They were also employed in the New England and Middle States, largely
as household servants, the soil not being favorable to the production
of rice, indigo, cotton and sugar, which were the staples of Southern
agriculture. Moreover, the African is not physically adapted to the
northern climate. He was especially liable to tubercular disease--hence
he was sold to the Southern planters, except in a few cases where the
Puritan spirit caused his emancipation.

In the year that Harvard College was erected, 1636, the first slave ship
built in America was launched at Marblehead, Mass. It brought a large
cargo of slaves to be sold to the settlers. During the one hundred years
preceding 1776, millions of slaves had been imported to the States. King
George III favored the institution, and forbade any interference with
the colonies in this matter. The horrors of slavery in Massachusetts,
as recorded by reliable documents of the period, far exceed all that
has been charged against the South, by Uncle Tom's Cabin, or any other
records of fact or romance. The Encyclopedia of Political Economy and
United States History, Vol. 3, page 733, has the following taken from
the New York Evening Post:

"During the eighteen months of the years 1859-60 eighty-five slave
ships (giving their names) belonging to New York merchants, brought
in cargoes annually of between 30,000 and 60,000 African slaves, who
were sold in Brazil, there being great demand for them in that country,
owing to new industries. Old Peter Faneuil built Faneuil Hall with
slave money, and many other fortunes were thus made."


Thomas Jefferson says in his autobiography that though the Northern