New Hampſhire in 1714, and Connecticut and Rhode Iſland in 1715.
Under the earlieſt laws of taxation in Maſſachuſetts, ſlaves muſt have been rated (if taxed at all) as polls, the owners paying for them as for other ſervants and children, "ſuch as take not wages." This continued until the period of the Province Charter, when, in the year 1692, "every male ſlave of ſixteen years old and upwards" was rated "at Twenty Pounds Eſtate." In 1694, "all Negro's, Molattoes and Indian Servants, as well male as female, of 16 years old and upwards, at the rate of 12d. per poll ſame as other polls." In 1695, "all Negro's, Molatto, and Indian Servants, males of 14 years of age and upward at the rate of 20l. eſtate, and Females at 14l. eſtate, unleſs diſabled by infirmity." They were ſubſequently in the ſame year rated "as other perſonal eſtate," which mode was continued in 1696, 1697, and 1698, in the latter year "according to the ſound judgment and diſcretion of the Aſſeſſors, not excluding faculties."
This rating for "faculties" was a prominent feature in the early tax-laws of Maſſachuſetts, and was continued after the commencement of the preſent century.[1]
It was applied to white men in Maſſachuſetts from the beginning, being intended as a juſt valuation for thoſe who had arts, trades, and faculties, by the produce of which they were "more enabled to bear the publick charge than common laborers and Workmen,
- ↑ Mr. Felt ſays, in his memoranda, under the date of 1829, "the rating for faculties, long a prominent item in our former tax-acts, and not unfrequently made a ſubject of pleaſant remark, has been dropped, like other notions of ancient cuſtom." Coll. Amer. Stat. Affoc., i., 502. See also pp. 297, 374.
