Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/60

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Slavery in Maſſachuſetts.

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ſpecial meſſage to the Houſe of Repreſentatives, in which he ſaid:

"There is one part of the Eſtate, viz., the Negro Slaves, which I am at a loſs how to come at the knowledge of, without your aſſiſtance." Journal, p. 119.

On the ſame day, November 19, 1754, the Legislature made an order that the Aſſeſſors of the ſeveral towns and diſtricts within the Province, forthwith ſend into the ſecretary’s office the exact number of the negro ſlaves, both males and females, ſixteen years old and upwards, within their reſpective towns and districts. Ib.^[1]

This enumeration, as corrected by Mr. Felt, gives an aggregate of 4,489. The census of Negroes in 1764–5, according to the ſame authority, makes their number 5,779, in 1776, 5,249; in 1784, 4,377, in 1786, 4,371; and in 1790 (by the United States census) 6,001.^[2]

The royal inſtructions to Andros, in 1688, as

↑ There is a curious illuſtration of "the way of putting it" in Maſſachuſetts, in Mr. Felt's account of this "cenſus of ſlaves," in the Collections of the American Statiſtical Aſſociation, Vol. i., p. 208. He ſays that the General Court paſſed this order "for the purpoſe of having an accurate account of ſlaves in our Commonwealth, as a ſubject in which the people were becoming much intereſted, relative to the cauſe of liberty!" There is not a particle of authority for this ſuggeſtion—ſuch a motive for their action never exiſted anywhere but in the imagination of the writer himſelf!
↑ It is to be regretted that we have no official authorities on the ſubject of the changes in this claſs of population during the period from 1776 to 1784. There is a moſt extraordinary, if not incredible, ſtatement made by the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt in his Travels through the United States … in the years 1795, 1796, and 1797, of which a tranſlation was publiſhed in London in 1799. In that work, Vol. ii. page 166, he fays, "It is to be obſerved, that, in 1778, the general cenſus of Maſſachuſetts included eighteen thouſand ſlaves, whereas the ſubſequent cenſus of 1790 exhibits only ſix thouſand blacks.

[1] There is a curious illuſtration of "the way of putting it" in Maſſachuſetts, in Mr. Felt's account of this "cenſus of ſlaves," in the Collections of the American Statiſtical Aſſociation, Vol. i., p. 208. He ſays that the General Court paſſed this order "for the purpoſe of having an accurate account of ſlaves in our Commonwealth, as a ſubject in which the people were becoming much intereſted, relative to the cauſe of liberty!" There is not a particle of authority for this ſuggeſtion—ſuch a motive for their action never exiſted anywhere but in the imagination of the writer himſelf!

[2] It is to be regretted that we have no official authorities on the ſubject of the changes in this claſs of population during the period from 1776 to 1784. There is a moſt extraordinary, if not incredible, ſtatement made by the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt in his Travels through the United States … in the years 1795, 1796, and 1797, of which a tranſlation was publiſhed in London in 1799. In that work, Vol. ii. page 166, he fays, "It is to be obſerved, that, in 1778, the general cenſus of Maſſachuſetts included eighteen thouſand ſlaves, whereas the ſubſequent cenſus of 1790 exhibits only ſix thouſand blacks.

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