Samuel Sewall published The Selling of Joseph in 1700. The pamphlet demonstrated an awareness of the growing slave trade and the significance of slavery in New England. The enslaved population had more than doubled in the late seventeenth century, and the majority of those enslaved lived in Boston. Sewall wrote against the enslavement of a man named Adam and his wife, about which a petition was circulated in the same year stating they were “unjustly held in Bondage.” Adam was enslaved to Judge John Saffin, a prominent member of society, who had promised him freedom after seven years of service. Saffin then denied Adam freedom, prompting the petition and then Sewall’s pamphlet.