William as the King of England, the kingdom was ruled by Parliament, which was itself ruled by the trading and manufacturing classes. These classes did their utmost to force negro slavery upon the colonies. Each class had its own reason for this. The manufacturers wanted the colonies to produce only raw materials, which alone could be produced by slave labor. The traders wanted the same thing, as it would increase their trade with the colonies; and they wanted also the profit of the slave trade.
In 1622 the Indians made a wholesale massacre of the scattered colonists of Virginia. The outbreak did not extend to the settlements of Aristopia, but it was a startling warning to them. In 1627 it was estimated that there were less than two thousand white persons living in Virginia, out of the seven thousand sent there and their progeny.
In 1620 a settlement of the Puritans was made in what afterward became the colony of Massachusetts. Arriving in the early part of a terrible winter, nearly destitute on account of the hard terms the Dutch and London merchants made with them in furnishing them passage, there was a great deal of suffering and
