It was an unusual symptom of freedom in Boston in the early years of American life as an independent state. Free blacks who lived in Boston prior to the newly formed independence respected each other's  property. Newly freed blacks who moved north tended to damage the property of other blacks in particular but whites as well.  They would even give a day's worth of cotton to damage someone's property if they felt the owner wasn't being humble enough to own it or if they just thought they shouldn't have it or because they wanted to bring the person closer.  Who could understand such feelings?

Anyway, what's it to you if someone wrote a few laws that said you had to respect your neighbor's wife and children or his donkeys?  Isn't it quite logical that such a rule should exist?  That means everybody should be respected accordingly lest the whole entire community devolves into anarchy. What's wrong if those rules suggest that you worship the one God who( or that one person up there who is looking out for us) would also help and enable you to keep those basic rules? You may have pirate genes but the bible says that Jacob was also a thief but inevitably resolved his life to have peace.   He put away childish things and chose love. See 1st Corinthians 13.