New England’s role in the history of slavery is often obscured by the fact that New Englanders became some of the most outspoken critics of slavery by the nineteenth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, New Englanders profited greatly from the institution—not only from the slave trade itself but also from the labor that slaves provided and the demand for slave ships built of New England timber. Along the way, New Englanders developed a complicated, often conflicted conception of race in the New World.

Discuss the rise of slavery and its impact on the economic, social, and political landscape of colonial New England. How and why did New Englanders embrace slavery?

What changes are evident in that adherence to slavery over time? What were some of the consequences of New England’s profiting from slavery?