On June 24, 1700, Judge Samuel Sewall of Massachusetts became one of the first public officials to denounce slavery when he published a three page statement, entitled The Selling of Joseph (available at http://www.masshist.org/objects/2004september.cfm). Here he compares slavery in the colonies to the Old Testament story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his own brothers because of jealousy.
What shows this a true act of bravery is that at the same time laws in all colonies regarding slaves were getting more and more restrictive.
From The Massachusetts Historical Society:
Sewall noted in his diary that the slave trade had long troubled him, but The Selling of Joseph appears, at least in part, to have been inspired by a petition circulated in Boston in 1700 "for the freeing of a Negro [Adam] and his wife, who were unjustly held in Bondage." Adam was the slave of John Saffin, a prominent Boston merchant and magistrate. Saffin hired out Adam for a term of seven years and promised him freedom upon his good behavior. Saffin denied Adam his freedom, leading to several years of legal proceedings and a public war of words between Saffin and Sewall. In 1701, Saffin published A Brief and Candid Answer to a late Printed Sheet Entitled the Selling of Joseph, in which he refuted Sewall's objections to slavery and defended his actions in Adam's case. In 1703, after a long legal struggle, Adam finally gained his freedom, but Sewall did not reply directly to Saffin's A Brief and Candid Answer until 1705 when he reprinted an English condemnation of the slave trade that had originally appeared in The Athenian Oracle.
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