To understand the growth of the New England slave trade, two connected topics must be a little illustrated. The first of these is the enslaving of Indians. The pious "Puritan Fathers" found it convenient to assume that they were God's chosen Israel, and the pagans about them were Amalek and Amorites. They hence deduced their righteous title to exterminate or enslave the Indians, whenever they became troublesome. As soon as the Indian wars began, we find the captives enslaved. The ministers and magistrates solemnly authorized the enslaving of the wives and posterity of their enemies for the crimes of the fathers and husbands in daring to defend their own soil. In 1646, the Commissioners of the United Colonies made an order,[8] that upon complaint of a trespass by Indians, any of that plantation of Indians that should entertain, protect, or rescue the offender, might be seized by reprisal, and held as hostages for the delivery of the culprits; in failure of which, the innocent persons seized should be slaves, and be exported for sale as such. In 1677, the General Court of Massachusetts[9] ordered the enslaving of the Indian youths or girls "of such as had been in hostility with the colony, or had lived among its enemies in the time of the War." In the winter of 1675-6, Major Waldron, commissioner of the General Court for that territory now included in Maine, issued a general warrant for seizing, enslaving, and exporting every Indian "known to be a manslayer, traitor, or conspirator."[10] The reader will not be surprised to hear, that so monstrous an order, committed for execution to any or every man's irresponsible hands, was employed by many shipmasters for the vilest purposes of kidnapping and slave hunting. But in addition, in numerous instances whole companies of peaceable and inoffensive Indians, submitting to the colonial authorities, were seized and enslaved by publick order. In one case one hundred and fifty of the Dartmouth tribe, including their women and children, coming in by a voluntary submission, and under a general pledge of amnesty, and in another instance, four hundred of a different tribe, were shamelessly enslaved. By means of these proceedings, the numbers of Indian servants became so large, that they were regarded as dangerous to the Colony. They were, moreover, often untameable in temper, prone to run away to their kinsmen in the neighbouring wilderness, and much less docile and effective for labour than the "blackamoors." Hence the prudent and thrifty saints saw the advantage of exporting them to the Bermudas, Barbadoes, and other islands, in exchange for negroes and merchandise; and this traffick, being much encouraged, and finally enjoined, by the authorities, became so extensive as to substitute negroes for Indian slaves, almost wholly in the Colony.[11] Among the slaves thus deported were the favourite wife and little son of the heroic King Philip. The holy Independent Divines, Cotton, Arnold, and