s are already present. "About the last of August
(1619)," says John Rolfe in John Smith's _Generall Historie_, "came in a
Dutch man of warre, that sold us twenty Negars." These Negroes were
sold into servitude, and Virginia did not give statutory recognition to
slavery as a system until 1661, the importations being too small to make
the matter one of importance. In this year, however, an act of assembly
stated that Negroes were "incapable of making satisfaction for the time
lost in running away by addition of time"; [1] and thus slavery gained a
firm place in the oldest of the colonies.

[Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, II, _26_.]

Negroes were first imported into Massachusetts from Barbadoes a year or
two before 1638, but in John Winthrop's _Journal_, under date February
26 of this year, we have positive evidence on the subject as follows:
"Mr. Pierce in the Salem ship, the _Desire_, returned from the West
Indies after seven months. He had been at Providence, and brought some
cotton, and tobacco, and Negroes, etc., from thence, and salt from
Tertugos. Dry fish and strong liquors are the only commodities for those
parts. He met there two men-of-war, sent forth by the lords, etc., of
Providence with letters of mart, who had taken divers prizes from the
Spaniard and many Negroes." It was in 1641 that there was passed in
Massachusetts the first act on the subject of slavery, and this was the
first positive statement in any of the colonies with reference to
the matter. Said this act: "There shall never be any bond slavery,
villeinage, nor captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives, taken
in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are
sold to us, and these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages
which the law of God established in Israel requires." This article
clearly sanctioned slavery. Of the three classes of persons referred to,
the first was made up of Indians, the second of white people under the
system of indenture, and the third of Negroes. In this whole matter, as
in many others, Massachusetts moved in advance of the other colonies.
The first definitely to legalize slavery, in course of time she became
also the foremost representative of sentiment against the system. In
1646 one John Smith brought home two Negroes from the Guinea Coast,
where we are told he "had been the means of killing near a hundred
more." The General Court, "conceiving themselves bound by the first
opportun