In the reign of James II, the charter of Massachusetts was vacated by legal proceedings, and in the year 1691, a new charter was issued providing for the appointment of the governor by the crown and for toleration to all religious sects. This gave great dissatisfaction to the ruling church; and the theocratic power was in a great measure destroyed, but the controlling influence of the old religious party still prevailed in the general court, though restrained by the royal governor. By this charter the province of Plymouth was incorporated with that of Massachusetts, as was the district of Maine, but New Hampshire, previously under the government of Massachusetts, was soon created into a separate province.
In 1701, the town of Boston instructed its representatives to propose "putting a period to negroes being slaves," but no action was taken, and these scruples were very short lived, the enslaving of Indians and the prosecution of the slave trade being still continued. The manufacture of New England rum, which was in progress, furnished a very easy means of prosecuting the trade, as that article was freely exchanged on the coast of Africa with the natives for slaves. One part of the inhabitants being imbruited by the detestable liquor, while the other was carried off into bondage. The traders of New England, composed of all classes, including church dignitaries, participated largely in the profits resulting from the impulse given to the slave trade in 1698, and it was sustained by public sentiment in those colonies as well as in the mother country.
In 1704, in the intercolonial war with Canada, Massachusetts offered a reward of $66 per head for Indian prisoners under ten years of age and double as much for older prisoners or for scalps.
In 1712, Massachusetts passed an act prohibiting the further importation of Indian slaves on pain of the forfeiture of the slaves, but this prohibition did not arise from feelings of humanity for the Indians; the reasons given for it were, that the Indians were "of a surly and revengeful spirit, rude and insolent in their behavior, and very ungovernable" and because "this province being differently circumstanced from the plantations in the islands, and having great numbers of the Indian natives of the country within and about them and at this time under the sorrowful effects of their rebellion and hostilities."
The merchants of England having complained that the New Englanders were infringing upon their rights by engaging in the slave trade, which the New England traders now mainly carried on with rum, for the manufacture of which molasses was imported from elsewhere than the British West India Islands, an act of Parliament was passed in 1733, imposing a duty on molasses, sugar and rum imported from the French and Dutch West Indies. This act was called the "Molasses Act," and was the first of the series of Acts bringing about the discontent which led to the Revolution. The traders of New England managed to elude this act as they had done the restrictions put upon the slave trade for the benefit of the English merchants. The manufacture of rum and the trade from all the ports of New England still continued with great activity up to the commencement of the Revolution, and served to build up the commerce of that section, as the same trade had built up the commerce of the mother country.
Some slaves were imported into all the New England colonies, but as there was not very profitable employment for them there, and it was vastly more remunerative to sell than to work them, the former was preferred to the latter mode of dealing with the subject and in it they found a rich reward. The markets for the slaves were found in the West Indies and in the Southern colonies, where the soil, climate and productions were much more suitable for African slave labor, than in the cold regions of the north. There were, however, in the year 1754, 2,448 negro slaves in Massachusetts over 16 years of age, 1,000 of them being in Boston, and the whole number exceeded 4,000, while in Connecticut and Rhode Island the proportion of slaves to the white population was greater than in Massachusetts.
Maryland was settled under the proprietorship of Lord Baltimore in the year 1634, and slavery was introduced into that colony also, the laws recognizing and regulating it being very similar to those of Virginia. In 1649, an act was passed by which the kidnapping of Indians to make them slaves, was made felony, and in 1663, the first act recognizing slavery was passed, being similar in its features to that of Virginia. The people of Maryland did not engage in the slave trade and were merely purchasers.