""',*H"f",::lffii,ii#I**J'"#"{,"}NJrihs'orB Deoember2t'2002 ofl-"ll'**. ^on t1g l€nd*-; oz9a6 T}'il:i; DearMember: ;,}';fi,.rJ*s*-*,s*$ilt ?:i;":k'u" --*g"m':+g'# uffry.- 'twrt* Preeident SincerelY' n Roqer N'BeSc F,x"cutivealfrector -nb-'.*LYfo,*/ ' - Bernatu 'D Fishrnarr ?Tlfr["";o""' FALL 2OO2 Rhode Island History ffi Volume 60, Number 4 Published by CONTENTS The Rhode Island Historical Society I l0 Benevolent Street Providence, Rhode Island 02906-3 1 52 and printed by a grant from the State of Rhode Island and the Slave Tiade 9s Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, STANLEY LEMONS Lilcoln Almond, Governor; ]. Edward S. Inman III, Secretary of State Roger N. Begin, president Diana L. lohnson, vice president Writings on Rhode Island History, 105 l Bradford B. Kopp, vice president for development ROGER PARKS Barbara F. Weaver, vice president for libraries I Edward F. Sanderson, vice president for museums d David S. Lu, secretary { C. June Tow, assistant secretary Lyle S. Fain, treasurer Index to Volume5$..'.. t07 Tobias M. Lederberg, assistant treasurer Bernard P. Fishman, director fames K. Mahoney, administrative director FELLOWS OF THE SOCIETY Carl Bridenbaugh T Glenn W. LaFantasie PUBIICATIONS COMMITTEE Harrison M. Wright, chalr lo,vce M. Botelho James Findlay Robert Allen Greene I Robert W. Hayman Jane Lancaster James P Marusak \tilliam McKenzie Woodward ST-\FF \Iarta Y. Martinez, edito r Hilliard Beller, copy editor .{ilison C1vin, graphics editor The Rhode Island Historical Society assumes no responsibility for the :i opidons of contributors. O 2002 by The Rhode Island Historical Society RHODE ISLAND HISTORY (USPS no. 464-780) is published four times a year by The Rhode lsland Historical Society at 110 RHODE ISLAND HISTORY (ISSN 0035.4619) Benevolent Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02906-3152. Periodicals postage is paid at Providence, Rlode Island. Society members receive each issue as a membership benefit. Institutional subscriptions to RHODE ISLAND HISTORY and the Society's quarterly newsletter are $25.00 annually. Individual copies of current and back issues are available from the Society for $8.00 (pdce includes postage and handling). Manuscdpts and other correspondence should be sent to Marta V Martinez, editor, at the Societ''. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Rhode Island Historical Sociery 1 l0 Benevolent Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02906-3152. '%ww ,t *n ?? r C" tlT 6 &"4 a S''ff&p&m frmrn ths S;rvi.cc s* bin Ma{t*r, yg,*k* *xr& Xnfts$lr !Negro X$xsrn x*srnrd S C X-p X *3r*0f I black Curnplcxiono about $ ff**t 6 $r ? Isxs*x** higtr, eg*d {rpwekdx s{ 4* Ye*rg.c X,*s *x sfs$' *& 3&su[e SelyirE, .-ld orhtrdift e handy rnd G rrCeningr - Ftltg*. ffil Wb*crs,J s*; X& fssnrb txlm *s & public $*ilo &r r*ri*rn'&i*:"t *&' rbE Smbfcribelr- flial! I*ssi$* xw gN ry. "s*$*t&K $ *&u*t,r$, {re* af eX} Chr{rgel i-.o$ !*-aay F*sfon sr Pxr{bn* csnc*alr- st-,gep}?f 3:imr 3?*y snat d*pe*S *n bsing p?of*uj?d"*egsl*ablL to a X,-a,w **t CangraTt, paffcd tha s *ih sf ffabf &. f srf, xf$g- ! sewrw &&,xpHANTo tf . &, f#f r&e r x * f Vi f&&s es€ w &r ncdp 8s& * ?c e rxl g: l*lY n sr cR x'r Y &: im ff, Nswt',*rt J $uSE:- 3S, x7$?- fe J -, .- ,-*l.|*rli"!srf.r8er.a-g-A-_!,r r*. Rhode Island and the Slave Trade I. STANLEY LEMONS ne must be cautious about reading present-day morality and attitudes back into the past. Today rve are horrified by slavery, but until the mid-eighteenth century slavery was generally accepted in ali societies and in a1l times. When we see a seventeenth-century figure like Roger Wiliiams involved in the distribution and saie of Narragansett captives after King Philip's War, we should remember that he was doing something that was acceptable in that age. Even those being enslaved expected it to happen; they were the losers in a war, and that was what happened to losers. But Williams was also opposed to "man stealingi'or abducting people in order to enslave them, and he even spoke against holding war captives as "perpetual slaves."' Massachusetts Bay adopted a law establishing permanent slavery for whites, Native Americans, and Africans in 1641, becoming the first British colony in America to do so. This became the 1aw for Plymouth and Connecticut as well when the United Colonies was formed in 1643. Under Wiliiams's leadership, Providence Plantations-Providence anci Warwick-responded in 1652 by passing legislation that sought to prevent the development of slavery by limiting the time that anyone could be held in bondage. The legal condition of such unfree people was to be like that of indentured servants: their servitude was to be limited and not inherited.' But the new law fell into disuse after Providence and Warwick faiied to persuade the colony's other two towns, Portsmouth and Newport, to accept the legislation. As Williams's scruples about slavery suggest, certain restrictions on enslavement had developed over time. For example, Christians were not supposed to enslave Christians, nor were Muslims to enslave Muslims. There was, however, no prohibition on Muslims enslaving Christians or vice versa, or on either of them enslaving pagans or infidels.'The enslavement of pagan Slavic people went on for so long that the very word slave is derived from the proper name Slav. The conviction that siavery was simply and completely wrong was slow to occur. The first antislavery protest that we know about in American history came from the Quakers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1688. At that time Quakers were regarded as extreme, even weird, and were despised by nearly everyone else.' One might recall that Massachusetts hanged four Quakers in the 1660s, and that Roger Williams himself considered Quakers l. Stanley Lemons is a professor of history at Rhode heretics.' IJand College. This article is adapted from his 25 lanttary 2001 lectLLre at the Rhorle Island Historical Opposition to slavery began to grow in the century that followed. Those who lived in Societv. the second half of the eighteenth century were on the cusp of the change from regard- ing slavery as ordinary and acceptable to regarding it as imrnoral and unacceptable. The generation of the Founding Fathers wrestled with the issue.u The question of slavery and the slave trade became increasingly a matter of moral concern for many people in the years before the American Revolution. Struggiing to eliminate slavery within their own ranks, the began trying to convince others of its immorality as well. The thrust Advertisement in the Newport Mercury, J 8 Quakers September 1797. RIHS Collection (RHi X3 7543) of Enlightenment humanitarianism added weight to the cause among many who were 96 RHODE 1SLAND AND THE SLAVT TRADE untouched by Quaker moralitv. As |oanne Pope Melish notes in her book Disowning Slavery, "it was oniy in the context of the Revolution that the antislavery movemenr gained support outside a fringe group of Quakers and other agitators."' By the early I 770s the impact of these moral concerns became evident as various promi- nent people began to purge themselves of any involvement in the institution of slaverr-. James Manning, Brown University's first president and pastor ofProvidence's First Baptist Church, freed his only slave in December 1770. Former slaveholder Samuel Hopkins, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Newport, began preaching against slavery in 177I, and he was soon joined by Ezra Stiles, pastor of Nen'port's Second Congregational Church and a future president of Yale. Moses Brown converted to Quakerism and freed his ten slaves in i773, the same year in which the Quaker Yearly Meeting voted a complete break with slavery and ordered Friends to free all oftheir slaves.' In |une 1774 the growing movement against slavery led the Rhode Island General Assembly to pass a law prohibit- ing the further importation of slaves into Rhode Island. This was followed by the state's gradual emancipation act of 1784, which provided that from then on, chil- dren born to slave mothers were to be considered freeborn citizens. However, to compensate owners for their losses, such children were to be bound out as appren- tices until age twenty-one, and their wages paid to their mothers' owners. Then, in \787, the General Assembl;' made it illegal for any Rhode Islander to be involved in the African slave trade anr- where. This last law is noteworthy in that The Reverend lames Manning. Engraving, 1815. it was the first larv in America prohibiting American citizens from involvement in the RIHS Collection (RHi Xi o0l t. African slave trade. In 1788 Moses Brown and Samuei Hopkins convinced both Massachusetts and Connecticut to enact laws aimost identical to Rhode Island's, there- by outlawing the African slave trade for nearly all New Englanders. But when these laws went unenforced, in February 1789 Moses Brown, Samuel Hopkins, lames Manning, former congressman David Howell, New Bedford whaling magnate william Rotch, Thomas Robinson, Rowland and Thomas Hazard (the latter three from South County families that once owned large numbers of slaves), and about 180 other men, mostly Quakers, organized the Abolition Society (formally, the Providence Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the condition of the African Race). The Abolition Society became the self-appointed agency to enforce the laws against the RHODE ISLAND AND THE SI,AVE TRADE slave trade, and it was this group that Te the GE,NER'AL ASSEMBLY of the State prosecuted ]ohn Brown, Moses's brother, in 1790 and1797; of Rsonp-IsraNo, next to be holden at Prowidence.