Not only were the Indians who themselves engaged in the war sold as slaves at home and abroad, but the wives and children of the captive males were also seized and consigned to slavery. In 1677, the Massachusetts general court ordered that the Indian children, boys and girls, whose parents had been in hostility with the colony or had lived among its enemies in the time of the war, and who were taken by force and given or sold to any of the inhabitants of the colony, should be at the disposal of their masters or their assignees.[465] In the case of a certain Praying Indian, who withdrew from the English side and joined the Indian enemy, not only himself, but his wife and children were taken prisoners and held as slaves until redeemed by Eliot.[466] The same policy was followed in Plymouth. A case in point is that of the chief, Popanooie, whose wife and children were retained in the colony as slaves, while he himself was transported and sold into slavery.[467] Both Plymouth and Massachusetts made a distinction between the children of those Indian enemies who were taken by force, and those who voluntarily gave themselves up to the colonial authorities. The children of the latter were to serve as slaves only until twenty-four years of age. The term of service of the former was not specified.[468] Neither Rhode Island nor Connecticut transported Indian slaves to the West Indies. Both colonies, however, retained Indian captives of King Philip’s War, but only for limited periods of time, not for life. During the war numerous bands of the Indians surrendered to the English at Providence and Newport. The sentiment of the colony against enslaving Indians, here, as in Connecticut, the result of Quaker influence,[469] had already been shown. So, in accordance with the spirit already expressed, it was voted by the town of Providence, August 14, 1676, to appoint a committee of five persons to dispose of the Indians there.[470] The town agreed to abide by the action of the five men.[471] The committee decided to sell the Indians in the colony for a term of years; one-half the proceeds of the sale to go to the captors, and the other half to the public treasury. The length of service was to depend upon the Indians’ ages. Those under five years were to be simple bondsmen till thirty; all above five years, and under ten, till thirty-eight; above ten and under fifteen, till twenty-seven; above fifteen and under twenty, till twenty-six; such as were above thirty, seven years. Several receipts signed by this committee show that such sales occurred.[472] A few days before, the Rhode Island companies had brought in forty-two Indian captives. These, and all other Indian prisoners held at the time, were sold into service in the colony for a period of nine years.[473] The Indians thus sentenced did not become actual slaves according to the strictest interpretation of the term, since the persons who acquired them purchased only their