Background
By the mid-18th century, enslavement of Africans had become common practice in Massachusetts. A 1754 census listed nearly 4500 slaves in the colony. Abolitionist sentiment had been growing, especially as the philosophical underpinnings of independence and democracy became common parlance in the colony. While Massachusetts had derived wealth from the Triangle Trade, its merchant and mixed economy was not dependent on slave labor to the extent of southern states.
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