It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer. I see the smoke of the furnace where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in this work of hell, foul and dark as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. 

LET THAT SPOT BE PURIFIED, OR LET IT CEASE TO BE OF NEW ENGLAND.

Slavery continued to be legal in many parts of the United States.   And, even though slavery was not legal in Massachusetts, there was continued interaction between the merchants and ship owners of Massachusetts and the institution of slavery as practiced elsewhere in the United States.

In 1808, a Delaware slave named George Thompson escaped from his owner, David McIlvain. George Thompson then signed on board a brig owned by William Davis of Plymouth, who employed him until 1812, when his former owner, McIlvain, discovered and reclaimed him. Thompson had used his earnings to buy new clothes, and a small house and plot of land near Coles Hill.  McIlvain claimed not only the person of George Thompson, plus his clothing and property, he also sued William Davis for the wages he had paid to Thompson.  The eventual resolution was that Davis paid McIlvain $150 and, in return, McIlvain turned Thompson’s personal possessions and the title of his house and land over to Davis.

An 1812 letter from David McIlvain details the personal possessions of George Thompson:

1 blue cloth coat fine
1 black ditto fine
1 pair of ribbed velvet pantools
1 ditto black bombazet trousers
1 white shirt
1 white waist coat
1 black bombazet waistcoat
1 black silk waistcoat
3 yellow marsailles waistcoats
1 pair white cotton stockings
2 checked shirts
1 new fur hat
1 chest & one trunk in which are the title papers to his house
1 silver watch.