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As a result of this, Massachusetts was the only state to have zero slaves enumerated on the 1790 federal census. (By 1790, the Vermont Republic had also officially ended slavery, but it was not admitted as a state until 1791.) Maine, in the 1790 Census, also lists no enslaved people among its population but did not become a state until 1820.
There were, nonetheless, some slaves in most free states up to the 1840 census, and the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution, as implemented by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, provided that a slave did not become free by entering a free state and must be returned to their owner. Enforcement of these ...
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions in Walker v. Jennison and Commonwealth v. Jennison established the basis for ending slavery in Massachusetts on constitutional grounds. Still, no law or amendment to the state constitution was passed. Instead, slavery gradually ended "voluntarily" in the state over the next decade.
In 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony became the first colony to authorize slavery through enacted law. [67] Massachusetts passed the Body of Liberties, which prohibited slavery in many instances but allowed people to be enslaved if they were captives of war, if they sold themselves into slavery or were purchased elsewhere, or if they were ...
Elizabeth Freeman (c. 1744 – December 28, 1829), also known as Mumbet, [a] was one of the first enslaved African Americans to file and win a freedom suit in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling, in Freeman's favor, found slavery to be inconsistent with the 1780 Constitution of Massachusetts. Her suit, Brom and Bett v.
Massachusetts was the first state in the United States to abolish slavery. (Vermont, which became part of the U.S. in 1791, abolished adult slavery somewhat earlier than Massachusetts, in 1777.) The new constitution also dropped any religious tests for political office, though local tax money had to be paid to support local churches.
The history of a Massachusetts beach named after an enslaved African American is the focus of new efforts to recognize the role of slavery in the state. Enslaved man who inspired beach name and ...
Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Nathaniel Jennison was a court case in Massachusetts in 1783 that effectively abolished slavery in that state. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It was the third in a series of cases which became known as the Quock Walker cases .