In New England, few negroes were ever held as slaves, and the institution disappeared during the first years of the Republic.

The inhabitants had little experience arising from actual contact with slavery.

When slavery disappeared from New England and before there had been developed in the country at large a national feeling of responsibility for its continued existence, interest in the subject declined.

For twenty years previous to the founding of Garrison's Liberator in 1831, organized abolition movements had been almost unknown in New England.

In various ways the people were isolated, separated from contact with slavery.