Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/82

 theory and practice of that period on this ubject, both of which deerve to be had in everlating remembrance. We hall make no apology for noticing them in this place, although their connection with the hitory of lavery in Maachu{{ls}etts is very remote.

Among the "Acts and Orders made at the Generall Court of Election held at Warwicke this 18th day of May, anno 1652," "The Commiioners of Providence and Warwicke being lawfully mett and ett," on the econd day of their eion (19th May, 1652), enacted and ordered as follows, viz.:

", there is a common coure practied among Englihmen to buy negers, to that end they may have them for ervice or laves for ever; for the preventinge of uch practices among us, let it be ordered, that no blacke mankind or white being forced by covenant bond, or otherwie, to erve any man or his aighnes longer than ten yeares, or untill they come to bee twentiefour yeares of age, if they bee taken in under fourteen, from the time of their cominge within the liberties of this Collonie. And at the end or terme of ten yeares to ett them free, as is the manner with the Englih ervants. And that man that will not let them goe free, or hall ell them away elewhere, to that end that they may be enlaved to others for a long time, hee or they hall forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds." R. I. Records,, 248.

This noble act tands out in olitary grandeur in the middle of the eventeenth century, the firt legislative enactment in the hitory of this continent, if not of the world, for the uppreion of involuntary ervitude. But, unhappily, it was not enforced, even