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In the North, slaves worked in the economy as carpenters, shipwrights, sailmakers, printers, tailors, shoemakers, coopers, blacksmiths, bakers, weavers, and goldsmiths. As they were needed in agriculture, they were used there.
Slaves were vital to the development of northern economies. Slavery became so important to the North that traffic was as honorable as farming, manufacturing, and ordinary commerce. Owning slaves became a symbol of wealth. "No upper-class household was comsidered complete without a staff of Negro retainers and domestic servants." (McManus 7)
In 1776, however, slave trade with Africa virtually ended in the North. In 1770, trade between the North and the West Indies virtually came to a halt. Slavery in the North rapidly declined in the late 1770s and became very rare by the 1800s (Finkelman 388). The first law to bring slavery to an end was in Pennsylvania (Finkelman 375).
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