[Wonder Warthog]

"You may be splitting hairs, but the first sale was in Virginia in 1619 which predated the arrival of the pilgrims a year later. Technically, they were indentured servants because there was no legally established concept of slavery in the Virginia Company colony. I’m not sure, but suspect that was corrected before 1630."

Could be. I came by my info not from any study of early slavery, but from family history. But my main point is that the "northern colonies" were just as guilty on the acceptance of slavery as the southern.

[Vigilanteman]

Correct. There is a cool map on Wikipedia under the heading "slavery in America" which shows the progression of time of abolition.

Pennsylvania was the first to do so. Massachusetts soon followed. The motivation was when the bodies were collected from the Battle of Bunker Hill for burial. There were a significant number of Black soldier who died fighting for our side in that battle, so much so that it led Massachusetts to follow Pennsylvania's lead.

As a sidenote, I am a member of S.A.R. (the male equivalent of the far more numerous and famous DAR). We have black members who are descendants of American Revolution veterans. In fact, there are whole chapters of them in some areas. A North Carolina chapter was featured in our last quarter's magazine.