Radio Script #1214

Little Talks on Common Things
October 28, 1979

In the period between 1840 and 1860 Maine was not only the northernmost New England state deeply embedded in the interests of the industrial north as opposed to the agricultural south, but was also the location of many ardent, local abolition societies bent on freedom for Negro slaves. In fact, one of the earliest of those societies was formed in Waterville in 1833, with its chief promoters being students of Waterville College, the institution that later became Colby.

It is with some surprise, therefore, that we learn of the existence of Negro slaves in Maine. One tradition has it that a house still standing in Winslow, not far from Benton Falls, was built by slave labor. Another account says that the big white pillared residence near Brown’s Corner at Riverside, on Route 201 from Waterville to Augusta was once a station on the Underground Railroad.

Because Maine bordered upon Canada, and because it could be approached both by sea and land, it was a well known area for the Underground Railroad, the name given to the escape of runaway slaves from their southern masters into Canada. There certainly were abolitionist members of the Underground Railroad system located in Waterville and Fairfield, for here was the approach to the Canada Road, which was built from Bingham through Jackman to the Canadian Border in 1835, where it connected with a Canadian highway on to Quebec.

England was the European nation most actively engaged in the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, getting the Negroes in Africa and sending them to British islands in the Caribbean. Of course Boston was the chief New England port for unloading those slaves until slavery became so unpopular in the region that the British slave trade concentrated in the South where the cotton plantations were absorbing huge numbers of negroes.

Maine felt slavery influence early, not through Negro, but through the native Indians. When the Englishman George Weymouth explored the area at the mouth of the Kennebec in 1605 he kidnapped five Indians and took them as slaves to England. Although two of the captives were subsequently restored to their Maine homes by Ferdinando Gorges, it was done only as an act of mercy, and it is alleged that Gorges paid the holder of the Indians to release them.

In 1611 Captain John Harlow took several Indians on Monhegan and carried them to England where he sold them as slaves. In 1614 Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame who explored the whole Maine coast in that year, noted that another ship captain, Thomas Hunt, had taken 24 Indians near Pemaquid and had sold them as slaves in the West Indies. Thus we know of several instances of man-stealing in Maine before any permanent settlements were made.

To the credit of the Pilgrims, there is no evidence of slaves being held by the Plymouth Colony, either Indians or Negroes. However, almost from the beginning, slavery was recognized in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Boston. In 1639 there arrived in Boston from the West Indies the British merchant ship Desire with a cargo of cotton, tobacco, and Negroes. In 1641, Samuel Maverick, a leader of the orthodox state church in Massachusetts, and a man called by his neighbors their staunchest Christian, kept and bred slaves, just as one would breed cattle, on Needle’s Island near East Boston.

But even in 17th century Boston slavery was not universally popular. Some restriction, but not much,was made by provincial law in 1650, when it was decreed that “there shall be no bound slavery in this province except of lawful captives taken in war and of those judicially sentenced to servitude as a punishment.” The very devout Governor Winthrop, by his will in 1641, bequested to his son “all my Indians held in servitude on Governor’s Island.”

It is clear that, because the parent nation of Great Britain fostered slavery and greatly profited by the trade, slavery came to the American colonies, and because so many slaves were taken to the British islands in the West Indies, there was soon a surplus to be carried to what is now the eastern seaboard of the United States, and very soon there were regular loads of slaves in British ships coming directly from Africa to the southern tobacco and cotton states.

As a part of Massachusetts, Maine shared in the slave trade, but to no large extent in the 17th century because the District of Maine was then so sparsely inhabited. There are no reliable records showing the holding of slaves in Maine earlier than 1700. Maine became fully and legally a part of Massachusetts in 1678, when the Province of Massachusetts Bay purchased from the heirs of Ferdinanda Gorges the lands granted to Gorges by the King in 1639. So, when Massachusetts passed its slave act of 1705, that act applied to Maine. The Act of 1705 approved of slavery as an institution, but levied a duty of four pounds on each Negro imported. However, the duty would be refunded if the slave was sold and exported out of Massachusetts within one year.

By the Treaty of Utrecht, between England and France in 1713, England sanctioned the slave trade. The treaty reserved exclusively to England the right to bring Negro slaves into Spanish America. By that treaty England became the largest trafficker in human flesh in the entire world. The historian Bancroft says, “If In the first half of the 18th century, between 1700 and 1750, English ships fitted out in English cities, and under favor of the royal family, of Parliament, and of the Church of England, stole from Africa more than a million and a half of black human beings. Carried to slavery across the Atlantic under the most brutal conditions, more than an eighth of them died on the voyage and were thrown into the sea. They may indeed have been the more fortunate of the victims.”

The historian Parkman wrote: “The slave trade possesses great attraction. Not a single statesman opposed it during the first half of the 18th century. The trade was one of the most lucrative revenues in the growth of mercantile Boston. Dealers had no hesitation in advertising slaves for sale. Ads for runaway slaves were common in all the Boston papers. As for sales, ads like the following were often seen: “Mr. Henry Richards wants to sell a parcel of likely Negro boys and one girl brought from Guinea. ” “Two very likely Negro girls for sale, also a lot of children with stiffened body coats for winter warmth. To be sold very reasonably, a likely Negro woman about 30 years of age, and a strong. healthy Negro girl of 16.'” A prominent Boston physician stated in his old age that he remembered seeing arrive at a Boston wharf about 1755 a ship whose entire cargo was Negro children.

At the time Boston was the commercial center of all New England and its business practices had extended into the District of Maine. In the early 18th century the most prominent Maine family was the Pepperells of Kittery. William Pepperell had been knighted by the Crown for his leadership in the capture from France of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island. In 1726, Sir William recognized the receipt of five Negro slaves. In 1730 one member of a Pepperell firm wrote an agent in Antigua in the West Indies: “I received your bill of lading for eight Negroes and a hogshead of rum. One Negro woman with the letter Y marked on her left breast died three weeks after arrival. All the rest died at sea. I am very sorry for your loss.” After the conquest of Louisburg. William Pepperell lived in luxury. He maintained a handsome barge, rowed by a crew of six uniformed slaves. In his will dated 1759, Sir William left to his widow ten Negro slaves.

Much of our information about early Portland comes from the diary of the first minister at that place, a man called Parson Smith. On July 30, 1760 he recorded: “Colonel Cushing has lost his sloop with cargo of Negroes taken by French ship.” Parson Smith also mentions that when the great evangelist George Whitefield visited Portland in the 1700s, he pleaded with the prominent citizens to treat their slaves in a Christian spirit, not a word about freeing them.

According to Judge Sewall of York. that town in 1764 had 2,242 inhabitants, 56 of whom were Negro slaves, 17 of them under the age of 16. In 1760 more than 200 slaves were held by families in York, Kittery, Wells and Kennebunk. At the same time the town of Falmouth, that later became the City of Portland, had about 50 Negro slaves. In those York and Cumberland county towns it was, of course, only the wealthy, more prominent families that owned slaves. What did those Negros do?

Unlike Georgia and the Carolinas, Maine had no plantations with magnificent mansions; but it did have in its ports a number of spacious colonial houses in which Negro slaves did much of the work. We have no record that Sylvester Gardiner, leading proprietor of the Kennebec Purchase, and developer of the Cityof Gardiner, was ever a slave owner, nor do we have any such evidence concerning the families of James Hallowell and Florentius Vassall. There is, however, a tradition that the Vaughan family of Hallowell did own several slaves. It is interesting that when Benedict Arnold made his expedition up the Kennebec and Dead rivers, across the Height of Land to Lake Megantic in 1775, no Negro slave accompanied the expedition, though during the Revolution there were often slaves accompanying Washington’s army as personal servants to officers.

One reason why there were few slaves in the early settlements of the Kennebec Valley was the presence of Quakers. That sect was very early in getting a foothold at Bowdoinham, Pownalborough, and especially in Vassalboro and China. They were the first religious sect in America to come out openly against slavery, and their early presence in Maine is one reason why abolition societies sprang up so rapidly in this state.

The number of slaves in Portland was never large. In 1750, when the town had 2,367 inhabitants, there were only 21 slaves. One distinct difference from the Southern custom was that in Portland slaves were admitted into church membership with whites. Unlike the Southern practice also, throughout Maine slaves were permitted to testify in the courts.

However in 1790, after Massachusetts had become a state of the new USA, Chief Justice Parsons declared that a slave was the absolute property of his or her master, was transferable like any other property by gift or sale, and was an asset of an estate on the master’s death. The children of a female slave were the property of her master.

The first significant movement for the abolition of slavery in all Massachusetts, including Maine, came just before the Revolution in 1773. In that year a group of Negroes themselves, led by a few literate, self-educated free blacks, were allowed to present a petition to the legislature in Boston to prevent further importation of Negro slaves. The House looked upon it favorably, but Governor Hutchinson declared that, even if the Senate approved, he would veto the bill. It therefore died without definite action. The Governor said he had no authority to approve of such a measure. Because, before American independence, the Governor of the Province of Massachusetts was appointed by the Crown, Gov. Hutchinson actually meant that in 1773 the Government of Great Britain strenuously continued to resist every attempt to discontinue the slave trade. In fact in 1776, after the Revolution had started, the Earl of Dartmouth wrote to an agent in America: “We cannot allow the colonies to check or discourage a traffic so beneficial to our nation.”

Within a few years after the successful end of the Revolution, Massachusetts did put an end to the slave trade within her borders and by the end of the first third of the 19th century that state, under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, was taking the lead for the abolition of Slavery.

Year: 1979