Books listed below are about slavery in Boston and New England. Learn what their lives were like. The North had African Slaves. You will learn that sugar crops of Barbados made Boston a more prosperous town that others were in the New World.

Book list

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Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780-1860.
Joanne Pope Melish, author, filled 334 pages with primary sources revealing how ill-prepared the white population were to accept free people of color. She places race at the center of New England’s history because of its contribution to the labor system building the economy.

Timelines:

1620 = Puritans arrived on the Cape, settled in Plymouth, MA
1630 = the City of Boston was chartered, it was incorporated later
1635 – Harvard University was founded
1638 = the first Black Boston community was established,
the foundation year.

New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America, by Wendy Warren, is up on my Kindle everyday and I’ve made it half-way through. The author’s statement “Barbados was more important to Boston than Boston was to American colonies” was an eyeopener. She skillfully exposes how the rich Bostonian aristocrat achieved status in government and society by banding together with their own kind at the expense of everyone else.
Of Plymouth Plantation, by William Bradford. Bradford lived from 1590-1657. He was born in England and led a religious group seeking freedom from King James I so they could worship God without interference. They organized leaving England. Named The Pilgrims, he led them across the Atlantic on a ship named The Mayflower and landed on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He had aimed for Virginia. The Pilgrims mark PLYMOUTH ROCK and built the Plimoth Plantation to survive. It still stands today. Bradford became the first Governor of Plymouth Colony. He wrote everything down about the journey here. This book is that story in his words.