In 1716, an attempt was made to modify this feature of property status for slaves in Massachusetts. In that year Judge Sewall was a member of the council, and on June 22, 1716, proposed to that body that negro and Indian slaves be no longer rated with horses and hogs as personal property. The council agreed to the proposition, and its decision was sent down to the deputies for concurrence. But the members of the house refused assent on the ground that they were just going to make a new valuation. In the preceding valuations of the property of their constituents, Indian, negro and mulatto slaves were regarded as property, and the owners of it should be taxed accordingly.[833] In the remaining colonies that taxed Indian and other slaves, such taxation was levied on the basis of property, sometimes personal and sometimes real. The annual tax in South Carolina included slaves among the taxable property.[834] A law of 1719 provided that since Indian slaves were commonly reputed to be of less value than negro slaves, all persons possessing them should pay for each Indian in proportion to half the value of whatever might be rated and imposed for each negro, and no more.[835] In New York Indian and negro slaves entered but little into the system of taxation, since slaves were not numerous in the colony and therefore would furnish but a poor basis for taxation, and the finances of the colony were provided for more largely by income taxes than otherwise. In 1709, however, along with a tax on chimneys, fireplaces and stoves, a tax of two shillings was levied on every negro or Indian slave from fifteen to sixty years of age, with directions for collecting the same, and provision for fine and punishment if such tax were not paid.[836] Again, in 1734, when arrangement was made to raise a certain amount yearly for a period of ten years, one source of revenue was to be a tax of “two pennyweight and twelve grains of Sivil Pillar or Mexican Plate, or the sum of one shilling in Bills of Credit made current in this colony” on every Indian or mulatto slave who was above the age of fourteen and under the age of fifty years.[837] An instance of Indian slaves serving as a basis of taxation in a local levy is found in the history of Rye, New York. At a town meeting in 1703, to raise the assessment for the ensuing year, it was decided that a portion of the sum should be obtained by the tax on £12 valuation of all slaves of sixteen years old and upward.[838] Though Indian slaves were not mentioned in the town action, they were doubtless included by implication, for in 1711 the people of the town were called upon to pay taxes under “an act for raising one shilling on every Indian and negro slave.”[839]