Restrictions in Maryland in the United States
Restrictions in Maryland (the Planting Colonies)
In the book “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1), W. E. B. Du Bois explained the following: Not until the impulse of the Assiento had been felt in America, did Maryland make any attempt to restrain a trade from which she had long enjoyed a comfortable revenue. The Act of 1717, laying a duty of 40s.,36 may have been a mild restrictive measure. The duties were slowly increased to 50s. in 1754,37and £4. in 1763.38 In 1771 a prohibitive duty of £9 was laid;39 and in 1783, after the war, all importation by sea was stopped and illegally imported Negroes were freed.40
Compared with the trade to Virginia and the Carolinas, the slave-trade to Maryland was small, and seems at no time to have reached proportions which alarmed the inhabitants. It was regulated to the economic demand by a slowly increasing tariff, and finally, after 1769, had nearly ceased of its own accord before the restrictive legislation of Revolutionary times.41 Probably the proximity of Maryland to Vir23ginia made an independent slave-trade less necessary to her.
Leave a Reply