at extent. They were
introduced in small lots, and brought from ten to forty pounds apiece.
He thought the entire number in the colony would not reach more than
one hundred and twenty-five. Few were born in the colony, and none had
been baptized up to that time.[302] The year 1700 witnessed an
unprecedented growth in the slave-trade. From the 24th of January,
1698, to the 25th of December, 1707,[303] two hundred Negroes were
imported into the colony,--quite as many as in the previous sixty
years. In 1708 Gov. Dudley's report to the board of trade fixed the
number of Negroes at five hundred and fifty, and suggested that they
were not so desirable as white servants, who could be used in the
army, and in time of peace turn their attention to planting. The
prohibition against the Negro politically and in a military sense, in
that section of the country, made him almost valueless to the colonial
government struggling for deliverance from the cruel laws of the
mother country. The white servant could join the "minute-men," plough
with his gun on his back, go to the church, and, having received the
blessing of the parish minister, could hasten to battle with the proud
and almost boastful feelings of a Christian freeman! But the Negro,
bond and free, was excluded from all these sacred privileges. Wronged,
robbed of his freedom,--the heritage of all human kind,--he was
suspicioned and contemned for desiring that great boon. On the 17th of
February, 1720, Gov. Shute placed the number of slaves--including a
few Indians--in Massachusetts at two thousand. During the same year
thirty-seven males and sixteen females were imported into the
colony.[304] We are unable to discover whether these were counted in
the enumeration furnished by Gov. Shute or not. We are inclined to
think they were included. In 1735 there were two thousand six
hundred[305] bond and free in the colony; and within the next
seventeen years the Negro population of Boston alone reached
1,541.[306]

In 1754 the colonial government found it necessary to establish a
system of taxation. Gov. Shirley was required to inform the House of
Representatives as to the different kinds of taxable property. And
from a clause in his message, Nov. 19, 1754, on the one hundred and
nineteenth page of the Journal, we infer two things; viz., that slaves
were chattels or real estate, and, therefore, taxable. The governor
says, "There is one part of the Estate, viz., the Negro slaves, whic