THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN

PENNSYLVANIA.*

BY PROF. EDWARD RAYMOND TURNER.

Nowhere can the early history of the abolition of American slavery be studied to better advantage than in Pennsylvania. There appeared the first formal protest ever made against slave-holding in North America. There arose the first organized agitation against it. In Pennsylvania was founded the first and greatest of the abolition societies. In Pennsylvania was passed the first law to bring slavery to an end.

Negroes were brought into the colony by the earliest settlers. Cornelis Bom, the Dutch baker of Philadelphia, writes about them in 1684; Isaac Norris and Jonathan Dickinson both refer to them; from time to time William Penn speaks of them himself. Hardly had they been introduced, however, when opposition to slave-holding developed. This opposition arose among the Quakers, and had begun before Pennsylvania was founded. In 1671 George Fox, travelling in the West Indies, advised

* The substance of this paper was delivered as an address before the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania at the Annual Meeting, May 3, 1911. It was then printed in the Public Ledger of Philadelphia, May 7, 1911, from which, by permission of Mr. George W. Ochs, it is republished with alterations and additions.

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Friends to treat their negroes kindly, and to set them free after a certain time of servitude. Four years later William Edmundson asked how it was possible to reconcile with Christ's teaching the practice of holding slaves without hope or expectation of freedom.

Nevertheless there is no doubt that at first the Quakers were the principal slave-holders in Pennsylvania, and probably owned more negroes than any other people in the colony. But after a while some of them began to be troubled by conscientious scruples. In 1688 Pastorius and three associates, all of them German Quakers who had recently come to Pennsylvania and settled at Germantown, issued a memorable protest. In words of surpassing nobleness and simplicity they stated the reasons why they were against slavery and the traffic in men's bodies. Would the masters wish so to be treated? Was it possible for this to be in accordance with Christianity? What would the people of Europe think when they learned that in Pennsylvania men were dealt with like cattle? They desired to be informed whether Christian people could do such things. This was the first formal protest against slavery in any of the English colonies.

A little later, in 1693, George Keith and the Quakers who followed him published An Exhortation & Caution To Friends Concerning buying or keeping of Negroes, in which they declared that slavery was contrary to Christianity, and that masters ought to give their negroes freedom after some reasonable time. It is said that this was the first protest against slavery printed in North America.

For some time these protests seemed to have little effect, but after a while the results were seen. In 1693 the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia advised against the importation of negroes, and urged Friends not to buy slaves unless they intended afterward to set them free. In 1712 the Meeting sought counsel from the Yearly Meeting at London about the importation of negroes.

The answer was that there might come a day when it would be found dangerous to have brought negroes into the country. The Meetings in Pennsylvania then advised against it, and the records show that by 1740 among Friends such importation had ceased.

Many people, especially the Friends, now desired to keep negroes out of the colony as far as possible. This they sought to accomplish by imposing a duty upon negroes imported. By a law of 1700 the duty was made twenty shillings. In 1712 it was raised to twenty pounds. The amount varied from time to time, numerous laws being passed until the outbreak of the Revolution.

In general they accomplished little because of the interference of the English government. Whenever the legislature made the duty high, the authorities in England immediately annulled the law, since they had no idea of allowing colonial assemblies to interfere with the slavetrade, then carried on by the government's protégé, the Royal African Company.

Accordingly negroes continued to be brought into Pennsylvania, but the opposition of Friends toward slavery gradually became more intense. Some of them resolved not only to oppose the importation of slaves but to try to bring slave-holding within the colony to an end. During the earlier years of the eighteenth century these feelings were not shared by all members of the Society, and there is evidence that many of them had no sympathy with the agitation. Isaac Norris writes of a Meeting that was well attended and comfortable. All would have gone well, he says, except that some Friends of Chester warmly urged the question of negroes. But he adds that matters were so managed that the affair was hushed up. In 1738, after Benjamin Lay had published his abolitionist book, All Slave-Keepers-Apostates, the Friends of Philadelphia inserted an advertisement in the American Weekly Mercury denouncing it. Not a few desired to keep the whole subject out of mind.

It proved impossible to do this. There now appeared a band of militant reformers, very much like Garrison and his comrades a century later, who demanded the entire and immediate abolition of slavery. The first of these was William Southbe, who in 1712 petitioned the provincial legislature to set free all the slaves. The Assembly replied that this was neither just nor convenient. Southbe was followed by Ralph Sandiford, who published in 1729 his Mystery of Iniquity, an impassioned protest against slavery. He had aroused such hostility that threats of violence were made against him if he circulated this book, yet he distributed it wherever he felt that it would be of use. One of the early entries in Benjamin Franklin's Account Book is "Ralph Sandiford Cr for Cash receiv'd of Benja Lay for 50 of his Books which he intends to give away 10" (shillings). The work was carried on by this same Benjamin Lay, earnest but eccentric, who for years did all sorts of odd things in Philadelphia to arouse pity for negro bondmen.

It is not easy to say how much good this agitation did. It certainly aroused hostility for the time, but it kept the matter before the public, so that gradually some progress was made, and some negroes were set free.

The first case of manumission seems to have been when Lydia Wade of Chester County gave freedom to her slaves in 1701; though the first will of William Penn, made in the same year, says, "I give to . . . my blacks their freedom as is under my hand already".., this to take effect after his death. It is known, however, that this will was superseded by another in which he did not mention his slaves. In 1717 the records of Christ Church show that a free negress was baptized there.

The freeing of slaves was probably checked by a law passed in 1725-6. "Whereas 'tis found by experience that free negroes are an idle, slothful people and often prove burdensome to the neighborhood and afford ill examples to other negroes," it was ordained that no

master should free his slaves without giving security of thirty pounds that he would see that the free negro did not become a charge to the community. William Rawle, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, afterwards said, "Our Ancestors . . . for a long time deemed it policy to obstruct the Emancipation of Slaves and affected to consider a free Negro as a useless if not a dangerous being" . . . It should be remarked, however, that Peter Kalm, writing in 1748, declares that, "these free Negroes become very lazy and indolent afterwards."

In spite of this law the liberation of negroes was continued. In 1731 John Baldwin of Chester freed his negroes by will, and two years later Ralph Sandiford made all his slaves free. In 1742 Judge Langhorne freed more than thirty negroes; in 1746 Samuel Blunson manumitted his slaves at Columbia; while about the same time John Harris, the founder of Harrisburg, gave liberty to the faithful negro Hercules, who had saved his life from the Indians.

It was among the Friends, however, that the work was going forward most rapidly. They had already ceased importing slaves, and most of them no longer bought negroes; but now strenuous efforts were made to have Friends free the negroes they already possessed. It was not easy to get them to do this. Many believed that in not buying more slaves, and in treating well those whom they had, they were fulfilling all possible obligations. But some would not have it so. As Anthony Benezet said at a later time, "Perhaps thou wilt say, 'I do not buy any negroes: I only use those left me by my father.' But is it enough to satisfy your own conscience?"

In the Friends' Meetings, where the subject was now discussed more and more, the members determined to frown upon any further purchases of negroes, and in 1758 they took the all important step of advising that Friends should manumit their slaves. They resolved that this advice should be heeded, moreover, since it