Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes

Reprinted in Early American Writing

Published in 1994

"If I purchase a Man who hath never forfeited his Liberty, the natural Right of Freedom is in him; and shall I keep him and his Posterity in Servitude and Ignorance?"

Slavery existed in Africa long before Europeans started an international slave trade off the western coast of the continent in the 1400s. For hundreds of years Africans had taken members of other tribes into slavery during wars or used slavery as punishment for crimes within their own groups. There were also enslaved craftsmen, warriors, and advisors to tribal chiefs and kings. While a small slave trade was conducted between Africa and Europe prior to the discovery of the Americas, it increased significantly when the Spaniards...