I should be posting a portion of this work every day until it is ready for print publication, which will be in February, the only month of the year in which history is taught in Baltimore public schools.
[Below is a partial list of English statutes upon which the British colonial slave trade was based.
1572: The Vagabond Act, aimed primarily at men, who were captured while drunk and forced into military service
1618: (September) A Petition to the Council of London on Vagrant Children, stipulated that boys eight years and older were to be sold and enslaved for 16 years, and the girls for 14 years
1620: (January 31) King’s Privy Council Decree on male children
1621: (April 30) Sir Edwin Sandys’ proposal to parliament in regards to “the threat” of the “poor”
1652: (February) Act of Parliament, vagrancy and begging statute stipulating enslavement in the colonies
1662-65: Register for the Privy Council of Scotland, stipulated enslavement for those caught “wandering,” “rogues” and “others”
1664: Act of Parliament stipulated profit sharing on child slavery between the King, judges and traffickers]
