Black History - Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first British colony to legalize slavery. That law extended to the Plymouth Colony in 1691, when the two colonies merged.
During the mid-1600's, the colonies began to pass laws called slave codes. This changed idea of the "indentured servant" into what many recognize as the harsh reality of "slavery". In general, these codes prohibited slaves from owning weapons, receiving an education, meeting one another or moving about without the permission of their masters, and testifying against white people in court. Slaves received harsher punishments for some crimes than white people.

A master usually received less punishment for killing a slave than for killing a free person for the same reason. Slaves on small farms probably had more freedom than plantation slaves, and slaves in urban areas had fewer restrictions in many cases than slaves in rural areas.