Before slavery was abolished in Massachusetts upon ratification of John Adams’s State Constitution in 1780, Prince Boston was born into it on Nantucket Island. Although his parents were given their freedom, their children were to remain in bondage until their late 20s when they would be free as well.
As his slave, Prince Boston was signed onto a whaling ship by William Swain, a Nantucket merchant. When the ship returned with its oil and bone, Mr. Swain arrived at the settlement house to collect Boston’s share of what the crew was to receive, but was denied it.
The Quakers who ran the whaling industry on the Island did not approve of slavery, though they had to live with it, and, because of their belief in the equality of man (debate among yourselves), a man was owed the wages for which he had worked. Mr. swain may have owned the slave but the slave, not he, was the one who had done the work and, so, it was to him the wages belonged to do with as he chose and, whether or not he gave all, some, or none to Mr. Swain was up to him. If he wanted to earn those wages, Mr. Swain was welcome to work for them.
The earned wages were held in escrow until Mr. Swain’s court case to obtain them was adjudicated with the Supreme Judicial Court agreeing with the Quakers that Prince Boston had earned and was owed the wages. He got both his wages and his freedom in 1773.
Considering this event, the soon to be ratified State Constitution, and the influence the Quakers in New Bedford wielded as the whaling and manufacturing tycoons who knew the important people and, like most such men, exerted both overt and covert control in the running of things, their influence went far beyond the harbor of New Bedford and into the halls of the state house in big and powerful ways.
In spite of Boston’s claiming to be the birthplace of the Abolition Movement, it began among the South Coast Quakers who did everything they could to interfere where they could not abolish or prevent slavery.
Things had been bad enough when any Black crew members who had signed on from whatever country a whale ship had passed while needing additional crew on global voyages along with the American Black crew had to be protected from bounty hunters and false claims of previous enslavement and escape when entering southern ports, but the Fugitive Slave law of 1793 allowed this to spread far beyond the South into non-slave areas by requiring people in non-slave states to cooperate with bounty hunters in retrieving someone’s “property”.
What had been a concern for ships and their crew when entering Southern ports now became a concern for everyone and in Massachusetts, a state with major ports and harbors, beyond annoying. It was met with the usual New England coldness to people, from other places telling us what to do and imposing their regional attitudes on us where we do not want it and did not ask for it.
Many northern states enacted laws to protect free black Americans as well as runaway slaves that required slave owners and fugitive hunters to produce evidence that their captures were truly fugitive slaves in order to protect free black residents from being kidnapped and sold into servitude in the South on just the claim they had been a slave with no proof of that.
Whereas the other state with freedom laws may have addressed slavery directly, Massachusetts chose a broader approach, protecting everyone in the state, regardless of past or present circumstances and standing in society by enacting Part 1:Title XV: Chapter 93: Section 102 of the General Laws in 1843 which states:
“(a) All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, to make and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”
The law covers ALL persons regardless of anything and gives the remedies for violations:
(b) A person whose rights under the provisions of subsection (a) have been violated may commence a civil action for injunctive and other appropriate equitable relief, including the award of compensatory and exemplary damages. Said civil action shall be instituted either in the superior court for the county in which the conduct complained of occurred, or in the superior court for the county in which the person whose conduct complained of resides or has his principal place of business.
(c) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that any individual is denied any of the rights protected by subsection (a).
(d) An aggrieved person who prevails in an action authorized by subsection (b), in addition to other damages, shall be entitled to an award of the costs of the litigation and reasonable attorneys’ fees in an amount to be fixed by the court.
Perhaps as Homeland Security and ICE are having a good time being the middle school bullies with permission and encouragement from the equally weak, this needs a revisit.
In the name of John Adams, we need to enforce our truth, “All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens.”
.
.
.
.,
.
.
