The numerous petitions to the governor to free such Indians from slavery, and his attitude in the matter, show the colonial authorities willing to stand by their legislation on the subject. On December 28, 1700, such a petition was presented by the mayor and aldermen of New York City to the governor, demanding the release of a free born Indian woman, a native of Curaçao, then held as a slave in New York.[1264] On July 15, 1703, Jacobus Kierstead, a mariner, of New York, petitioned the governor regarding an Indian brought by him from the West Indies and sold as a slave.[1265] Soon after Governor Hunter’s arrival in the province a petition was handed him on behalf of a number of free-born Spanish subjects thus held as slaves.[1266] Among the victims was one Stephen Domingo, a native of Carthagena, who had been held as a slave for eight years. Hunter became interested in the matter and wrote to the Board of Trade, June 23, 1712, that there were Spanish Indians in New York who had been unjustly kept there in slavery for many years. He discovered that one Husea and one John, both held as slaves and both engaged in the slave conspiracy of 1712, were brought to New York as prisoners of war taken from a Spanish vessel by a privateer; that they were Spanish-American Indians and subjects of the king of Spain, sold as slaves in New York and kept in bondage six or seven years “by reason of their color which is swarthy”. They declared they were sold among many others of the same color and the same country. These two Indians Governor Hunter reprieved awaiting the queen’s pleasure. The Indians who petitioned, though he “secretly pitied their condition”, he was unable to help as he had no other evidence than their words.[1267] Rhode Island is the only other colony which took direct action concerning Spanish Indians, but even Rhode Island never put forth any general legislation on the matter. Special action was taken similar to that in New York. In 1746, the general assembly of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations voted to send back to the West Indies certain free subjects of the king of Spain who had been captured and sold in the colony as slaves.[1268] These, like the others mentioned, were captives taken in the recent war with Spain.[1269] Here, as in New York, the point involved was one of international importance, and the Indians concerned were considered, not as Indians but as the objects about which the point was raised. The other colonies of the original thirteen which finally took legislative action to end the institution of slavery in general did not accomplish such action during the colonial period; so the conclusion remains that with the exception of Virginia, South Carolina, Rhode Island and New York, none of the colonies ever declared Indian slavery illegal. BIBLIOGRAPHY TITLES MENTIONED IN THE TEXT _Printed Material_