Wayland Town Crier 3/11/10: 'Wayland A to Z': 'S' is for 'Slavery'. Very little is known about slaves in Massachusetts before 1700, due to poor record keeping, a lack of wills, and few newspapers to advertise slave sales or announce rewards for capturing runaways. Many of Sudbury’s settlers, along with the rest of New England’s colonists, were simply too busy clearing fields and raising livestock, dividing land, and preparing for Indian attacks to have the leisure time to write letters or journals. Thus far, only one record has been found of individual slaves or slave owners living in Sudbury before 1700. But that does not mean there were no slaves here. Slaves may have been part of Sudbury households as early as 1653, as can be inferred from town meeting records regarding the division of a new land grant. Most town freemen wanted the land to be divided equally, but a small number had a different suggestion: "The lands shall be divided by the inhabitants according to their several estates and family and counting the family to be the husband, wife, children and such servants as men have that they have either bought or brought up…" Why would this method of land division be proposed if no one in the town had an indentured servant or slave they had paid for?