Few questions have been more interesting to the American people than slavery, and the number of works which have appeared upon the subject has been proportional to the interest aroused. The slavery of negroes has been discussed from almost every point of view, and yet the influence of slavery upon individual States of the Union and its different history and characteristics in the several States have not received the attention they deserve. There have been two able works dealing with this branch of the subject, tracing thoroughly the course of the institution of slavery in the two States of Massachusetts and Maryland.¹ As Massachusetts was the first State of the original number to free her slaves, and as Maryland was a typical Border State, these monographs, apart from their accuracy and completeness, have been valuable contributions to the study of slavery in the separate States, but they stand almost alone.

     It has been the intention of the writer to take up the history of slavery in his native State—Connecticut. The development of slavery and the conditions surrounding it there were not greatly different from those existing in the larger State immediately to the north, yet there were certain phases of the “peculiar institution” in Connecticut which yield a

noteworthy return to the student.¹ Though the formal abolition of slavery in Connecticut did not take place until 1848, there had been practically very few slaves in the State since 1800, and the treatment of the slave had been always comparatively mild and lenient. In the history of the opinion of the people in regard to slavery, we shall find two fairly well marked-off periods, under each of which we shall treat separately the legal, political, and social aspects of slavery. The first of these periods extends from the settlement of the colony until the passage of the Non-importation Act of 1774, and is characterized by a general acquiescence in the existence of slavery and a somewhat harsh slave code.

     The second period, extending from 1774 to 1861, is marked by the diminution and extinction of slavery. It might be divided into two subdivisions. The first subdivision extends from October, 1774, to the rise of the Abolitionists, about 1830, and is characterized by the gradual emancipation of the slaves and amelioration of their condition.

     In the second subdivision, lasting from about 1830 till the Civil War, we find the formal abolition of slavery and the rise of the slavery question as a political issue, culminating in the resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act, and ending in the Act of 1857. The period closes with the acceptance of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1869.