New England ships were early found in the West Indian slave-trade, and the more the carrying trade developed, the more did the profits of this branch of it attract Puritan captains.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “New England ships were early found in the West Indian slave-trade, and the more the carrying trade developed, the more…”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois notes the early involvement of New England ships in the slave trade and its economic allure.
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Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.