deeds and memory have been embalmed in song and story, and given to an immortality equalled only by the indestructibility of the English language.  The records of the most remote period of colonial history have preserved a silence on the question of Negro slavery as ominous as it is conspicuous.  What data there are concerning the introduction of slavery are fragmentary, uncertain, and unsatisfactory, to say the least.  There is but one work bearing the luminous stamp of historical trustworthiness, and which turns a flood of light on the dark records of the darker crime of human slavery in Massachusetts.  And we are sure it is as complete as the ripe scholarship, patient research, and fair and fearless spirit of its author, could make it.[260]

The earliest mention of the presence of Negroes in Massachusetts is in connection with an account of some Indians who were frightened at a Colored man who had lost his way in the tangled path of the forest.  The Indians, it seems, were “worse scared than hurt, who seeing a blackamore in the top of a tree looking out for his way which he had lost, surmised he was Abamacho, or the devil; deeming all devils that are blacker than themselves:  and being near to the plantation, they posted to the English, and entreated their aid to conjure this devil to his own place, who finding him to be a poor wandering blackamore, conducted him to his master."[261] This was in 1633.  It is circumstantial evidence of a twofold nature; i.e., it proves that there were Negroes in the colony at a date much earlier than can be fixed by reliable data, and that the Negroes were slaves.  It is a fair presumption that this “wandering blackamore” who was conducted “to his master” was not the only Negro slave in the colony.  Slaves generally come in large numbers, and consequently there must have been quite a number at this time.

Negro slavery in Massachusetts was the safety-valve to the pent-up vengeance of the Pequod Indians.  Slavery would have been established in Massachusetts, even if there had been no Indians to punish by war, captivity, and duplicity.  Encouraged by the British authorities, avarice and gain would have quieted the consciences of Puritan slave-holders.  But the Pequod war was the early and urgent occasion for the founding of slavery under the foster care of a free church and free government!  As the Pequod Indians would “not endure the yoke,” would not remain “as servants,"[262] they were sent to Bermudas[263] and exchanged for Negroes,[264] with the hope that the latter would “endure the yoke” more patiently.  The first importation of slaves from Barbados, secured in exchange for Indians, was made in 1637, the first year of the Pequod war, and was doubtless kept up for many years.

But in the following year we have the most positive evidence that New England had actually engaged in the slave-trade.