During the reign of Elizabeth, the English government gave its royal sanction to the slave-traffic.  “In 1562 Sir John Hawkins, Sir Lionel Duchet, Sir Thomas Lodge, and Sir William Winter”—­all “honorable men”—­became the authors of the greatest curse that ever afflicted the earth.  Hawkins, assisted by the aforenamed gentlemen, secured a ship-load of Africans from Sierra Leone, and sold them at Hispaniola.  Many were murdered on the voyage, and cast into the sea.  The story of this atrocity coming to the ears of the queen, she was horrified.  She summoned Hawkins into her presence, in order to rebuke him for his crime against humanity.  He defended his conduct with great skill and eloquence.  He persuaded her Royal Highness that it was an act of humanity to remove the African from a bad to a better country, from the influences of idolatry to the influences of Christianity.  Elizabeth afterwards encouraged the slave-trade.

So when New Netherlands became an English colony, slavery received substantial official encouragement, and the slave became the subject of colonial legislation.

The first laws under the English Government were issued under the patent to the Duke of York, on the 1st of March, 1665, and were known as “the Duke’s Laws.”  It is rather remarkable that they were fashioned after the famous “Massachusetts Fundamentals,” adopted in 1641.  These laws have the following caption:  “Laws collected out of the several laws now in force in his majesty’s American colonies and plantations.” The first mention of slavery is contained in a section under the caption of “Bond Slavery.”

“No Christian shall be kept in Bondslavery, villenage, or Captivity, Except Such who shall be Judged thereunto by Authority, or such as willing have sold or shall sell themselves, In which Case a Record of Such servitude shall be entered in the Court of Sessions held for that Jurisdiction where Such Masters shall Inhabit, provided that nothing in the Law Contained shall be to the prejudice of Master or Dame who have or shall by any Indenture or Covenant take Apprentices for Terme of Years, or other Servants for Term of years or Life."[229]

By turning to the first chapter on Massachusetts, the reader will observe that the above is the Massachusetts law of 1641 with but a very slight alteration.  We find no reference to slavery directly, and the word slave does not occur in this code at all.  Article 7, under the head of “Capital Laws,” reads as follows:  “If any person forcibly stealeth or carrieth away any mankind he shall be put to death.”