Rhode Island Colony Acts to Prohibit Perpetual Slavery
The Rhode Island Colony Acts to Prohibit Perpetual Slavery represent early legislative efforts to limit slavery in the American colonies. Initiated on May 18, 1652, the General Court of Election enacted a law that restricted the duration of servitude to ten years for any individual, regardless of race, who was brought into the colony. This law aimed to combat the prevalent practice of lifelong enslavement that was common among English settlers and indicated a moral opposition to such practices, particularly influenced by Puritan and Quaker beliefs. Despite its initial enforcement, this statute was eventually repealed or fell out of use by the early 18th century, coinciding with Rhode Island's growing involvement in the slave trade. By 1708, the colony recognized perpetual slavery, imposing duties on imported blacks, and by the 1770s, Rhode Island had become a major slave trader in the American colonies. It wasn't until after the American Revolution that Rhode Island began to enact laws aimed at gradually abolishing slavery, culminating in acts that prohibited participation in the slave trade by the late 18th century. These legislative actions reveal a complex and evolving relationship with slavery in Rhode Island's history.
Rhode Island Colony Acts to Prohibit Perpetual Slavery
Rhode Island Colony Acts to Prohibit Perpetual Slavery
Before January 1, 1808, when the Slave Trade Act forbidding the importation of slaves into the United States took effect, aversion to slavery was based primarily on moral and religious grounds. The Puritans and Quakers especially opposed slavery, but neither of these colonial groups developed an effective plan for abolishing it. Starting on May 18, 1652, however, the General Court of Election held at Warwick, Rhode Island, with Samuel Gorton, the founder of Warwick, as moderator, enacted during its three-day session one of the first colonial laws limiting slavery.
One of several “Acts and Orders” (which were devoted principally to a revision of practice and procedure in trial courts), the statute carefully stipulated the period in which any person, black or white, could be kept in slavery in the colony:
Whereas, there is a common course practised amongst Englishmen to buy negers [sic], to that end that they may have them for service or slaves forever; for the preventinge of such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no blacke mankind or white [may be] forced by covenant bond, or otherwise, to serve any man or his assignes longer than ten years, or until they come to be 24 years of age, if they be taken in under 14, from the time of their coming within the Liberties of the Collonie, and at the end or terme of ten years…[are to be set] free, as is the manner with the English servants. And that man that will not let them goe free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end that they may be enslaved to others for a long time, he or they shall forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds.
This law against perpetual slavery is judged to be, with one exception, the first legislative enactment for the suppression of involuntary servitude in the history of the United States. Previously the Massachusetts “Body of Liberties” of 1641, drawn up chiefly by Nathaniel Ward, the lawyer, clergyman, and author, had included a provision that there should “never be any bond slaverie, villinage or captivitie amongst us unles it be lawful captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us.” In 1646 the Massachusetts general court enforced this provision by ordering that certain blacks, who had been unlawfully transported from Africa, be returned to their native land together with a letter expressing the disapproval of the court.
Although the 1652 Rhode Island statute was enforced for some time, it had either been repealed or had fallen into disuse by the beginning of the 18th century. A Rhode Island act in February 1708 recognized perpetual slavery, placing a duty of three English pounds on all blacks imported. From 1700 onwards, Rhode Island citizens engaged to a greater and greater extent in the flourishing slave-carrying trade. Although they did not import many slaves for their own use, the Rhode Islanders became the greatest slave traders in the American colonies, operating a sort of clearinghouse for other areas. Only in 1779 did Rhode Island pass an act preventing the sale of slaves out of the state. In 1784, eight years after the Declaration of Independence, Rhode Island's legislature approved a law to gradually abolish slavery in the state. Three years later an act prohibiting participation in the slave trade finally set a fine of 1000 pounds on every vessel caught in such a venture and 100 pounds on each slave transported.