In a message dated 2/24/03 2:43:16 PM, sperry1@twmi.rr.com writes: << True, some northern states did have repressive laws against blacks, but chattel slavery did not exist. >> Hello As a descendant of both Southern colonial and New England colonial families, I thought I'd offer some interesting snippets from articles I've discovered, regarding chattel slavery in New England: According to Deacon Jeffrey Bingham Mead in his book, "Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipation in Greenwich, Connecticut" Mead states that out of the 3,175 citizens of Greenwich in the 1790 Census, there were *49 citizens who owned 80 slaves.* In a letter to the visitors of the Fairfield Co. CT USGenWeb Project, Jeffrey wrote about one of the Meads of Greenwich in an effort to save its historic settlement (which failed, btw): http://www.rootsweb.com/~ctfairfi/pages/greenwich/meadfamest.htm ----------------------------------- On a visit of the Greenwich Historical Society archives and museum, I learned that Sarah (Isaacs) Bush, wife of 6G uncle, David Bush freed her slaves upon her death in the 1820's. See a photograph of a replica of the slave quarters in the home: http://hstg.org/SiteTree/index.cgi/71 "Slaves were commonly housed in attics above kitchens in New England homes, along with other property the family needed to store, such as dried herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Four slaves remained in the household in 1821--Patience and her teenage son Cull, and Candice with her teenage son Jack. Connecticut slave law freed slaves born after 1784 upon reaching their 25th birthday." And let's not forget the ties between Newport, RI and the so-called "Triangular Trade." http://www.providence.edu/afro/students/kane/triangle.txt "TRIANGLE TRADE Throughout the 18th Century, R.I. merchants controlled between *sixty and 90 percent of the American trade in African slaves.* Prior to this, R.I. trading was based upon produce and raw material imports from the West Indies and Europe, as well as finished material exports such as candles, rum, barrels, furniture, and silver goods, which were transhipped along the New England and Southern coasts. When R.I. began to take part in the slave trade and eventually monopolized the rum market, it replaced its past trading activities with Triangle Trade, or what has been referred to as "The Notorious Triangle." This "Triangular Trade" began as Rhode Island turned away from the land and toward the sea. Likewise, Triangular Trade eventually came to an end with the return to the land, in the establishment of the factory system." -----snip------- Surprised? So was I. A book that compares/contrasts the social and historical differences between the regions of England and the people who came from these regions to settle colonial America, helped me understand it a bit more. The book is "Albion's Seed," by David Hackett Fischer. Fischer suggests that one reason that African slavery didn't take root to any great extent in New England was partly because the rate of death in the colder climates made the practice unprofitable. On page 52, Fischer describes the "mini-Ice Age" that occurred in the 17th century in New England. "Black death rates were twice as high as whites [These generalities summarize demographic patters of high complexity, which will be discussed in forthcoming monograph on death in New England] --a pattern very different from Virginia where mortality rates for the two races were not so far apart, and still more different from South Carolina, where white death rates were higher than those of the blacks. So high was mortality among African immigrants in New England that race slavery was not viable on a large scale, despite many attempts to introduce it. Slavery was not impossible in this region, but the human and material costs were higher than many wished to pay. A labor system which was fundamentally hostile to the Puritan ethos of New England was kept at bay, partly by the climate." [An exception was the Narrangansett or "South Country" of Rhode Island and south eastern Connecticut, where the climate was similar to southern New Jersey or Northern Maryland. This subject will be discussed in volume II; for attempts to introduce slavery to Massachusetts, see Lorenzo Johnston Green, "The Negro in Colonial New England (New York, 1924.) Moreover, Fischer describes slavery as part of South and West country of English culture, going back to the middle ages: Page 241: "During the early middle ages, slavery had of England. Historian D. J. F. Fisher writes that the 'fate of many of the natives was not extermination but slavery.' [D.J.V. Fisher, The Anglo-Saxon Age, c. 400-1042 (London, 1973) 44, 122, 333.] This was not merely domestic bondage, but slavery on a larger scale. During t he eighth and ninth centuries, the size of a major slaveholdings in the south of England reached levels comparable to large plantations in the American South." Maureen Mead Pettypool, P'Pool, Wood, Pace, Seay, McVay, Springfield, Wood, Newby and related families of Upcountry SC. USGenWeb Project Fairfield Co. CT: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ctfairfi