rated as other Polls, and not as Perſonal Eſtate.[1] In 1726, the aſſeſſors were required to eſtimate Indian, Negro, and Mulatto ſervants proportionably as other Perſonal Eſtate, according to their found judgment and diſcretion. In 1727, the rule of 1718 was reſtored, but during one year only, for in 1728 the law was the ſame as that of 1726; and ſo it probably remained, including all ſuch ſervants, as well for term of years as for life, in the rateable eſtates. We have ſeen the ſupply bills for 1736, 1738, 1739, and 1740, in which this feature is the fame.
And thus they continued to be rated with horſes, oxen, cows, goats, ſheep, and ſwine, until after the commencement of the War of the Revolution. We have not ſeen the law, but Mr. Felt ſtates that "in 1776 the colored polls were taxed the ſame as the white polls, and ſo continued to be." Coll. Amer. Stat. Aſſoc., i., 475. See alſo pp. 203, 311, 345, 411.
In the inventory of Captain Paul White, in 1679, was "one negrow = 30l." In 1708, an Indian boy from South Carolina brought 35l. An Indian girl brought fifteen pounds, at Salem, in Auguſt, 1710. The higheſt price paid for any of a cargo brought into Boſton, by the ſloop Katherine, in 1727, was eighty pounds. The eſtate of Samuel Morgaridge, who died in 1754, included the following: "Item, three negroes 133l. 6s. 8d." Coffin's Newbury, 188, 336. Coll. Eſſex Inſtitute, i., 14. Felt's Salem, ii., 416.
"The Guinea Trade," as it was called then, ſince known and branded by all civilized nations as piracy,
- ↑ Another act of the year 1718 forbade, under heavy penalties, Maſters of Ships to carry off "any bought or hired ſervant or apprentice."
