indians any
more than did his predecessors, Cabot and Frobisher. His immediate
purpose was probably to please his patrons by a curious gift, and
doubtless he shared the purpose of Gorges and Popham of learning from
them the resources of their native land, and by instructing them, to
have them fitted to act as intelligent guides and interpreters in some
future expedition. His instructions required that he treat the Indians
kindly so that they might prove friendly to future settlements.[555]
The treatment of the captives in England was evidently kind. Gorges
kept his Indians in his family three years and obtained from them the
knowledge he desired. The Indians were shown to the curious, perhaps
for money, and it has been held that one, after death, was exhibited
for an admission price.[556]
Captain Edward Harlow, under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton,
visited America in 1611, and at “Monhigan Island” seized three Indians
who had come on board to trade. One of these escaped and incited his
friends to revenge, so Harlow proceeded southward and from the islands
in the vicinity of Cape Cod kidnapped three others. With these five
Indians he returned to England.[557]
Though in the cases cited the Indians taken by the English were
probably not destined to actual slavery, yet instances are not wanting
in which they were taken for that purpose. The profit to be derived
from the sales in the slave markets was tempting. Just before sending
out the expedition of 1614, Captain Henry Harley brought to Gorges a
native of the island of Capawick[558] (Martha’s Vineyard.) This Indian
had been captured with some twenty-nine others by a ship from London
and taken to Spain for sale as a slave. The sale failed wholly or in
part, and some of the Indians were brought to England and shown as
curiosities as the other Indians had been.[559] Gorges, though he had
sanctioned the act of Weymouth, condemned the action of the captors of
this group of Indians, for he feared the Indians of America would be
unfriendly to colonial enterprise.
The London ship above mentioned was one commanded by Thomas Hunt, and
formed part of Smith’s expedition for the carrying of fish, furs and
oil from New England to Virginia and Malaga. Smith took the first ship
to Virginia and left Hunt to take the other to Spain with a cargo of
dry fish. But a cargo of slaves seemed to offer greater gain than one
of fish. Twenty-seven Indians were taken captive off the Massachusetts
coast and sent to Spain. Among this number was Tisquantum (called
Squantum by the English), who had formerly been captured by Weymouth,
and who had been returned to America. Some of the Indians were sold in
Spain for £20 apiece. By the interference of some monks the further
sale of the Indians was prevented, and Squantum, at least, was carried
off to England. When Gorges sent out Captain Hobson to America two of
Hunt’s captives accompanied him, but, on arrival, they escaped and so
aroused their friends that a settlement by Hobson was prevented. This
feeling of suspicion and hatred toward the English must have found
expression, if it had not been prevented by the deadly pestilence of
1616 which weakened the Indians of New England, and by the intercession
of Squantum who proved a firm friend of the English in arranging a
treaty with the Indians.[560] Hunt’s act was done entirely on his own
responsibility and without the knowledge or sanction of Smith who
denounced it as a vile deed, since it ever afterward kept him from
trading in those parts.[561]
The evidence of kidnapping in the southern colonies seems very meagre.
The existing records deal chiefly with other modes of obtaining Indians
for slaves. There were undoubtedly many cases of kidnapping pure and
simple, if we may judge by the general attitude of the colonists
toward the Indians; but kidnapping, considered as distinct from any
sort of warfare, was not a suitable means of producing the number of
Indians needed or desired by the Carolina colonists. Trade and war
were more prolific means, and hence were more largely used. Kidnapping
was a process of obtaining slaves suited only to a locality, or to an
occasion when but few Indians were desired.
Yet certain incidents show the custom was practiced here as elsewhere.
An event of 1685 is probably only one of many such which occurred
on the southern coast and in the interior at the time of the Indian
disturbances in that section, before war had actually begun. In that
year a vessel from New York kidnapped four Indians in the locality of
Cape Fear, North Carolina, and carried them to New York for sale.[562]
That there was a certain amount of kidnapping carried on in the other
southern colonies, as Virginia and Maryland, is shown by the colonial
legislation regarding the matter, which will be discussed later.
It has been seen that it was customary to enslave Indian captives taken
in war, and that certain colonial governments even allowed the seizure
of peaceable Indians in time of war, lest they join with the warring
Indians. The distinction between kidnapping, pure and simple, and
seizures made in time of war, was too delicate to be always observed,
and was open to abuse by unscrupulous persons desiring to obtain
Indians for sale. Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than in the
New England colonies. Here, as in the south, kidnapping was carried
on by the frontier people who were generally rough and lawless. Along
with indifference to the rights of the Indians, fraudulent practices in
trade, and refusal to sell them arms and ammunition on the slightest
suspicion that the weapons might be used against the whites, the
kidnapping of Indians, and the selling of them as slaves in the West
Indies were all numbered among the causes of King Philip’s War.[563]
With the opening of King Philip’s War the custom was continued. The
Maine Indians were about to join those in Massachusetts when, through
the efforts of Abraham Shurt of Pemaquid, and by means of promises
made to right their wrongs and treat the native fairly in the future,
the union with the Massachusetts Indians was prevented, and assurances
of friendship were exchanged with the English. Rumors were soon
spread abroad, however, that the Indians were possessed of arms, and
were forming a conspiracy against the colony. The government became
alarmed and issued a warrant to General Waldron of Cocheco (Dover, New
Hampshire) “to seize every Indian known to be a man slayer, traitor or
conspirator”. Waldron took it upon himself to issue general warrants
for this purpose. These warrants fell into the hands of unprincipled
men who set about using them to immediate advantage. A vessel was
fitted out at Pemaquid and a crew organized for the purpose of
kidnapping Indians for sale abroad. Shurt remonstrated with the leaders
of the proceeding and warned the Indians of their danger. But the plan
succeeded, at least in part. A vessel off Pemaquid, commanded by one
Laughton, succeeded during the winter of 1676 in capturing several
Indians, and carrying them abroad for sale. The Indians complained of
this action, but the only satisfaction they obtained was more offers
of friendship and the promise that means should be taken to return
their captured friends to them.[564] Waldron was indicted by the grand
jury for surprising and stealing seventeen Indians, carrying them off
to Fayal in the vessel _Endeavor_ and selling them there, but was
acquitted. John Laughton, captain of the vessel, was also indicted for
the same offenses, found guilty by the Court of General Sessions, and
fined £20.[565] More pressing matters engaged the attention of the
authorities for some time, and no further attention was given to this
event.
Not even Pennsylvania was free from the custom. In 1710, the Indians
manifested some uneasiness, and when the governor sent a committee to
learn their wishes they returned eight wampum belts which represented
their requests. One belt signified, so the Indians explained to
the committee, that their old women desired the friendship of the
Christians and Indians of the government, and the privilege to fetch
wood and water without danger and trouble; another, that their children
might have room to play and sport without danger of slavery. The young
men begged that they might be granted the privilege to hunt without
fear of death or slavery; and the chiefs desired a lasting peace that
thereby they might be secured against those “fearful apprehensions”
they had felt for several years.[566] A similar complaint was made by
the “Senoquois” to Lieutenant-Governor Gookin. The Indians asserted
that one Francis La Tore had taken a boy from them and had sold him
in New York, and requested the lieutenant-governor to inquire about
him.[567]
Whether or not actual kidnapping of the natives occurred in New York,
at least the Indians were familiar with the custom as practiced by
the whites. The following is a case in point. When the Moravian
missionaries first visited New York, early in the eighteenth century,
the whites, in order to counteract the influence of Rauch, one of these
missionaries who was working at the Indian town of Shekomeka east of
the Hudson River, told the Indians of that section that the missionary
intended to seize their young people, carry them beyond the seas and
sell them into slavery.[568]
Events in New York illustrate another phase of Indian kidnapping.
During the war between Spain and the United Netherlands prizes were
occasionally brought by privateers to New Amsterdam from the Caribbean
islands and the Spanish Main. Part of the cargoes of these vessels
consisted of kidnapped Spanish Indians. Their presence in the colony
was considered undesirable and their seizure generally unfair, for
they were in some cases of Spanish[569] as well as Indian blood. After
peace was declared between Spain and the Netherlands, 1648, hostilities
still continued between Spain and France. To privateers flying the
French flag, New Amsterdam was a neutral port where captive negroes and
other prize goods were sold. Among these negroes was sometimes found a
Spanish Indian. In 1692,[570] and again in 1699,[571] laws were passed
to suppress privateering. But, despite these laws, the practice was
adhered to, and the number of free Spanish Indians held in New York
increased. A petition to the governor of New York, in 1711, shows a
free Indian woman, a resident of Southampton, kidnapped and sold as a
slave in Madeira, from whence she was returned by the English consul to
New York.[572] This instance illustrates the work of pirates also.
Mention is frequently found of Spanish Indians in other colonies,
especially in New England. Cotton Mather records buying a Spanish
Indian and giving him to his father.[573] Mayhew mentions the death of
Chilmark, a Spanish Indian brought from some part of the Spanish Indies
when he was a boy and sold in New England.[574] The New England and
other newspapers contain frequent mention of Spanish Indian runaways
and Spanish Indians for sale in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode
Island and Pennsylvania.[575] The _Boston News Letter_ of July 31,
1704, and October 28, 1706, mentions both negro and Indian slaves taken
off the coast of New Spain by privateers fitted out in South Carolina.
It may be that the so-called Spanish mulatto kidnapped by a privateer,
sold in the colony of Pennsylvania and freed by the council in 1703,
was a Spanish Indian.[576]
Considering the prevalence of piracy and privateering during the
colonial period, it seems probable that there were not a few Spanish
Indians brought to the different colonies in this way and in the
cargoes of negroes from the West Indies and Brazil, whose existence
in the colonies was never brought to the attention of the colonial
authorities.[577]
“Kidnapping of Indians was contrary to express statute in most, if
not in all the colonies, and to the law of nations as generally
recognized in the international intercourse of Europeans with heathen
and barbarian nations.”[578] There was considerable legislative action
in the different colonies intended to check the practice, which
had, however, but little effect. In some of the colonies laws were
passed intending to put an end to the practice by providing fines and
penalties for the kidnapping of Indians. In other colonies legislative
or executive action dealt, not with the custom in general, but with
certain specific events which aroused attention or were brought by
some one concerned directly to the notice of the legislative body or
the executive. One thing is apparent throughout all the legislation on
this subject: the absence of any particular sympathy for the Indian
himself. In some cases the Indian was only included incidentally or by
implication in a general law which made no specific mention of him.
In other cases laws against kidnapping were passed because of the
effect that kidnapping might have on the Indians within or surrounding
the colony. In short, the motive was the desire for self-protection
dictated by fear of disastrous results, rather than by any humanitarian
feeling.
It has been seen that kidnapping concerned two classes of Indians,
those taken in English territory, and those taken in Spanish territory
and brought to the English colonies. Colonial legislation and executive
action included both classes.
The Virginia act of 1657 aimed directly at the stealing of Indian
children by Indians who had been hired by the English. All such stolen
children were to be returned to their own tribe within ten days, and
five hundred pounds of tobacco were to be paid by the offending party
to the informer of such kidnapping.[579]
In 1672, the council of Maryland forbade the carrying of a certain
friendly Indian out of the colony without special license from the
governor.[580] In 1692, for the sake of preserving peace with the
neighboring Indians, a law was enacted forbidding any one to “entice,
surprise, transport, or cause to be transported, or sell or dispose
of any friendly Indian or Indians whatsoever, or endeavor or attempt
so to do, without license from the governor for the time being,” and
offering a reward to any informer of such an event.[581] The same law
was reënacted in 1705.[582]
Article ninety-one of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641
provided that no one except captives taken in just wars etc. should be
held as slaves in the colony.[583] In 1649, the Body of Liberties was
reënforced by a law decreeing: “If any man stealeth a man or mankind,
he shall surely be put to death.”[584] Some attention was given to
enforcing this law, for the records show an occasional imprisonment
for stealing Indians.[585] On July 4, 1667, the governor of Barbadoes
sent back to Massachusetts two Indians that had been taken to England
and then carried to Barbadoes and sold as slaves. In an accompanying
address to the governor and assistants of Massachusetts he promised to
rectify all such abuses that might come under his jurisdiction.[586]
But in spite of laws and precautions the practice of kidnapping
continued throughout the colonial period.
Other colonies followed the example of Massachusetts in making
man-stealing a capital crime. New Jersey, in 1675,[587] and New
Hampshire, in 1679,[588] enacted similar laws. Just how far the
laws were intended to relate to kidnapped Indians is a matter for
conjecture. They were in all probability intended to apply to the
stealing of negro slaves, and there is nothing in their content to show
that they were intended to relate also to the stealing of free Indians.