Chapter 4

[131]Fox’sEpistles, inFriend’s Library, I, 79 (1679).[132]“An Exhortation and Caution to Friends Concerning buying or keeping of Negroes,” inPa. Mag., XIII, 267.[133]Proud,History of Pennsylvania, 423; Gordon,History of Pennsylvania, 114.[134]“Several” (negroes) “are brought to Meetings.” MS. Minutes Radnor Monthly Meetings, 1763–1772, p. 79 (1764). “Most of those possessed of them ... often bring them to our Meetings.”Ibid., 175 (1767).[135]Cf.MS. Yearly Meeting Advices, 1682–1777, “Negroes or Slaves.”[136]Cranz,The Ancient and Modern History of the Brethren ... Unitas Fratrum, 600, 601; Ogden,An Excursion into Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania, 89, 90; IPa. Arch., III, 75;Pa. Mag., XXIX, 363.[137]Cf.Bean,History of Montgomery County, 302.[138]MS. Records of Christ Church, Phila., I, 19, 43, 44, 46, 49, 132, 168, 271, 273, 274, 276, 277, 280, 281, 282, 283, 288, 293, 306, 312, 314, 333, 337, 341, 342, 344, 352, 353, 359, 371, 379, 383, 388, 392, 397, 399, 416, 440, 441. Baptisms were very frequent in the years 1752 and 1753. Very many of the slaves admitted were adults, whereas in the case of free negroes at the same period most of the baptisms were of children.[139]William Macclanechan, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1760, says: “On my Journey to New-England, I arrived at the oppulent City of Philadelphia, where I paid my Compliments to the Rev’d Dr. Jenney, Minister of Christ’s Church in that City, and to the Rev’d Mr. Sturgeon,Catechist to the Negroes.” H. W. Smith,Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith, I, 238.[140]“Many negroes came, ... some enquiring, have I a soul?” Gillies and Seymour,Memoirs of the Life and Character of ... Rev. George Whitefield(3d ed.), 55. “I believe near Fifty Negroes came to give me Thanks, under God, for what has been done to their Souls.... Some of them have been effectually wrought upon, and in an uncommon Manner.”A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, 65, 66. “Visited a Negroe and prayed with her, and found her Heart touched by Divine Grace. Praised be the Lord, methinks one Negroe brought to Jesus Christ is peculiarly sweet to my Soul.” W. Seward,Journal of a Voyage from Savannah to Philadelphia, etc., Apr. 18, 1740.[141]“This afternoon a Negro man from Cecil County maryland preached in orchard opposite to ours. there was Sundry people, they said he spoke well for near an hour.” MS. Ch. Marshall’s Remembrancer, E, July 13, 1779.[142]“Then (the pror and Gov.) proposed to them the necessitie of a law ... about the marriages of negroes.”Col. Rec., I, 598, 606, 610;Votes and Proceedings, I, 120, 121; Bettle, “Notices of Negro Slavery as connected with Pennsylvania,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., VI, 368; Clarkson,Life of Penn, II, 80–82. Clarkson attributes the defeat to the lessening of Quaker influence, the lower tone of the later immigrants, and temporary hostility to the executive. More probably the bill failed because stable marriage relations have always been found incompatible with the ready movement and transfer of slave property; and because at this early period the slaveholders recognized this fact, and were not yet disposed to allow their slaves to marry.[143]Stat. at L., II, 22.Cf.Commonwealthv.Clements (1814), 6 Binney 210.[144]St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 221; Kalm,Travels, I, 391. Kalm adds that it was considered an advantage to have negro women, since otherwise the offspring belonged to another master.[145]MS. Rec. Christ Church, 4239, 4317, 4361, 4370, 4371, 4373, 4376, 4379, 4381, 4404, 4405; MS. Rec. First Reformed Church, 4158, 4315; MS. Rec. St. Michael’s and Zion, 109. Among the Friends there are very few records of such marriages.Cf.however, MS. Journal of Joshua Brown, 5 2d mo., 1774: ... “I rode to Philadelphia ... and Lodged that Night at William Browns and 5th day of the mothI Spent in town and Was at a Negro Wedding in the Eving Where Several perMett and had a Setting with them and they took Each other and the Love of God Seemd to be Extended to them”.... A negro marriage according to Friends’ ceremony is recorded in MS. Deed Book O, 234, West Chester.Cf.Mittelberger,Journey, 106, “The blacks are likewise married in the English fashion.” There must have been much laxity, however, for only a part of which the negroes were to blame. “They are suffered, with impunity, to cohabit together, without being married, and to part, when solemnly engaged to one another as man and wife”.... Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 134.[146]St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 222.[147]“Accotof Negroes Dr. ... for my Negroe Cuffee and his Wife Rose and their Daughter Jenny botof WmBanloft ... 76/3/10.” MS. James Logan’s Account Book, 90 (1714). “Wanted, Four or Five Negro Men ... if they have families, wives, or children, all will be purchased together.”Pa. Packet, Aug. 22, 1778.Cf.alsoMercury, June 4, 1724; June 21, 1739;Independent Gazeteer, July 14, 1792.Cf.however, Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 136; Crawford,Observations upon Negro Slavery(1784), 23, 24;Pa. Packet, Jan. 1, 1780.[148]This was not always the case. The MS. Rec. of Sandy Bank Cemetery, Delaware Co., contains the names of two negroes.[149]MS. Minutes Middletown Monthly Meeting, 2d Book A, 171, 558, 559;Pa. Mag., VIII, 419; Isaac Comly, “Sketches of the History of Byberry,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., II, 194. There were exceptions, however.Cf.MS. Bk. of Rec. Merion Meeting Grave Yard.[150]Bean,Hist. Montgomery Co., 302; Martin,Hist. of Chester, 80; Kalm,Travels, I, 44;Pa. Gazette, Nov. 15, 1775.[151]Stat. at L., IV, 59;Col. Rec., II, 18; 1Pa. Arch.XI, 667;Mercury, Apr. 12, 1739;Phila. Staatsbote, Jan. 16, 1764,Pa. Gazette, Nov. 12, 1761. For an instance of a slave killing his master,cf.MS. Supreme Court Papers, XXI, 3546. This was very rare.Pa. Mag., XIII, 449. According to Judge Bradford’s statement arson was “the crime of slaves and children.”Journal of Senate of Pa., 1792–1793, p. 52;Col. Rec., IV, 243, 244, 259; XII, 377; MS. Miscellaneous Papers, Feb. 25, 1780.Cf.especially MS. Records of Special Courts for the Trial of Negroes;Col. Rec., IX, 648; MS. Streper Papers, 55.[152]In 1737 the Council spoke of the “insolent Behaviour of the Negroes in and about the city, which has of late been so much taken notice of”....Col. Rec., IV, 244;Votes and Proceedings, IV, 171. As to pilfering Franklin remarked that almost every slave was by nature a thief.Works(ed. Sparks), II, 315.[153]The following has not lost all significance. “I was much Disturbed after I came our girl Poll driving her same stroke of Impudence as when she was in Philadaand her mistress so hood-winked by her as not to see it which gave me much uneasiness and which I am determined not to put up with”.... Ch. Marshall, Remembrancer, D, Aug. 4, 1777.Cf.alsoRemarks on the Quaker Unmasked(1764).[154]As shown by the very careless enforcement of the special regulations.[155]Except immediately following the negro “insurrection” in New York in 1712.Cf.Stat. at L., II, 433; 1Pa. Arch., IV, 792; 2Pa. Arch., XV, 368.[156]“A negro man and a White Woman servant being taken up ... and brought before John Simcocke Justice in Commission for runaways Who upon examination finding they had noe lawful Passe Comitted them to Prison” ... MS. Court Rec. Penna. and Chester Co., 1681–88, p. 75; MS. New Castle Ct. Rec., Liber A, 158 (1677); MS. Minutes Ct. Quarter Sess. Bucks Co., 1684–1730, p. 138 (1690); MS. Minutes Chester Co. Courts, 1681–1697, p. 222 (1694–1695). For the continual going away of Christopher Marshall’s “Girl Poll,” see his Remembrancer, vol. D.[157]The following is not only typical, but is very interesting on its own account, since Abraham Lincoln was a descendent of the family mentioned. “Runaway on the 13th ofSeptemberlast fromAbraham LincolnofSpringfieldin the County of Chester, a Negro Man named Jack, about 30 Years of Age, low Stature, speaks little or noEnglish, has a Scar by the Corner of one Eye, in the Form of a V, his Teeth notched, and the Top of one on his Fore Teeth broke; He had on when he went away an old Hat, a grey Jacket partly like a Sailor’s Jacket. Whoever secures the said Negro, and brings him to his Master, or toMordecaiLincoln ... shall haveTwenty ShillingsReward and reasonable Charges.”Pa. Gazette, Oct. 15, 1730.[158]Mercury, Apr. 18, 1723; July 11, 1723;Gazette, May 3, 1744; Feb. 22, 1775; July 28, 1779; Jan. 17, 1782;Packet, Oct. 13, 1778; Aug. 3, 1779. One negro indentured himself to a currier.Gazette, Aug. 30, 1775. Such negroes the community was warned not to employ.Packet, Feb. 27, 1779.[159]The penalty was thirty shillings for every day.Stat. at L., IV, 64 (1725–1726). There was need for regulation from the first.Cf.Col. Rec., I, 117. An advertisement from Reading inGazette, July 31, 1776, explains the procedure when suspects were held in jail. Such advertisements recur frequently.Cf.Mercury, Aug. 13, 1730 (third notice);Gazette, Dec. 27, 1774;Packet, Mar. 23, 1779.[160]For negroes carried off or who ran away at this timecf.MS. Miscellaneous Papers, Sept. 1, 1778; Nov. 19, 1778; Aug. 20, 1779; and others. Numbers of strange negroes were reported to be wandering around in Northumberland County.Ibid., Aug. 29, 1780. In 1732 the Six Nations had been asked not to harbor runaway negroes, since they were “the Support and Livelihood of their Masters, and gett them their Bread.” 4Pa. Arch., II, 657, 658.[161]So I judge from statistics which I have compiled from the advertisements in the newspapers.[162]Mercury, Apr. 18, 1723;Packet, July 16, 1778;Gazette, June 12, 1740; Feb. 4, 1775; Jan. 3, 1776; July 2, 1781;Gazette, Nov. 17, 1748; Feb. 21, 1775. “‘Old Dabbo’ an African Negro ... call’d here for some victuals.... He had three gashes on each cheek made by his mother when he was a child.... His conversation is scarcely intelligible”; MS. Diary of Joel Swayne, 1823–1833, Mar. 27, 1828.Mercury, Aug. 6, 1730;Packet, Aug. 26, 1779;Gazette, July 31, 1739–1740;Mercury, June 24, 1725;Packet, June 22, 1789;Packet, Dec. 31, 1778;Gazette, Sept. 10, 1741; July 21, 1779; Sept. 11, 1746; Oct. 16, 1776; July 30, 1747; May 14, 1747; Oct. 22, 1747; Aug. 30, 1775; Mar. 22, 1747–1748; July 24, 1776; Apr. 23, 1761; July 5, 1775;Packet, Jan. 26, 1779.[163]“My Dear Companion ... has really her hands full, Cow to milk, breakfast to get, her Negro woman to bath, give medicine, Cap up with flannels, as She is allways Sure to be poorly when the weather is cold, Snowy and Slabby. its then She gives her Mistriss a deal of fatigue trouble in attending on her.” Ch. Marshall, Remembrancer, E, Mar. 25, 1779. “To Israel Taylor p order of the Comsfor Cureing negro Jack legg ... 4/10 To Roger Parke for Cureing negro sam ... /9/9.” MS. William Penn’s Account Book, 1690–1693, p. 8. A bill for £10 10 sh. 4d. was rendered to Thomas Penn for nursing and burying his negro Sam. Some of the items are very humorous. MS. Penn Papers, Accounts (unbound), Feb. 19, 1741. The bill for Thomas Penn’s negroes, Hagar, Diana, and Susy, for the years 1773 and 1774, amounted to £5 5 sh. Penn-Physick MSS., IV, 253. An item in a bill rendered to Mrs. Margaretta Frame is: “To bleeding her Negro man Sussex ... /2/6.” MS. Penn Papers, Accounts (unbound), June 5, 1742. St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 221. Masters were compelled by law to support their old slaves who would otherwise have become charges on the community.Cf.Stat. at L., X, 70;Laws of Pa., 1803, p. 103;1835–1836, pp. 546, 547. In very many cases, however, old negroes were maintained comfortably until death in the families where they had served.Cf.MS. Phila. Wills, X, 94 (1794). There are numerous instances of negroes receiving property by their master’s wills.Cf.West Chester Will Files, no. 3759 (1785). For the darker sidecf.Lay,All Slave-Keepers Apostates, 93.[164]“Many of those whom the good Quakers have emancipated have received the great benefit with tears in their eyes, and have never quitted, though free, their former masters and benefactors.” St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 222;Pa. Mag., XVIII, 372, 373; Buck, MS.History of Bucks Co., marginal note of author in his scrapbook. For the superiority of slaverycf.J. Harriot,Struggles through Life, etc., II, 409. Also Watson,Annals, II, 265.[165]It has been suggested that it was milder than the system under which redemptioners were held, and that hence “Quaker scruples against slavery were either misplaced or insincere.” C. A. Herrick, “Indentured Labor in Pennsylvania,” (MS. thesis, University of Pa.), 89. An examination of the Quaker records would have shown that the last part of this statement is not true. See below, chaps.IV,V.[166]It is of course possible that some of these negroes had been servants, and that their period of service was over.[167]“Where As William Clark did buy ... An negor man Called and knowen by the name of black Will for and during his natrill Life; never the Less the said William Clark doe for the Incourigment of the sd neagor servant hereby promise Covenant and Agree; that if the said Black Will doe well and Truely sarve the said William Clark ... five years ... then the said Black Will shall be Clear and free of and from Any further or Longer Sarvicetime or Slavery ... as wittnes my hand this Thurteenth day of ... June Anno; Din; 1682.” MS. Ancient Rec. of Sussex Co., 1681–1709, p. 116.[168]“My will is that my negroes John and Jane his wife shall be set free one month after my decease.” Ashmead,History of Delaware County, 203.[169]“I give to ... my blacks their freedom as is under my hand already” ... MS. Will of William Penn, Newcastle on Delaware, 30th 8br, 1701. This will, which was left with James Logan, was not carried out. Penn’s last will contains no mention of his negroes. He frequently mentions them elsewhere.Cf.MS. Letters and Papers of William Penn (Dreer), 29 (1689), 35 (1690);Pa. Mag., XXXIII, 316 (1690); MS. Logan Papers. II, 98 (1703).Cf.also Penn. MSS., Official Correspondence, 97.[170]Col. Rec., II, 120.[171]Jane “a free negro woman” ... MS. Rec. Christ Church, 46.[172]“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” ... “An Act for the better regulating of Negroes in this Province.”Stat. at L., IV, 61.[173]“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” ... Letter of W. Rawle (1787), in MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Slavery.[174]Votes and Proceedings, II, 336, 337.[175]“An Act for the better regulating of Negroes in this Province.”Stat. at L., IV, 61 (1725–1726).[176]“This is however very expensive for they are obliged to make a provision for the Negro thus set at liberty, to afford him subsistence when he is grown old, that he may not be driven by necessity to wicked actions, or that he may be at anybody’s charge, for these free Negroes become very lazy and indolent afterwards.” Kalm,Travels, I, 394 (1748).[177]Cf.Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 30. The author ofBrief Considerations on Slavery, and the Expediency of Its Abolition(1773) argued that the public derived benefit from the labor of adult free negroes, and that the public should pay the surety required. By an elaborate calculation he endeavored to prove that a sum of about five shillings deposited at interest by the community each year of the negro’s life after he was twenty-one, would amply suffice for all requirements. Pp. 8–14 of the second part, entitled “An Account Stated on the Manumission of Slaves.” He says “As the laws stand at present in several of our northern governments, the act of manumission is clogged with difficulties that almost amount to a prohibition.”Ibid., 11.[178]Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 696.[179]Stat. at L., X, 72.[180]Martin,History of Chester, 480; Watson,Annals, II, 265;Pa. Mag., VII, 82; Davis,History of Bucks County, 798; MS. in Miscellaneous Collection, Box 10, Negroes; Morgan,Annals of Harrisburg, 11; Smedley,History of the Underground Railroad in Chester, etc., 27;Pa. Mag., XII, 188; XXIX, 363, 365; MS. Rec. Christ Church, 46, 352, 356, 379, 400, 403, 404, 440, 441, 455, 475, 4126, 4330, 4356; MS. Rec. First Reformed Church, 4126, 4248; MS. Rec. St. Michael’s and Zion, 97.[181]Cf.Conyngham’s “Historical Notes,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 338.[182]See below,p. 74.[183]MS. Miscellaneous Papers, 1684–1847, Chester Co., 101 (1764).[184]They were generally held longer than apprentices or white servants—until twenty-eight or thirty years of age, but many of the Friends protested against this. MS. Diary of Richard Barnard, 24 5 mo., 1782; M.S. Minutes Exeter Monthly Meeting, Book B, 354 (1779).[185]“I do hereby Certify that Benjamin Mifflin hath given me Directions to sell his Negro man Cuff to himself for the Sum of Sixty Pounds if he can raise the Money having Repeatedly refused from Others seventy Five Pounds and upwards for him.” MS. (1769) in Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[186]Pa. Gazette, Mar. 5, 1751.[187]Cf.Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 134, 135, where he laments the difficulties under which free negroes labor. Also same author,A Mite Cast into the Treasury, 13–17, where he argues that negro servants should not be held longer than white apprentices.[188]“Die mährischen Brüder folgten diesem rühmlichen Beispiel; so auch Christen von den übrigen Bekenntnissen.”Ebeling, inErdbeschreibung, etc., IV, 220.[189]Cf.preamble to the act of 1780.Stat. at L., X, 67, 68. A negro twenty-one years old was manumitted because “all mankind have an Equal Natural and Just right to Liberty.” MS. Extracts Rec. Goshen Monthly Meeting, 415 (G. Cope).[190]MS. General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, Phila. Co., 1773–1780. Franklin, Letter to Dean Woodward, Apr. 10, 1773, inWorks(ed. Sparks), VIII, 42.[191]In 1751 the number of negroes in Pennsylvania, including Delaware, was thought to be 11,000.Cf.above, p. 12. The negroes in Pennsylvania alone by 1780 probably did not exceed the same number. Of these 6,000 were said to be slaves.Cf.above,ibid.In some places by this time manumission was nearly complete.Cf.W. J. Buck, inColl. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 201.[192]MSS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[193]MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 19, 27, 29, 43, 67, andpassim.[194]A MS. dated Phila., 1769, contains a list of persons who had promised to contribute towards purchasing a negro’s freedom. Among the memoranda are: “John Head agrees to give him Twenty Shillings and not to be Repaid ... John Benezet twenty Shillings ... Christopher Marshall /7/6.... If he can raise with my Donation enough to free him I agree to give him three pounds and not otherwise I promise Saml Emlen jur ... Joseph Pemberton by his Desire [Fiveerased] pounds £3.” MS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[195]Misc. MSS. 1744–1859. Northern, Interior and Western Counties, 191 (1782).[196]In 1779 a negro of Bucks County to secure the freedom of his wife gave his note to be paid by 1783. In 1782, having paid part, he was allowed to take his wife until the next payment. In 1785 she was free. MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 27–43. In 1787 negro Samson had purchased his wife and children for ninety-nine pounds.Ibid., I, 67. James Oronogue, who had been hired by his master to the keeper of a tavern, gained by his obliging behavior sixty pounds from the customers within four years’ time, and at his master’s death was allowed to purchase his freedom for one hundred pounds. He paid besides fifty pounds for his wife.Ibid., I, 69. When Cuff Douglas had been a slave for thirty-seven years his master promised him freedom after four years more. On the master agreeing to take thirty pounds in lieu of this service, Douglas hired himself out, and was free at the end of sixteen months. He then began business as a tailor, and presently was able to buy his wife and children for ninety pounds, besides one son for whom he paid forty-five pounds.Ibid., I, 72. Alsoibid., I, 79, 91.[197]“Wanted to purchase, a good Negro Wench.... If to be sold on terms of freedom by far the most agreeable.”Pa. Packet, Aug. 22, 1778. In 1791 Caspar Wistar bought a slave for sixty pounds “to extricate him from that degraded Situation” ..., his purpose being to keep the negro for a term of years only. MS, Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes. Numerous other examples among the same MSS.[198]“I, John Lettour from motives of benevolence and humanity ... do ... set free ... my Negro Girl Agathe Aged about Seventeen Years. On condition ... that she ... bind herself by Indenture to serve me ... Six years”.... MS.ibid.Cf.MS. Abstract Rec. Abington Monthly Meeting, 372 (1765).[199]“I Manumit ... my Negro Girl Abb when she shall Arrive to the Age of Eighteen Years ... (on Condition that the Committee for the Abolition of slavery shall make entry according to Law ... so as to secure me from any Costs or Trouble on me or my Estate on said Negro after the age of Eighteen Years) ... Hannah Evans.” MS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.Cf.Stat. at L., X, 70. At times this might become an unpleasant reality.Cf.MS. State of a Case respecting a Negro (Ridgway Branch).[200]Edmundson’sJournal, 61. Janney,History of the Friends, III, 178.[201]Pennypacker, “The Settlement of Germantown,” inPa. Mag., IV, 28; McMaster, “The Abolition of Slavery in the United States,” inChatauquan, XV, 24, 25 (Apr., 1892). For the protest against slavery and the slave-trade (De instauranda Æthiopum Salute, Madrid, 1647) of the Jesuit, Alfonso Sandoval,cf.Saco,Historia de la Esclavitud de la Raza Africana en el Nuevo Mundo, 253–256.[202]Pennypacker,place cited; Learned,Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius, 261, 262. Facsimile of protest in Ridgway Branch of the Library Company of Philadelphia.[203]The Monthly Meeting declared “we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here.” Pennypacker,place cited, 30, 31.[204]Watson,Annals, II, 262. “An Exhortation and Caution To Friends Concerning buying or keeping of Negroes,” inPa. Mag., XIII, 265–270. This is said to have been the first printed protest against slavery in America.Cf.Hildeburn,A Century of Printing, etc., I, 28, 29; Gabriel Thomas,Account, 53; Bettle,Notes, 367.[205]Clarkson,Life of Penn, II, 78, 79.[206]Cf.Bettle, 372.[207]Ibid., 373.[208]Ibid., 377.[209]“Whereas several Papers have been read relating to the keeping and bringing in of Negroes ... it is the advice of this Meeting, that Friends be careful not to encourage the bringing in of any more Negroes” ... MS. “Negroes or Slaves,” Yearly Meeting Advices, 1682–1777 (1696). “This meeting is also dissatisfied with Friends buying and incouriging the bringing in of Negroes” ... MS. Chester Quarterly Meeting Minutes, 6 6th mo., 1711. “There having a conscern Come upon severall friends belonging to this meeting Conscerning the Importation of Negros ... after some time spent in the Consideration thereof it is the Unanimous sence of this meeting that friends should not be concerned hereafter in the Importation thereof nor buy any” ... MS. Chester Monthly Meeting Minutes, 27 4th mo., 1715. MS. Chester Quarterly Meeting Minutes, 1 6th mo., 1715. “This meeting have been for some time under a Concern by reason of the great Quantity of Negros fetched and imported into this Country.”Ibid., 11 6th mo., 1729. MS. Yearly Meeting Minutes, 19–23 7th mo., 1730. As soon as Friends had been brought to cease the importation of negroes, attack was made upon the practice of Friends buying negroes imported by others.Cf.MS. Chester Q. M. M., 11 6th mo., 1729; 9 9th mo., 1730. The MS. Chester M. M. M. mention 100 books on the slave-trade for circulation.[210]“We also kindly received your advice about negro slaves, and we are one with you, that the multiplying of them, may be of a dangerous consequence, and therefore a Law was made in Pennsylvania laying Twenty pounds Duty upon every one imported there, which Law the Queen was pleas’d to disanull, we would heartily wish that a way might be found to stop the bringing in more here, or at least that Friends may be less concerned in buying or selling, of any that may be brought in, and hope for your assistance with the Government if any farther Law should be made discouraging the importation. We know not of any Friend amongst us that has any hand or concern in bringing any out of their own Country.” MS. Yearly M. M., 22 7th mo., 1714. This was written in reply to the London Yearly Meeting, and alludes to the act passed in 1712. See above,p. 3.[211]See above,p. 65.Cf.also P. C. Plockhoy’s principle laid down in hisKort en Klaer Ontwerp(Amsterdam, 1662): “No lordship or servile slavery shall burden our Company.” Quoted in Pennypacker,Settlement of Germantown, 204, 292.[212]“The Germans seldom hire men to work upon their farms.” Rush,An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania(1789), 24. “They never, as a general thing, had colored servants or slaves.”Ibid., 24 (note by Rupp). “Slaves in Pennsylvania never were as numerous in proportion to the white population as in New York and New Jersey. To our German population this is certainly attributable—Wherever they or their numerous descendants located they preferredtheir ownlabor to that of negro slaves.” Buck, MS.History of Bucks County, 69. “Of all the nations who have settled in America, the Germans have availed themselves the least of the unjust and demoralizing aid of slavery.” W. Grimshaw,History of the United States, 79. The truth of these statements is revealed in the tax-lists of the different counties. Thus, in Berks County there were 2692 German tax-payers (61%) and 1724 (39%) not Germans. Of these 44 Germans held 62 slaves, and 57 of other nationalities held 92 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XVIII, 303–430. In York County, where there were 2051 German property-holders (34%) and 3993 who were not Germans (66%), 27 Germans held 44 slaves as against 178 others who held 319 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XXI, 165–324. (Both these estimates are for 1780.) In Lancaster County the property-holders included approximately 3475 Germans (48%) and 3706 not Germans (52%). Here 31 Germans held 46 slaves, while 200 not Germans held 402 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XVII, 489–685 (1779). The records of the German churches rarely mention slaves.[213]The small number of negroes in Pennsylvania was often noticed. Burnaby,Travels through the Middle Settlements, 63, said “there are few negroes or slaves” ... (1759), Anburey,Travels through the Interior Parts of America, II, 280–281, said, “The Pennsylvanians ... are more industrious of themselves, having but few blacks among them.” (1778).Cf.Proud,History, II, 274. Estimates as to the number of Germans in Pennsylvania vary from 3/5 (1747,cf.Rupp’s note in Rush,Account, 1) to 1/3 (1789,ibid., 54). For many estimatescf.Diffenderffer,German Immigration into Pennsylvania, pt. II,The Redemptioners, 99–108. Some few Germans had intended to hold slaves from the first.Cf.the articles of agreement between the members of the Frankfort Company (1686): ... “alle ... leibeigenen Menschen ... sollen unter Allen Interessenten pro rato der Ackerzahl gemein seyn.” MS. in possession of S. W. Pennypacker, Philadelphia.[214]Watson, (MS.) Annals, 530. The same spirit is apparent much later. “There generally appeared an uneasiness in their minds respecting them, tho all are not so fully convinced of the Iniquity of the practice as to get over the difficulty which they apprehend would attend their giving them their liberty” ... MS. Abstract Rec. Gwynedd Monthly Meeting, 278 (1770). “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?” Benezet,Notes on the Slave Trade, 8.[215]Votes and Proceedings, II, 110;The Friend, XXVIII, 293, and following; A. C. Thomas, “The Attitude of the Society of Friends toward Slavery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Particularly in Relation to Its Own Members,” inAmer. Soc. Church History, VIII, 273, 274.[216]“Ralph Sandiford Crfor Cash receiv’d of BenjaLay for 50 of his Books which he intends to give away ... 10” (sh.) MS. Benjamin Franklin’s Account Book, Feb. 28, 1732–1733.[217]Sandiford,Mystery of Iniquity, 43; Vaux,Memoirs of the Lives of Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sandiford;The Friend, L, 170; Thomas,Attitude, 274; Franklin,Works(ed. Sparks), X, 403.[218]Cf.American Weekly Mercury, Nov. 2, 1738, for notice in which the Friends’ Meeting denounces hisAll Slave-Keepers ... Apostates(1737).Cf.anecdotes related by Vaux; Bettle,Notices, 375, 376;The Friend, L, 170; Thomas,Attitude, 274.[219]Bettle,Notices, 378–382; Thomas,Attitude, 245, 275–279; Tyler,Literary History of the American Revolution, II, 339–347;The Friend, LIII, 190; Woolman,Journal.[220]Vaux,Memoirs of Benezet;The Friend, LXXI, 369; Thomas, 274, 275; Bettle, 382–387; Benezet’s own writings.[221]Thomas, 273. There must have been a great many other reformers of considerable influence, but of less fame, about whose work little has come down.Cf.“Thos. Nicholson on Keeping Negroes” (1767). MS. in Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[222]Cf.MS. Chester Q. M. M., 14 6th mo., 1738; 8 6th mo., 1743.[223]Needles,Memoir, 13.[224]Bettle, 377.[225]The MS. Chester Q. M. M., 8 8th mo., 1763, say ... “we are not quite clear of dealing in Negro’s, but care is taken mostly to discourage it ....” Three years later they add ... “clear of importing or purchasing Negro’s.”Ibid., 11 8th mo., 1766.Cf.alsoibid., 10 8th mo., 1767; MS. Chester M. M. Miscellaneous Papers, 28 1st mo., 1765; MS. Darby M. M. M., II, 11, 12, 16, 19, (1764), 24, 27, 31, 33, 35, 38, 40, 42, 45, 46, (1764–1765). These references concern the case of Enoch Eliot, who, having purchased two negroes, was repeatedly urged to set them free, and finally did so. MS. Abstract Rec. Abington M. M., 28 7th mo., 1760; 25 8th mo., 1760. “One of the frdsappdto visit Jonathan Jones reports they all had an oppertunity With him sdJonathan, and that he gave them exspectation of not making any more purchases of that kind, as also he is sorry for the purchace he did make” ...Ibid., 24 11th mo., 1760; alsoibid., 24 11th mo., 1760; 20 9th mo., 1762; 29 10th mo., 1764.[226]MS. Yearly M. M., 23–29 9th mo., 1758, where Friends are earnestly entreated to “sett them at Liberty, making a Christian Provision for them according to their Ages etc”....Cf.report about George Ragan: ... “as to his Buying and selling a Negro, he saith he Cannot see the Evil thereof, and therefore cannot make any satisfaction, and as he has been much Laboured with by this mgto bring him to a sight of his Error, This mgtherefore agreeable to a minute of our Yearly Mgcan do no Less than so far Testify agst him ... as not to Receive his Collections, neither is he to sit in our mgsfor Discipline until he can see his Error” ... MS. Abst. Abington M. M., 288 (1761).Cf.Michener,Retrospect of Early Quakerism, 346, 347;A Brief Statement of the rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends, against Slavery and the Slave Trade, 21–24; Sharpless,A History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, II, 229; Needles, 13. For the fervid feeling at this timecf.Journal of John Churchman(1756), inFriends’ Library, VI, 236.[227]Bettle, 378; Sharpless, II, 229.Cf.alsoJournal of Daniel Stanton, inFriends’ Library, XII, 167.[228]MS. Abst. Abington M. M., 328, 336, 347, 351, 358, 368, 372, 398; MS. Min. Sadsbury M. M., 1737–8—1783, pp. 270, 290; MS. Min. Radnor M. M., 1772–1782, pp. 63, 66, 71, 102, 103, 107, etc.; MS. Min. Women’s Q. M., Bucks Co., 26 8th mo., 1779; 30 8th mo., 1781; MS. Darby M. M. M., II, 87, 91, 93, (1769), 178 (1774), 180, 181, 184, 186, 190 (1775), 309, 312 (1780); MS. Women’s Min. Darby M. M., 2 2d mo., 1775; 30 3rd mo., 1775; 3 8th mo., 1780; 31 8th mo., 1780; MS. Extracts Buckingham M. M., 128, 130, 136 (1767–1768); MS. Diary of Richard Barnard, 24 9th mo., 1774; 7 6th mo., 1780; MS. Journal of Joshua Brown, 11th mo., 1775; above all the MS. Diary of James Moon,passim.Cf.Sharpless,Quakerism and Politics, 159–178; Whittier’s introduction to John Woolman’sJournal.[229]Futhey and Cope,History of Chester Co., 423.[230]Cf.Abst. Rec. Gwynedd M. M., 201, 204, 213, 218, 240, 270, 271, 273, 278, 280, 307, 311, 312, 316, 321, 322, 323, 336, 348, 374, 471; MS. Papers Middletown M. M., 1759–1786, pp. 386, 388, 389, 390; Franklin,Works, (ed. Sparks). VIII, 42.[231]Brief Statement, 49.[232]MS. Yearly M. M., 27 9th mo., 1776;Brief Statement, 24–27; Needles, 13; Thomas, 245; Sharpless,History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, II, 138, 139.[233]Brief Statement, 31–35; Needles, 13; Sharpless, II, 226. For some years the Meetings continued to make regular reports on this subject. “7th No Slaves among us and such of their Offspring as are under our Care are generally pretty well provided for.” MS. Rec. Warrington Q. M., 25 8th mo., 1788.[234]In the absence of a plantation system slavery in Pennsylvania never was profitable in the same sense as in Virginia or South Carolina, and where white labor could be obtained slavery could not compete.Cf.Franklin,Works, II, 314, 315 (1751). But as it was almost impossible to obtain sufficient white labor, or at least to retain it, slavery as it existed in Pennsylvania was profitable throughout the colonial period. For the strong desire to import, see above, chap. I. For the high prices paid in the first quarter of the nineteenth century for the right to hold negroes to the age of 28, see below, p. 94.[235]This is my judgment after a careful investigation of the Friends’ records. Adam Smith, who had not seen these records, but who wrote just when the work was being completed, thought differently.Wealth of Nations(ed. Rogers), I, 391.[236]Other sects followed the example of the Friends,cf.Ebeling, IV, 220, but their work was mostly significant in connection with the legislative work of the Assembly. For the effects of the work of the Friendscf.Bowden,History of the Friends, II, 221.[237]Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 696.[238]1Pa. Arch., VII, 79;Journal of House of Rep., 1776–1781, p. 311.[239]Col. Rec., XII, 99;Pa. Packet, Sept. 16, 1779;Journals of House, 1776–1781, pp. 392, 394, 399, 412, 424, 435;Packet, Mar. 13, 1779; Dec. 25, 1779; Jan. 1, 1780;Gazette, Dec. 29, 1779; Vaux,Memoirs of Benezet, 92. The distribution of the vote seems to have had no political, no religious, and probably no economic significance. The measure was popular in and out of the Assembly.Packet, Dec. 25, 1779;Jour. of House, 1776–1781, p. 435. An earlier bill had been published in thePacket, Mar. 4, 1779. It is very interesting. The bill as finally drafted became the first act for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Accordingly its authors had to do much original and constructive work. In the course of the work their ideas underwent some change, and the transition is easily seen in comparing the first bill of 1779 with the act as passed in 1780. In some respects the first is more liberal than the second; in other respects less so. Thus at first it was intended to make the children of slaves servants until twenty-one only. (Packet, Mar. 4, 1779). “A Citizen” discussing this objected that the master would receive inadequate compensation for rearing negro children, and urged that the age limit be made twenty-eight or even thirty. (Packet, Mar. 13, 1779), and so pay for the unproductive years, which was but just. The law made the age twenty-eight. On the other hand it was at first proposed to continue the prohibition of intermarriage and the permission to bind out idle free negroes. (Packet, Mar. 4, 1779). Both these provisions were omitted from the law.[240]Stat. at L., X, 67–73; 2 Sergeant and Rawle, 305–309. Many of the Friends thought that negroes ought not to be held after they were twenty-one.Cf.MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 23. Very many masters lost their negroes through failing to register them, through ignorance of the provision requiring registry, or through carelessness in complying with it.Cf.Rush,Considerations upon the Present Test-Law, (2nd ed.), 7 (note);Journals of House, 1776–1781, p. 537, and following; 4Pa. Arch., III, 822.Cf.Christopher Marshall’s Remembrancer, F, Oct. 10, 1780: ... “gott our Negro Recorded.”Cf.York Herald, Apr. 26, 1797. The limit was extended to Jan. 1, 1783, in favor of the citizens of Washington and Westmoreland counties, previously under the jurisdiction of Virginia.Stat. at L., X, 463. Runaways from other states were of course not made free by this provision.Cf.sect. VIII of act.[241]The repeal of this section was proposed the next year, but failed by three votes.Cf.Journals of House, 1776–1781, p. 605. It was finally repealed in 1847.[242]Sect. X of act.[243]For the view that it was drafted by William Lewis,cf.Pa. Mag., XIV, 14; Robert E. Randall,Speech on the Laws of the State relative to Fugitive Slaves, 6; Horace Binney,Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia, 25. There can be little doubt, however, that full credit should be given to Bryan. “He framed and executed the ‘act’” ... Obituary notice in theGazette, Feb. 2, 1791.Cf.inscription on his tomb-stone, copy in Inscriptions in the Burying Ground of the Second Presbyterian Church Phila. (MS. H. S. P.);Mem. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 408–410; Konkle,Life and Times of Thomas Smith, 105.[244]Vermont had forbidden slavery by her constitution of 1777. Poore, II, 1859.[245]Its significance in this respect is remarked by Bowden,History of the Friends, II, 220. Connecticut and Rhode Island provided for abolition in 1784, New York in 1799, New Jersey in 1804. The same was accomplished in Massachusetts in 1780, and in New Hampshire in 1792, by construction of the constitution. Among many instances where Pennsylvania pointed to her great act with pride,cf.Acts of Assembly, 1819–20, p. 199; 4Pa. Arch., VI, 242, 290. Albert Gallatin, writing to Charles Brown, Mar. 1, 1838, says: “It is indeed a great subject of pride ... that as one of the United States she was the first to abolish slavery” ...Writings(ed. Adams), II, 523, 524.[246]1 Dallas 469; 14 Sergeant and Rawle 443–446; 1Pa. Arch., VIII, 720.[247]Pa. Mag., XV, 372, 373. The selling-price elsewhere was greater since it included the price of the posterity.[248]Brissot de Warville,Mémoire sur les Noirs de l’Amérique Septentrionale, 19.[249]Minutes of Assembly, 1787–1788, pp. 104, 134, 135, 137, 159, 164, 177, 197;Packet, Mar. 13, 1788;Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer, 144.[250]Laws of Pennsylvania(Carey and Bioren), III, 268–272. Despite this many negroes continued to be sold out of the state, and in 1795 the Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl. was asking for a more stringent law.Cf.MS. Rec. of Soc., IV, 191. Also MS. Supreme Court Papers, nos. 3, 4, (1795). As late as 1796 the author of theReise von Hamburg nach Philadelphiasays:“Häufig kommen, in Philadelphia vorzüglich ... grosze Transporte von Sclaven von Africa vorüber,”p. 24.[251]1 Dallas 491, 492; 2 Dallas 224–228; 3 Sergeant and Rawle 396–402; 2 Yeates 234, 449; 3id.259–261; 4id.115, 116; 6 Binney 206–211; MS. Sup. Ct. Papers, I, 1; MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 197.[252]2 Rawle, 204–206; 1 Penrose and Watts 93.Cf.Min. of Assembly, 1785–1786, pp. 168, 169.[253]14 Sergeant and Rawle 442; Brissot,Mémoire, 20.[254]Brissot,Mémoire, 21.Cf.the severe censure inWhy Colored People in Philadelphia Are Excluded from the Street Cars(1866), 23.[255]Art. IX, sect. 1.[256]Journal of the House, 1792–1793, pp. 39, 55.[257]MS. Docket Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, XXVII, 379. The suit was on a writ “de homine replegiando.”Cf.Stroud,Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America(2d ed.), 227 (note); MS. Docket of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, 1780–1808, p. 126;Pa. Gazette, Feb. 3, 1802; Report of Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl. inMinutes Sixth Convention Abol. Soc., Phila., 1800, p. 7. It was the different decision of an exactly similar question that abolished slavery in Massachusetts.Cf.Littletonv.Tuttle, 4 Massachusetts 128.[258]Journal of Senate, 1792–1793, pp. 150, 151;1798–1799, p. 149;J. of H., 1799–1800, pp. 76, 123, 153, 160, 172, 190;J. of S., 1799–1800, p. 223;J. of S., 1800–1801, pp. 134, 135;J. of H., 1802–1803, p. 218;J. of H., 1811–1812, pp. 24, 216; 4Pa. Arch., IV, 757, for Governor Snyder’s message.[259]J. of H., 1796–1797, pp. 283, 308, 354, 355;J. of H., 1797–1798, pp. 75, 269;J. of H., 1798–1799, pp. 20, 354;J. of H., 1799–1800, pp. 23, 76, 93, 123, 153, 160, 162, 172, 176, 190, 236, 303, 304, 306, 309, 310, 313, 314, 330, 358, 376;J. of S., 1799–1800, pp. 144, 223, 235. The bill passed the House 54 to 15.J. of S., 1800–1801, p. 175;J. of S., 1801–1802, p. 24.[260]J. of H., 1802–1803, pp. 361, 362;1804–1805, p. 61;Pa. Gazette, Feb. 1, 1804;J. of H., 1811–1812, pp. 58, 67, 216;J. of. S., 1820–1821, p. 33;Phila. Gazette, Mar. 6, 1821;J. of S., 1820–1821, pp. 105, 308, 469, 531, 532, 535, 536. For the provisions of such a bill—the abolition of slavery and of servitude until twenty-eight—compensation of owners—permission for negroes to remain slaves if they so desired—cf.House Reportno. 399 (1826);J. of H., 1825–1826, pp. 370, 375, 396, 497, 498. AlsoJ. of S., 1841, vol. I, 249, 294.[261]The numbers were 1790,3737; 1800,1706; 1810,795; 1820,211; 1830,67; 1840,64(?). The U. S. Census Reports do not mention any after 1840, but it is said that James Clark of Donegal Township, Lancaster County, held a slave in 1860.Cf.W. J. McKnight,Pioneer Outline History of Northwestern Pennsylvania, 311. It is necessary to remark that the U. S. Census reported386as the number of slaves in 1830. As this was in increase of 175 over the number reported in 1820, it aroused consternation in Pennsylvania and amazement elsewhere, so that a committee of the Senate was immediately appointed to investigate. Their account showed that there had been no increase but a substantial diminution in numbers; and that the U. S. officers had been grossly careless, if not positively ignorant in their work.J. of S., 1832–1833, vol. I, 141, 148, 482–487;Hazard’s Register, IV, 380; IX, 270–272, 395; XI, 158, 159;African Repository and Colonial Journal, VII, 315.[262]Cf.J. of S., 1821–1822, pp. 214, 215.[263]Minutes Tenth American Convention Abol. Sl., Phila., 1805, p. 13.[264]Stat. at L., X, 71.[265]Respublicav.Richards, 2 Dallas 224–228; Commonwealthv.Smyth, 1 Browne 113, 114;Laws of Assembly, 1847, p. 208. This law was affirmed by the courts in 1849. Kauffmanv.Oliver 10Pa. State Rep.(Barr), 517–518. It was at times contested by the citizens of other states, as in the famous episode of J. H. Wheeler’s slaves in 1855.Cf.Narrative of Facts in the Case of Passmore Williamson. In this case the Federal District Court held that Pa. had no jurisdiction over the right of transit. In 1860 a negress was brought from Va. to Pa. She was at once told that she was free; but when her master returned she went back with him.Phila. Inquirer, Aug. 29, 1860.

[131]Fox’sEpistles, inFriend’s Library, I, 79 (1679).[132]“An Exhortation and Caution to Friends Concerning buying or keeping of Negroes,” inPa. Mag., XIII, 267.[133]Proud,History of Pennsylvania, 423; Gordon,History of Pennsylvania, 114.[134]“Several” (negroes) “are brought to Meetings.” MS. Minutes Radnor Monthly Meetings, 1763–1772, p. 79 (1764). “Most of those possessed of them ... often bring them to our Meetings.”Ibid., 175 (1767).[135]Cf.MS. Yearly Meeting Advices, 1682–1777, “Negroes or Slaves.”[136]Cranz,The Ancient and Modern History of the Brethren ... Unitas Fratrum, 600, 601; Ogden,An Excursion into Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania, 89, 90; IPa. Arch., III, 75;Pa. Mag., XXIX, 363.[137]Cf.Bean,History of Montgomery County, 302.[138]MS. Records of Christ Church, Phila., I, 19, 43, 44, 46, 49, 132, 168, 271, 273, 274, 276, 277, 280, 281, 282, 283, 288, 293, 306, 312, 314, 333, 337, 341, 342, 344, 352, 353, 359, 371, 379, 383, 388, 392, 397, 399, 416, 440, 441. Baptisms were very frequent in the years 1752 and 1753. Very many of the slaves admitted were adults, whereas in the case of free negroes at the same period most of the baptisms were of children.[139]William Macclanechan, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1760, says: “On my Journey to New-England, I arrived at the oppulent City of Philadelphia, where I paid my Compliments to the Rev’d Dr. Jenney, Minister of Christ’s Church in that City, and to the Rev’d Mr. Sturgeon,Catechist to the Negroes.” H. W. Smith,Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith, I, 238.[140]“Many negroes came, ... some enquiring, have I a soul?” Gillies and Seymour,Memoirs of the Life and Character of ... Rev. George Whitefield(3d ed.), 55. “I believe near Fifty Negroes came to give me Thanks, under God, for what has been done to their Souls.... Some of them have been effectually wrought upon, and in an uncommon Manner.”A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, 65, 66. “Visited a Negroe and prayed with her, and found her Heart touched by Divine Grace. Praised be the Lord, methinks one Negroe brought to Jesus Christ is peculiarly sweet to my Soul.” W. Seward,Journal of a Voyage from Savannah to Philadelphia, etc., Apr. 18, 1740.[141]“This afternoon a Negro man from Cecil County maryland preached in orchard opposite to ours. there was Sundry people, they said he spoke well for near an hour.” MS. Ch. Marshall’s Remembrancer, E, July 13, 1779.[142]“Then (the pror and Gov.) proposed to them the necessitie of a law ... about the marriages of negroes.”Col. Rec., I, 598, 606, 610;Votes and Proceedings, I, 120, 121; Bettle, “Notices of Negro Slavery as connected with Pennsylvania,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., VI, 368; Clarkson,Life of Penn, II, 80–82. Clarkson attributes the defeat to the lessening of Quaker influence, the lower tone of the later immigrants, and temporary hostility to the executive. More probably the bill failed because stable marriage relations have always been found incompatible with the ready movement and transfer of slave property; and because at this early period the slaveholders recognized this fact, and were not yet disposed to allow their slaves to marry.[143]Stat. at L., II, 22.Cf.Commonwealthv.Clements (1814), 6 Binney 210.[144]St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 221; Kalm,Travels, I, 391. Kalm adds that it was considered an advantage to have negro women, since otherwise the offspring belonged to another master.[145]MS. Rec. Christ Church, 4239, 4317, 4361, 4370, 4371, 4373, 4376, 4379, 4381, 4404, 4405; MS. Rec. First Reformed Church, 4158, 4315; MS. Rec. St. Michael’s and Zion, 109. Among the Friends there are very few records of such marriages.Cf.however, MS. Journal of Joshua Brown, 5 2d mo., 1774: ... “I rode to Philadelphia ... and Lodged that Night at William Browns and 5th day of the mothI Spent in town and Was at a Negro Wedding in the Eving Where Several perMett and had a Setting with them and they took Each other and the Love of God Seemd to be Extended to them”.... A negro marriage according to Friends’ ceremony is recorded in MS. Deed Book O, 234, West Chester.Cf.Mittelberger,Journey, 106, “The blacks are likewise married in the English fashion.” There must have been much laxity, however, for only a part of which the negroes were to blame. “They are suffered, with impunity, to cohabit together, without being married, and to part, when solemnly engaged to one another as man and wife”.... Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 134.[146]St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 222.[147]“Accotof Negroes Dr. ... for my Negroe Cuffee and his Wife Rose and their Daughter Jenny botof WmBanloft ... 76/3/10.” MS. James Logan’s Account Book, 90 (1714). “Wanted, Four or Five Negro Men ... if they have families, wives, or children, all will be purchased together.”Pa. Packet, Aug. 22, 1778.Cf.alsoMercury, June 4, 1724; June 21, 1739;Independent Gazeteer, July 14, 1792.Cf.however, Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 136; Crawford,Observations upon Negro Slavery(1784), 23, 24;Pa. Packet, Jan. 1, 1780.[148]This was not always the case. The MS. Rec. of Sandy Bank Cemetery, Delaware Co., contains the names of two negroes.[149]MS. Minutes Middletown Monthly Meeting, 2d Book A, 171, 558, 559;Pa. Mag., VIII, 419; Isaac Comly, “Sketches of the History of Byberry,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., II, 194. There were exceptions, however.Cf.MS. Bk. of Rec. Merion Meeting Grave Yard.[150]Bean,Hist. Montgomery Co., 302; Martin,Hist. of Chester, 80; Kalm,Travels, I, 44;Pa. Gazette, Nov. 15, 1775.[151]Stat. at L., IV, 59;Col. Rec., II, 18; 1Pa. Arch.XI, 667;Mercury, Apr. 12, 1739;Phila. Staatsbote, Jan. 16, 1764,Pa. Gazette, Nov. 12, 1761. For an instance of a slave killing his master,cf.MS. Supreme Court Papers, XXI, 3546. This was very rare.Pa. Mag., XIII, 449. According to Judge Bradford’s statement arson was “the crime of slaves and children.”Journal of Senate of Pa., 1792–1793, p. 52;Col. Rec., IV, 243, 244, 259; XII, 377; MS. Miscellaneous Papers, Feb. 25, 1780.Cf.especially MS. Records of Special Courts for the Trial of Negroes;Col. Rec., IX, 648; MS. Streper Papers, 55.[152]In 1737 the Council spoke of the “insolent Behaviour of the Negroes in and about the city, which has of late been so much taken notice of”....Col. Rec., IV, 244;Votes and Proceedings, IV, 171. As to pilfering Franklin remarked that almost every slave was by nature a thief.Works(ed. Sparks), II, 315.[153]The following has not lost all significance. “I was much Disturbed after I came our girl Poll driving her same stroke of Impudence as when she was in Philadaand her mistress so hood-winked by her as not to see it which gave me much uneasiness and which I am determined not to put up with”.... Ch. Marshall, Remembrancer, D, Aug. 4, 1777.Cf.alsoRemarks on the Quaker Unmasked(1764).[154]As shown by the very careless enforcement of the special regulations.[155]Except immediately following the negro “insurrection” in New York in 1712.Cf.Stat. at L., II, 433; 1Pa. Arch., IV, 792; 2Pa. Arch., XV, 368.[156]“A negro man and a White Woman servant being taken up ... and brought before John Simcocke Justice in Commission for runaways Who upon examination finding they had noe lawful Passe Comitted them to Prison” ... MS. Court Rec. Penna. and Chester Co., 1681–88, p. 75; MS. New Castle Ct. Rec., Liber A, 158 (1677); MS. Minutes Ct. Quarter Sess. Bucks Co., 1684–1730, p. 138 (1690); MS. Minutes Chester Co. Courts, 1681–1697, p. 222 (1694–1695). For the continual going away of Christopher Marshall’s “Girl Poll,” see his Remembrancer, vol. D.[157]The following is not only typical, but is very interesting on its own account, since Abraham Lincoln was a descendent of the family mentioned. “Runaway on the 13th ofSeptemberlast fromAbraham LincolnofSpringfieldin the County of Chester, a Negro Man named Jack, about 30 Years of Age, low Stature, speaks little or noEnglish, has a Scar by the Corner of one Eye, in the Form of a V, his Teeth notched, and the Top of one on his Fore Teeth broke; He had on when he went away an old Hat, a grey Jacket partly like a Sailor’s Jacket. Whoever secures the said Negro, and brings him to his Master, or toMordecaiLincoln ... shall haveTwenty ShillingsReward and reasonable Charges.”Pa. Gazette, Oct. 15, 1730.[158]Mercury, Apr. 18, 1723; July 11, 1723;Gazette, May 3, 1744; Feb. 22, 1775; July 28, 1779; Jan. 17, 1782;Packet, Oct. 13, 1778; Aug. 3, 1779. One negro indentured himself to a currier.Gazette, Aug. 30, 1775. Such negroes the community was warned not to employ.Packet, Feb. 27, 1779.[159]The penalty was thirty shillings for every day.Stat. at L., IV, 64 (1725–1726). There was need for regulation from the first.Cf.Col. Rec., I, 117. An advertisement from Reading inGazette, July 31, 1776, explains the procedure when suspects were held in jail. Such advertisements recur frequently.Cf.Mercury, Aug. 13, 1730 (third notice);Gazette, Dec. 27, 1774;Packet, Mar. 23, 1779.[160]For negroes carried off or who ran away at this timecf.MS. Miscellaneous Papers, Sept. 1, 1778; Nov. 19, 1778; Aug. 20, 1779; and others. Numbers of strange negroes were reported to be wandering around in Northumberland County.Ibid., Aug. 29, 1780. In 1732 the Six Nations had been asked not to harbor runaway negroes, since they were “the Support and Livelihood of their Masters, and gett them their Bread.” 4Pa. Arch., II, 657, 658.[161]So I judge from statistics which I have compiled from the advertisements in the newspapers.[162]Mercury, Apr. 18, 1723;Packet, July 16, 1778;Gazette, June 12, 1740; Feb. 4, 1775; Jan. 3, 1776; July 2, 1781;Gazette, Nov. 17, 1748; Feb. 21, 1775. “‘Old Dabbo’ an African Negro ... call’d here for some victuals.... He had three gashes on each cheek made by his mother when he was a child.... His conversation is scarcely intelligible”; MS. Diary of Joel Swayne, 1823–1833, Mar. 27, 1828.Mercury, Aug. 6, 1730;Packet, Aug. 26, 1779;Gazette, July 31, 1739–1740;Mercury, June 24, 1725;Packet, June 22, 1789;Packet, Dec. 31, 1778;Gazette, Sept. 10, 1741; July 21, 1779; Sept. 11, 1746; Oct. 16, 1776; July 30, 1747; May 14, 1747; Oct. 22, 1747; Aug. 30, 1775; Mar. 22, 1747–1748; July 24, 1776; Apr. 23, 1761; July 5, 1775;Packet, Jan. 26, 1779.[163]“My Dear Companion ... has really her hands full, Cow to milk, breakfast to get, her Negro woman to bath, give medicine, Cap up with flannels, as She is allways Sure to be poorly when the weather is cold, Snowy and Slabby. its then She gives her Mistriss a deal of fatigue trouble in attending on her.” Ch. Marshall, Remembrancer, E, Mar. 25, 1779. “To Israel Taylor p order of the Comsfor Cureing negro Jack legg ... 4/10 To Roger Parke for Cureing negro sam ... /9/9.” MS. William Penn’s Account Book, 1690–1693, p. 8. A bill for £10 10 sh. 4d. was rendered to Thomas Penn for nursing and burying his negro Sam. Some of the items are very humorous. MS. Penn Papers, Accounts (unbound), Feb. 19, 1741. The bill for Thomas Penn’s negroes, Hagar, Diana, and Susy, for the years 1773 and 1774, amounted to £5 5 sh. Penn-Physick MSS., IV, 253. An item in a bill rendered to Mrs. Margaretta Frame is: “To bleeding her Negro man Sussex ... /2/6.” MS. Penn Papers, Accounts (unbound), June 5, 1742. St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 221. Masters were compelled by law to support their old slaves who would otherwise have become charges on the community.Cf.Stat. at L., X, 70;Laws of Pa., 1803, p. 103;1835–1836, pp. 546, 547. In very many cases, however, old negroes were maintained comfortably until death in the families where they had served.Cf.MS. Phila. Wills, X, 94 (1794). There are numerous instances of negroes receiving property by their master’s wills.Cf.West Chester Will Files, no. 3759 (1785). For the darker sidecf.Lay,All Slave-Keepers Apostates, 93.[164]“Many of those whom the good Quakers have emancipated have received the great benefit with tears in their eyes, and have never quitted, though free, their former masters and benefactors.” St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 222;Pa. Mag., XVIII, 372, 373; Buck, MS.History of Bucks Co., marginal note of author in his scrapbook. For the superiority of slaverycf.J. Harriot,Struggles through Life, etc., II, 409. Also Watson,Annals, II, 265.[165]It has been suggested that it was milder than the system under which redemptioners were held, and that hence “Quaker scruples against slavery were either misplaced or insincere.” C. A. Herrick, “Indentured Labor in Pennsylvania,” (MS. thesis, University of Pa.), 89. An examination of the Quaker records would have shown that the last part of this statement is not true. See below, chaps.IV,V.[166]It is of course possible that some of these negroes had been servants, and that their period of service was over.[167]“Where As William Clark did buy ... An negor man Called and knowen by the name of black Will for and during his natrill Life; never the Less the said William Clark doe for the Incourigment of the sd neagor servant hereby promise Covenant and Agree; that if the said Black Will doe well and Truely sarve the said William Clark ... five years ... then the said Black Will shall be Clear and free of and from Any further or Longer Sarvicetime or Slavery ... as wittnes my hand this Thurteenth day of ... June Anno; Din; 1682.” MS. Ancient Rec. of Sussex Co., 1681–1709, p. 116.[168]“My will is that my negroes John and Jane his wife shall be set free one month after my decease.” Ashmead,History of Delaware County, 203.[169]“I give to ... my blacks their freedom as is under my hand already” ... MS. Will of William Penn, Newcastle on Delaware, 30th 8br, 1701. This will, which was left with James Logan, was not carried out. Penn’s last will contains no mention of his negroes. He frequently mentions them elsewhere.Cf.MS. Letters and Papers of William Penn (Dreer), 29 (1689), 35 (1690);Pa. Mag., XXXIII, 316 (1690); MS. Logan Papers. II, 98 (1703).Cf.also Penn. MSS., Official Correspondence, 97.[170]Col. Rec., II, 120.[171]Jane “a free negro woman” ... MS. Rec. Christ Church, 46.[172]“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” ... “An Act for the better regulating of Negroes in this Province.”Stat. at L., IV, 61.[173]“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” ... Letter of W. Rawle (1787), in MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Slavery.[174]Votes and Proceedings, II, 336, 337.[175]“An Act for the better regulating of Negroes in this Province.”Stat. at L., IV, 61 (1725–1726).[176]“This is however very expensive for they are obliged to make a provision for the Negro thus set at liberty, to afford him subsistence when he is grown old, that he may not be driven by necessity to wicked actions, or that he may be at anybody’s charge, for these free Negroes become very lazy and indolent afterwards.” Kalm,Travels, I, 394 (1748).[177]Cf.Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 30. The author ofBrief Considerations on Slavery, and the Expediency of Its Abolition(1773) argued that the public derived benefit from the labor of adult free negroes, and that the public should pay the surety required. By an elaborate calculation he endeavored to prove that a sum of about five shillings deposited at interest by the community each year of the negro’s life after he was twenty-one, would amply suffice for all requirements. Pp. 8–14 of the second part, entitled “An Account Stated on the Manumission of Slaves.” He says “As the laws stand at present in several of our northern governments, the act of manumission is clogged with difficulties that almost amount to a prohibition.”Ibid., 11.[178]Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 696.[179]Stat. at L., X, 72.[180]Martin,History of Chester, 480; Watson,Annals, II, 265;Pa. Mag., VII, 82; Davis,History of Bucks County, 798; MS. in Miscellaneous Collection, Box 10, Negroes; Morgan,Annals of Harrisburg, 11; Smedley,History of the Underground Railroad in Chester, etc., 27;Pa. Mag., XII, 188; XXIX, 363, 365; MS. Rec. Christ Church, 46, 352, 356, 379, 400, 403, 404, 440, 441, 455, 475, 4126, 4330, 4356; MS. Rec. First Reformed Church, 4126, 4248; MS. Rec. St. Michael’s and Zion, 97.[181]Cf.Conyngham’s “Historical Notes,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 338.[182]See below,p. 74.[183]MS. Miscellaneous Papers, 1684–1847, Chester Co., 101 (1764).[184]They were generally held longer than apprentices or white servants—until twenty-eight or thirty years of age, but many of the Friends protested against this. MS. Diary of Richard Barnard, 24 5 mo., 1782; M.S. Minutes Exeter Monthly Meeting, Book B, 354 (1779).[185]“I do hereby Certify that Benjamin Mifflin hath given me Directions to sell his Negro man Cuff to himself for the Sum of Sixty Pounds if he can raise the Money having Repeatedly refused from Others seventy Five Pounds and upwards for him.” MS. (1769) in Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[186]Pa. Gazette, Mar. 5, 1751.[187]Cf.Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 134, 135, where he laments the difficulties under which free negroes labor. Also same author,A Mite Cast into the Treasury, 13–17, where he argues that negro servants should not be held longer than white apprentices.[188]“Die mährischen Brüder folgten diesem rühmlichen Beispiel; so auch Christen von den übrigen Bekenntnissen.”Ebeling, inErdbeschreibung, etc., IV, 220.[189]Cf.preamble to the act of 1780.Stat. at L., X, 67, 68. A negro twenty-one years old was manumitted because “all mankind have an Equal Natural and Just right to Liberty.” MS. Extracts Rec. Goshen Monthly Meeting, 415 (G. Cope).[190]MS. General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, Phila. Co., 1773–1780. Franklin, Letter to Dean Woodward, Apr. 10, 1773, inWorks(ed. Sparks), VIII, 42.[191]In 1751 the number of negroes in Pennsylvania, including Delaware, was thought to be 11,000.Cf.above, p. 12. The negroes in Pennsylvania alone by 1780 probably did not exceed the same number. Of these 6,000 were said to be slaves.Cf.above,ibid.In some places by this time manumission was nearly complete.Cf.W. J. Buck, inColl. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 201.[192]MSS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[193]MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 19, 27, 29, 43, 67, andpassim.[194]A MS. dated Phila., 1769, contains a list of persons who had promised to contribute towards purchasing a negro’s freedom. Among the memoranda are: “John Head agrees to give him Twenty Shillings and not to be Repaid ... John Benezet twenty Shillings ... Christopher Marshall /7/6.... If he can raise with my Donation enough to free him I agree to give him three pounds and not otherwise I promise Saml Emlen jur ... Joseph Pemberton by his Desire [Fiveerased] pounds £3.” MS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[195]Misc. MSS. 1744–1859. Northern, Interior and Western Counties, 191 (1782).[196]In 1779 a negro of Bucks County to secure the freedom of his wife gave his note to be paid by 1783. In 1782, having paid part, he was allowed to take his wife until the next payment. In 1785 she was free. MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 27–43. In 1787 negro Samson had purchased his wife and children for ninety-nine pounds.Ibid., I, 67. James Oronogue, who had been hired by his master to the keeper of a tavern, gained by his obliging behavior sixty pounds from the customers within four years’ time, and at his master’s death was allowed to purchase his freedom for one hundred pounds. He paid besides fifty pounds for his wife.Ibid., I, 69. When Cuff Douglas had been a slave for thirty-seven years his master promised him freedom after four years more. On the master agreeing to take thirty pounds in lieu of this service, Douglas hired himself out, and was free at the end of sixteen months. He then began business as a tailor, and presently was able to buy his wife and children for ninety pounds, besides one son for whom he paid forty-five pounds.Ibid., I, 72. Alsoibid., I, 79, 91.[197]“Wanted to purchase, a good Negro Wench.... If to be sold on terms of freedom by far the most agreeable.”Pa. Packet, Aug. 22, 1778. In 1791 Caspar Wistar bought a slave for sixty pounds “to extricate him from that degraded Situation” ..., his purpose being to keep the negro for a term of years only. MS, Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes. Numerous other examples among the same MSS.[198]“I, John Lettour from motives of benevolence and humanity ... do ... set free ... my Negro Girl Agathe Aged about Seventeen Years. On condition ... that she ... bind herself by Indenture to serve me ... Six years”.... MS.ibid.Cf.MS. Abstract Rec. Abington Monthly Meeting, 372 (1765).[199]“I Manumit ... my Negro Girl Abb when she shall Arrive to the Age of Eighteen Years ... (on Condition that the Committee for the Abolition of slavery shall make entry according to Law ... so as to secure me from any Costs or Trouble on me or my Estate on said Negro after the age of Eighteen Years) ... Hannah Evans.” MS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.Cf.Stat. at L., X, 70. At times this might become an unpleasant reality.Cf.MS. State of a Case respecting a Negro (Ridgway Branch).[200]Edmundson’sJournal, 61. Janney,History of the Friends, III, 178.[201]Pennypacker, “The Settlement of Germantown,” inPa. Mag., IV, 28; McMaster, “The Abolition of Slavery in the United States,” inChatauquan, XV, 24, 25 (Apr., 1892). For the protest against slavery and the slave-trade (De instauranda Æthiopum Salute, Madrid, 1647) of the Jesuit, Alfonso Sandoval,cf.Saco,Historia de la Esclavitud de la Raza Africana en el Nuevo Mundo, 253–256.[202]Pennypacker,place cited; Learned,Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius, 261, 262. Facsimile of protest in Ridgway Branch of the Library Company of Philadelphia.[203]The Monthly Meeting declared “we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here.” Pennypacker,place cited, 30, 31.[204]Watson,Annals, II, 262. “An Exhortation and Caution To Friends Concerning buying or keeping of Negroes,” inPa. Mag., XIII, 265–270. This is said to have been the first printed protest against slavery in America.Cf.Hildeburn,A Century of Printing, etc., I, 28, 29; Gabriel Thomas,Account, 53; Bettle,Notes, 367.[205]Clarkson,Life of Penn, II, 78, 79.[206]Cf.Bettle, 372.[207]Ibid., 373.[208]Ibid., 377.[209]“Whereas several Papers have been read relating to the keeping and bringing in of Negroes ... it is the advice of this Meeting, that Friends be careful not to encourage the bringing in of any more Negroes” ... MS. “Negroes or Slaves,” Yearly Meeting Advices, 1682–1777 (1696). “This meeting is also dissatisfied with Friends buying and incouriging the bringing in of Negroes” ... MS. Chester Quarterly Meeting Minutes, 6 6th mo., 1711. “There having a conscern Come upon severall friends belonging to this meeting Conscerning the Importation of Negros ... after some time spent in the Consideration thereof it is the Unanimous sence of this meeting that friends should not be concerned hereafter in the Importation thereof nor buy any” ... MS. Chester Monthly Meeting Minutes, 27 4th mo., 1715. MS. Chester Quarterly Meeting Minutes, 1 6th mo., 1715. “This meeting have been for some time under a Concern by reason of the great Quantity of Negros fetched and imported into this Country.”Ibid., 11 6th mo., 1729. MS. Yearly Meeting Minutes, 19–23 7th mo., 1730. As soon as Friends had been brought to cease the importation of negroes, attack was made upon the practice of Friends buying negroes imported by others.Cf.MS. Chester Q. M. M., 11 6th mo., 1729; 9 9th mo., 1730. The MS. Chester M. M. M. mention 100 books on the slave-trade for circulation.[210]“We also kindly received your advice about negro slaves, and we are one with you, that the multiplying of them, may be of a dangerous consequence, and therefore a Law was made in Pennsylvania laying Twenty pounds Duty upon every one imported there, which Law the Queen was pleas’d to disanull, we would heartily wish that a way might be found to stop the bringing in more here, or at least that Friends may be less concerned in buying or selling, of any that may be brought in, and hope for your assistance with the Government if any farther Law should be made discouraging the importation. We know not of any Friend amongst us that has any hand or concern in bringing any out of their own Country.” MS. Yearly M. M., 22 7th mo., 1714. This was written in reply to the London Yearly Meeting, and alludes to the act passed in 1712. See above,p. 3.[211]See above,p. 65.Cf.also P. C. Plockhoy’s principle laid down in hisKort en Klaer Ontwerp(Amsterdam, 1662): “No lordship or servile slavery shall burden our Company.” Quoted in Pennypacker,Settlement of Germantown, 204, 292.[212]“The Germans seldom hire men to work upon their farms.” Rush,An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania(1789), 24. “They never, as a general thing, had colored servants or slaves.”Ibid., 24 (note by Rupp). “Slaves in Pennsylvania never were as numerous in proportion to the white population as in New York and New Jersey. To our German population this is certainly attributable—Wherever they or their numerous descendants located they preferredtheir ownlabor to that of negro slaves.” Buck, MS.History of Bucks County, 69. “Of all the nations who have settled in America, the Germans have availed themselves the least of the unjust and demoralizing aid of slavery.” W. Grimshaw,History of the United States, 79. The truth of these statements is revealed in the tax-lists of the different counties. Thus, in Berks County there were 2692 German tax-payers (61%) and 1724 (39%) not Germans. Of these 44 Germans held 62 slaves, and 57 of other nationalities held 92 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XVIII, 303–430. In York County, where there were 2051 German property-holders (34%) and 3993 who were not Germans (66%), 27 Germans held 44 slaves as against 178 others who held 319 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XXI, 165–324. (Both these estimates are for 1780.) In Lancaster County the property-holders included approximately 3475 Germans (48%) and 3706 not Germans (52%). Here 31 Germans held 46 slaves, while 200 not Germans held 402 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XVII, 489–685 (1779). The records of the German churches rarely mention slaves.[213]The small number of negroes in Pennsylvania was often noticed. Burnaby,Travels through the Middle Settlements, 63, said “there are few negroes or slaves” ... (1759), Anburey,Travels through the Interior Parts of America, II, 280–281, said, “The Pennsylvanians ... are more industrious of themselves, having but few blacks among them.” (1778).Cf.Proud,History, II, 274. Estimates as to the number of Germans in Pennsylvania vary from 3/5 (1747,cf.Rupp’s note in Rush,Account, 1) to 1/3 (1789,ibid., 54). For many estimatescf.Diffenderffer,German Immigration into Pennsylvania, pt. II,The Redemptioners, 99–108. Some few Germans had intended to hold slaves from the first.Cf.the articles of agreement between the members of the Frankfort Company (1686): ... “alle ... leibeigenen Menschen ... sollen unter Allen Interessenten pro rato der Ackerzahl gemein seyn.” MS. in possession of S. W. Pennypacker, Philadelphia.[214]Watson, (MS.) Annals, 530. The same spirit is apparent much later. “There generally appeared an uneasiness in their minds respecting them, tho all are not so fully convinced of the Iniquity of the practice as to get over the difficulty which they apprehend would attend their giving them their liberty” ... MS. Abstract Rec. Gwynedd Monthly Meeting, 278 (1770). “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?” Benezet,Notes on the Slave Trade, 8.[215]Votes and Proceedings, II, 110;The Friend, XXVIII, 293, and following; A. C. Thomas, “The Attitude of the Society of Friends toward Slavery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Particularly in Relation to Its Own Members,” inAmer. Soc. Church History, VIII, 273, 274.[216]“Ralph Sandiford Crfor Cash receiv’d of BenjaLay for 50 of his Books which he intends to give away ... 10” (sh.) MS. Benjamin Franklin’s Account Book, Feb. 28, 1732–1733.[217]Sandiford,Mystery of Iniquity, 43; Vaux,Memoirs of the Lives of Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sandiford;The Friend, L, 170; Thomas,Attitude, 274; Franklin,Works(ed. Sparks), X, 403.[218]Cf.American Weekly Mercury, Nov. 2, 1738, for notice in which the Friends’ Meeting denounces hisAll Slave-Keepers ... Apostates(1737).Cf.anecdotes related by Vaux; Bettle,Notices, 375, 376;The Friend, L, 170; Thomas,Attitude, 274.[219]Bettle,Notices, 378–382; Thomas,Attitude, 245, 275–279; Tyler,Literary History of the American Revolution, II, 339–347;The Friend, LIII, 190; Woolman,Journal.[220]Vaux,Memoirs of Benezet;The Friend, LXXI, 369; Thomas, 274, 275; Bettle, 382–387; Benezet’s own writings.[221]Thomas, 273. There must have been a great many other reformers of considerable influence, but of less fame, about whose work little has come down.Cf.“Thos. Nicholson on Keeping Negroes” (1767). MS. in Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.[222]Cf.MS. Chester Q. M. M., 14 6th mo., 1738; 8 6th mo., 1743.[223]Needles,Memoir, 13.[224]Bettle, 377.[225]The MS. Chester Q. M. M., 8 8th mo., 1763, say ... “we are not quite clear of dealing in Negro’s, but care is taken mostly to discourage it ....” Three years later they add ... “clear of importing or purchasing Negro’s.”Ibid., 11 8th mo., 1766.Cf.alsoibid., 10 8th mo., 1767; MS. Chester M. M. Miscellaneous Papers, 28 1st mo., 1765; MS. Darby M. M. M., II, 11, 12, 16, 19, (1764), 24, 27, 31, 33, 35, 38, 40, 42, 45, 46, (1764–1765). These references concern the case of Enoch Eliot, who, having purchased two negroes, was repeatedly urged to set them free, and finally did so. MS. Abstract Rec. Abington M. M., 28 7th mo., 1760; 25 8th mo., 1760. “One of the frdsappdto visit Jonathan Jones reports they all had an oppertunity With him sdJonathan, and that he gave them exspectation of not making any more purchases of that kind, as also he is sorry for the purchace he did make” ...Ibid., 24 11th mo., 1760; alsoibid., 24 11th mo., 1760; 20 9th mo., 1762; 29 10th mo., 1764.[226]MS. Yearly M. M., 23–29 9th mo., 1758, where Friends are earnestly entreated to “sett them at Liberty, making a Christian Provision for them according to their Ages etc”....Cf.report about George Ragan: ... “as to his Buying and selling a Negro, he saith he Cannot see the Evil thereof, and therefore cannot make any satisfaction, and as he has been much Laboured with by this mgto bring him to a sight of his Error, This mgtherefore agreeable to a minute of our Yearly Mgcan do no Less than so far Testify agst him ... as not to Receive his Collections, neither is he to sit in our mgsfor Discipline until he can see his Error” ... MS. Abst. Abington M. M., 288 (1761).Cf.Michener,Retrospect of Early Quakerism, 346, 347;A Brief Statement of the rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends, against Slavery and the Slave Trade, 21–24; Sharpless,A History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, II, 229; Needles, 13. For the fervid feeling at this timecf.Journal of John Churchman(1756), inFriends’ Library, VI, 236.[227]Bettle, 378; Sharpless, II, 229.Cf.alsoJournal of Daniel Stanton, inFriends’ Library, XII, 167.[228]MS. Abst. Abington M. M., 328, 336, 347, 351, 358, 368, 372, 398; MS. Min. Sadsbury M. M., 1737–8—1783, pp. 270, 290; MS. Min. Radnor M. M., 1772–1782, pp. 63, 66, 71, 102, 103, 107, etc.; MS. Min. Women’s Q. M., Bucks Co., 26 8th mo., 1779; 30 8th mo., 1781; MS. Darby M. M. M., II, 87, 91, 93, (1769), 178 (1774), 180, 181, 184, 186, 190 (1775), 309, 312 (1780); MS. Women’s Min. Darby M. M., 2 2d mo., 1775; 30 3rd mo., 1775; 3 8th mo., 1780; 31 8th mo., 1780; MS. Extracts Buckingham M. M., 128, 130, 136 (1767–1768); MS. Diary of Richard Barnard, 24 9th mo., 1774; 7 6th mo., 1780; MS. Journal of Joshua Brown, 11th mo., 1775; above all the MS. Diary of James Moon,passim.Cf.Sharpless,Quakerism and Politics, 159–178; Whittier’s introduction to John Woolman’sJournal.[229]Futhey and Cope,History of Chester Co., 423.[230]Cf.Abst. Rec. Gwynedd M. M., 201, 204, 213, 218, 240, 270, 271, 273, 278, 280, 307, 311, 312, 316, 321, 322, 323, 336, 348, 374, 471; MS. Papers Middletown M. M., 1759–1786, pp. 386, 388, 389, 390; Franklin,Works, (ed. Sparks). VIII, 42.[231]Brief Statement, 49.[232]MS. Yearly M. M., 27 9th mo., 1776;Brief Statement, 24–27; Needles, 13; Thomas, 245; Sharpless,History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, II, 138, 139.[233]Brief Statement, 31–35; Needles, 13; Sharpless, II, 226. For some years the Meetings continued to make regular reports on this subject. “7th No Slaves among us and such of their Offspring as are under our Care are generally pretty well provided for.” MS. Rec. Warrington Q. M., 25 8th mo., 1788.[234]In the absence of a plantation system slavery in Pennsylvania never was profitable in the same sense as in Virginia or South Carolina, and where white labor could be obtained slavery could not compete.Cf.Franklin,Works, II, 314, 315 (1751). But as it was almost impossible to obtain sufficient white labor, or at least to retain it, slavery as it existed in Pennsylvania was profitable throughout the colonial period. For the strong desire to import, see above, chap. I. For the high prices paid in the first quarter of the nineteenth century for the right to hold negroes to the age of 28, see below, p. 94.[235]This is my judgment after a careful investigation of the Friends’ records. Adam Smith, who had not seen these records, but who wrote just when the work was being completed, thought differently.Wealth of Nations(ed. Rogers), I, 391.[236]Other sects followed the example of the Friends,cf.Ebeling, IV, 220, but their work was mostly significant in connection with the legislative work of the Assembly. For the effects of the work of the Friendscf.Bowden,History of the Friends, II, 221.[237]Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 696.[238]1Pa. Arch., VII, 79;Journal of House of Rep., 1776–1781, p. 311.[239]Col. Rec., XII, 99;Pa. Packet, Sept. 16, 1779;Journals of House, 1776–1781, pp. 392, 394, 399, 412, 424, 435;Packet, Mar. 13, 1779; Dec. 25, 1779; Jan. 1, 1780;Gazette, Dec. 29, 1779; Vaux,Memoirs of Benezet, 92. The distribution of the vote seems to have had no political, no religious, and probably no economic significance. The measure was popular in and out of the Assembly.Packet, Dec. 25, 1779;Jour. of House, 1776–1781, p. 435. An earlier bill had been published in thePacket, Mar. 4, 1779. It is very interesting. The bill as finally drafted became the first act for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Accordingly its authors had to do much original and constructive work. In the course of the work their ideas underwent some change, and the transition is easily seen in comparing the first bill of 1779 with the act as passed in 1780. In some respects the first is more liberal than the second; in other respects less so. Thus at first it was intended to make the children of slaves servants until twenty-one only. (Packet, Mar. 4, 1779). “A Citizen” discussing this objected that the master would receive inadequate compensation for rearing negro children, and urged that the age limit be made twenty-eight or even thirty. (Packet, Mar. 13, 1779), and so pay for the unproductive years, which was but just. The law made the age twenty-eight. On the other hand it was at first proposed to continue the prohibition of intermarriage and the permission to bind out idle free negroes. (Packet, Mar. 4, 1779). Both these provisions were omitted from the law.[240]Stat. at L., X, 67–73; 2 Sergeant and Rawle, 305–309. Many of the Friends thought that negroes ought not to be held after they were twenty-one.Cf.MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 23. Very many masters lost their negroes through failing to register them, through ignorance of the provision requiring registry, or through carelessness in complying with it.Cf.Rush,Considerations upon the Present Test-Law, (2nd ed.), 7 (note);Journals of House, 1776–1781, p. 537, and following; 4Pa. Arch., III, 822.Cf.Christopher Marshall’s Remembrancer, F, Oct. 10, 1780: ... “gott our Negro Recorded.”Cf.York Herald, Apr. 26, 1797. The limit was extended to Jan. 1, 1783, in favor of the citizens of Washington and Westmoreland counties, previously under the jurisdiction of Virginia.Stat. at L., X, 463. Runaways from other states were of course not made free by this provision.Cf.sect. VIII of act.[241]The repeal of this section was proposed the next year, but failed by three votes.Cf.Journals of House, 1776–1781, p. 605. It was finally repealed in 1847.[242]Sect. X of act.[243]For the view that it was drafted by William Lewis,cf.Pa. Mag., XIV, 14; Robert E. Randall,Speech on the Laws of the State relative to Fugitive Slaves, 6; Horace Binney,Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia, 25. There can be little doubt, however, that full credit should be given to Bryan. “He framed and executed the ‘act’” ... Obituary notice in theGazette, Feb. 2, 1791.Cf.inscription on his tomb-stone, copy in Inscriptions in the Burying Ground of the Second Presbyterian Church Phila. (MS. H. S. P.);Mem. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 408–410; Konkle,Life and Times of Thomas Smith, 105.[244]Vermont had forbidden slavery by her constitution of 1777. Poore, II, 1859.[245]Its significance in this respect is remarked by Bowden,History of the Friends, II, 220. Connecticut and Rhode Island provided for abolition in 1784, New York in 1799, New Jersey in 1804. The same was accomplished in Massachusetts in 1780, and in New Hampshire in 1792, by construction of the constitution. Among many instances where Pennsylvania pointed to her great act with pride,cf.Acts of Assembly, 1819–20, p. 199; 4Pa. Arch., VI, 242, 290. Albert Gallatin, writing to Charles Brown, Mar. 1, 1838, says: “It is indeed a great subject of pride ... that as one of the United States she was the first to abolish slavery” ...Writings(ed. Adams), II, 523, 524.[246]1 Dallas 469; 14 Sergeant and Rawle 443–446; 1Pa. Arch., VIII, 720.[247]Pa. Mag., XV, 372, 373. The selling-price elsewhere was greater since it included the price of the posterity.[248]Brissot de Warville,Mémoire sur les Noirs de l’Amérique Septentrionale, 19.[249]Minutes of Assembly, 1787–1788, pp. 104, 134, 135, 137, 159, 164, 177, 197;Packet, Mar. 13, 1788;Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer, 144.[250]Laws of Pennsylvania(Carey and Bioren), III, 268–272. Despite this many negroes continued to be sold out of the state, and in 1795 the Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl. was asking for a more stringent law.Cf.MS. Rec. of Soc., IV, 191. Also MS. Supreme Court Papers, nos. 3, 4, (1795). As late as 1796 the author of theReise von Hamburg nach Philadelphiasays:“Häufig kommen, in Philadelphia vorzüglich ... grosze Transporte von Sclaven von Africa vorüber,”p. 24.[251]1 Dallas 491, 492; 2 Dallas 224–228; 3 Sergeant and Rawle 396–402; 2 Yeates 234, 449; 3id.259–261; 4id.115, 116; 6 Binney 206–211; MS. Sup. Ct. Papers, I, 1; MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 197.[252]2 Rawle, 204–206; 1 Penrose and Watts 93.Cf.Min. of Assembly, 1785–1786, pp. 168, 169.[253]14 Sergeant and Rawle 442; Brissot,Mémoire, 20.[254]Brissot,Mémoire, 21.Cf.the severe censure inWhy Colored People in Philadelphia Are Excluded from the Street Cars(1866), 23.[255]Art. IX, sect. 1.[256]Journal of the House, 1792–1793, pp. 39, 55.[257]MS. Docket Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, XXVII, 379. The suit was on a writ “de homine replegiando.”Cf.Stroud,Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America(2d ed.), 227 (note); MS. Docket of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, 1780–1808, p. 126;Pa. Gazette, Feb. 3, 1802; Report of Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl. inMinutes Sixth Convention Abol. Soc., Phila., 1800, p. 7. It was the different decision of an exactly similar question that abolished slavery in Massachusetts.Cf.Littletonv.Tuttle, 4 Massachusetts 128.[258]Journal of Senate, 1792–1793, pp. 150, 151;1798–1799, p. 149;J. of H., 1799–1800, pp. 76, 123, 153, 160, 172, 190;J. of S., 1799–1800, p. 223;J. of S., 1800–1801, pp. 134, 135;J. of H., 1802–1803, p. 218;J. of H., 1811–1812, pp. 24, 216; 4Pa. Arch., IV, 757, for Governor Snyder’s message.[259]J. of H., 1796–1797, pp. 283, 308, 354, 355;J. of H., 1797–1798, pp. 75, 269;J. of H., 1798–1799, pp. 20, 354;J. of H., 1799–1800, pp. 23, 76, 93, 123, 153, 160, 162, 172, 176, 190, 236, 303, 304, 306, 309, 310, 313, 314, 330, 358, 376;J. of S., 1799–1800, pp. 144, 223, 235. The bill passed the House 54 to 15.J. of S., 1800–1801, p. 175;J. of S., 1801–1802, p. 24.[260]J. of H., 1802–1803, pp. 361, 362;1804–1805, p. 61;Pa. Gazette, Feb. 1, 1804;J. of H., 1811–1812, pp. 58, 67, 216;J. of. S., 1820–1821, p. 33;Phila. Gazette, Mar. 6, 1821;J. of S., 1820–1821, pp. 105, 308, 469, 531, 532, 535, 536. For the provisions of such a bill—the abolition of slavery and of servitude until twenty-eight—compensation of owners—permission for negroes to remain slaves if they so desired—cf.House Reportno. 399 (1826);J. of H., 1825–1826, pp. 370, 375, 396, 497, 498. AlsoJ. of S., 1841, vol. I, 249, 294.[261]The numbers were 1790,3737; 1800,1706; 1810,795; 1820,211; 1830,67; 1840,64(?). The U. S. Census Reports do not mention any after 1840, but it is said that James Clark of Donegal Township, Lancaster County, held a slave in 1860.Cf.W. J. McKnight,Pioneer Outline History of Northwestern Pennsylvania, 311. It is necessary to remark that the U. S. Census reported386as the number of slaves in 1830. As this was in increase of 175 over the number reported in 1820, it aroused consternation in Pennsylvania and amazement elsewhere, so that a committee of the Senate was immediately appointed to investigate. Their account showed that there had been no increase but a substantial diminution in numbers; and that the U. S. officers had been grossly careless, if not positively ignorant in their work.J. of S., 1832–1833, vol. I, 141, 148, 482–487;Hazard’s Register, IV, 380; IX, 270–272, 395; XI, 158, 159;African Repository and Colonial Journal, VII, 315.[262]Cf.J. of S., 1821–1822, pp. 214, 215.[263]Minutes Tenth American Convention Abol. Sl., Phila., 1805, p. 13.[264]Stat. at L., X, 71.[265]Respublicav.Richards, 2 Dallas 224–228; Commonwealthv.Smyth, 1 Browne 113, 114;Laws of Assembly, 1847, p. 208. This law was affirmed by the courts in 1849. Kauffmanv.Oliver 10Pa. State Rep.(Barr), 517–518. It was at times contested by the citizens of other states, as in the famous episode of J. H. Wheeler’s slaves in 1855.Cf.Narrative of Facts in the Case of Passmore Williamson. In this case the Federal District Court held that Pa. had no jurisdiction over the right of transit. In 1860 a negress was brought from Va. to Pa. She was at once told that she was free; but when her master returned she went back with him.Phila. Inquirer, Aug. 29, 1860.

[131]Fox’sEpistles, inFriend’s Library, I, 79 (1679).

[132]“An Exhortation and Caution to Friends Concerning buying or keeping of Negroes,” inPa. Mag., XIII, 267.

[133]Proud,History of Pennsylvania, 423; Gordon,History of Pennsylvania, 114.

[134]“Several” (negroes) “are brought to Meetings.” MS. Minutes Radnor Monthly Meetings, 1763–1772, p. 79 (1764). “Most of those possessed of them ... often bring them to our Meetings.”Ibid., 175 (1767).

[135]Cf.MS. Yearly Meeting Advices, 1682–1777, “Negroes or Slaves.”

[136]Cranz,The Ancient and Modern History of the Brethren ... Unitas Fratrum, 600, 601; Ogden,An Excursion into Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania, 89, 90; IPa. Arch., III, 75;Pa. Mag., XXIX, 363.

[137]Cf.Bean,History of Montgomery County, 302.

[138]MS. Records of Christ Church, Phila., I, 19, 43, 44, 46, 49, 132, 168, 271, 273, 274, 276, 277, 280, 281, 282, 283, 288, 293, 306, 312, 314, 333, 337, 341, 342, 344, 352, 353, 359, 371, 379, 383, 388, 392, 397, 399, 416, 440, 441. Baptisms were very frequent in the years 1752 and 1753. Very many of the slaves admitted were adults, whereas in the case of free negroes at the same period most of the baptisms were of children.

[139]William Macclanechan, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1760, says: “On my Journey to New-England, I arrived at the oppulent City of Philadelphia, where I paid my Compliments to the Rev’d Dr. Jenney, Minister of Christ’s Church in that City, and to the Rev’d Mr. Sturgeon,Catechist to the Negroes.” H. W. Smith,Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith, I, 238.

[140]“Many negroes came, ... some enquiring, have I a soul?” Gillies and Seymour,Memoirs of the Life and Character of ... Rev. George Whitefield(3d ed.), 55. “I believe near Fifty Negroes came to give me Thanks, under God, for what has been done to their Souls.... Some of them have been effectually wrought upon, and in an uncommon Manner.”A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, 65, 66. “Visited a Negroe and prayed with her, and found her Heart touched by Divine Grace. Praised be the Lord, methinks one Negroe brought to Jesus Christ is peculiarly sweet to my Soul.” W. Seward,Journal of a Voyage from Savannah to Philadelphia, etc., Apr. 18, 1740.

[141]“This afternoon a Negro man from Cecil County maryland preached in orchard opposite to ours. there was Sundry people, they said he spoke well for near an hour.” MS. Ch. Marshall’s Remembrancer, E, July 13, 1779.

[142]“Then (the pror and Gov.) proposed to them the necessitie of a law ... about the marriages of negroes.”Col. Rec., I, 598, 606, 610;Votes and Proceedings, I, 120, 121; Bettle, “Notices of Negro Slavery as connected with Pennsylvania,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., VI, 368; Clarkson,Life of Penn, II, 80–82. Clarkson attributes the defeat to the lessening of Quaker influence, the lower tone of the later immigrants, and temporary hostility to the executive. More probably the bill failed because stable marriage relations have always been found incompatible with the ready movement and transfer of slave property; and because at this early period the slaveholders recognized this fact, and were not yet disposed to allow their slaves to marry.

[143]Stat. at L., II, 22.Cf.Commonwealthv.Clements (1814), 6 Binney 210.

[144]St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 221; Kalm,Travels, I, 391. Kalm adds that it was considered an advantage to have negro women, since otherwise the offspring belonged to another master.

[145]MS. Rec. Christ Church, 4239, 4317, 4361, 4370, 4371, 4373, 4376, 4379, 4381, 4404, 4405; MS. Rec. First Reformed Church, 4158, 4315; MS. Rec. St. Michael’s and Zion, 109. Among the Friends there are very few records of such marriages.Cf.however, MS. Journal of Joshua Brown, 5 2d mo., 1774: ... “I rode to Philadelphia ... and Lodged that Night at William Browns and 5th day of the mothI Spent in town and Was at a Negro Wedding in the Eving Where Several perMett and had a Setting with them and they took Each other and the Love of God Seemd to be Extended to them”.... A negro marriage according to Friends’ ceremony is recorded in MS. Deed Book O, 234, West Chester.Cf.Mittelberger,Journey, 106, “The blacks are likewise married in the English fashion.” There must have been much laxity, however, for only a part of which the negroes were to blame. “They are suffered, with impunity, to cohabit together, without being married, and to part, when solemnly engaged to one another as man and wife”.... Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 134.

[146]St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 222.

[147]“Accotof Negroes Dr. ... for my Negroe Cuffee and his Wife Rose and their Daughter Jenny botof WmBanloft ... 76/3/10.” MS. James Logan’s Account Book, 90 (1714). “Wanted, Four or Five Negro Men ... if they have families, wives, or children, all will be purchased together.”Pa. Packet, Aug. 22, 1778.Cf.alsoMercury, June 4, 1724; June 21, 1739;Independent Gazeteer, July 14, 1792.Cf.however, Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 136; Crawford,Observations upon Negro Slavery(1784), 23, 24;Pa. Packet, Jan. 1, 1780.

[148]This was not always the case. The MS. Rec. of Sandy Bank Cemetery, Delaware Co., contains the names of two negroes.

[149]MS. Minutes Middletown Monthly Meeting, 2d Book A, 171, 558, 559;Pa. Mag., VIII, 419; Isaac Comly, “Sketches of the History of Byberry,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., II, 194. There were exceptions, however.Cf.MS. Bk. of Rec. Merion Meeting Grave Yard.

[150]Bean,Hist. Montgomery Co., 302; Martin,Hist. of Chester, 80; Kalm,Travels, I, 44;Pa. Gazette, Nov. 15, 1775.

[151]Stat. at L., IV, 59;Col. Rec., II, 18; 1Pa. Arch.XI, 667;Mercury, Apr. 12, 1739;Phila. Staatsbote, Jan. 16, 1764,Pa. Gazette, Nov. 12, 1761. For an instance of a slave killing his master,cf.MS. Supreme Court Papers, XXI, 3546. This was very rare.Pa. Mag., XIII, 449. According to Judge Bradford’s statement arson was “the crime of slaves and children.”Journal of Senate of Pa., 1792–1793, p. 52;Col. Rec., IV, 243, 244, 259; XII, 377; MS. Miscellaneous Papers, Feb. 25, 1780.Cf.especially MS. Records of Special Courts for the Trial of Negroes;Col. Rec., IX, 648; MS. Streper Papers, 55.

[152]In 1737 the Council spoke of the “insolent Behaviour of the Negroes in and about the city, which has of late been so much taken notice of”....Col. Rec., IV, 244;Votes and Proceedings, IV, 171. As to pilfering Franklin remarked that almost every slave was by nature a thief.Works(ed. Sparks), II, 315.

[153]The following has not lost all significance. “I was much Disturbed after I came our girl Poll driving her same stroke of Impudence as when she was in Philadaand her mistress so hood-winked by her as not to see it which gave me much uneasiness and which I am determined not to put up with”.... Ch. Marshall, Remembrancer, D, Aug. 4, 1777.Cf.alsoRemarks on the Quaker Unmasked(1764).

[154]As shown by the very careless enforcement of the special regulations.

[155]Except immediately following the negro “insurrection” in New York in 1712.Cf.Stat. at L., II, 433; 1Pa. Arch., IV, 792; 2Pa. Arch., XV, 368.

[156]“A negro man and a White Woman servant being taken up ... and brought before John Simcocke Justice in Commission for runaways Who upon examination finding they had noe lawful Passe Comitted them to Prison” ... MS. Court Rec. Penna. and Chester Co., 1681–88, p. 75; MS. New Castle Ct. Rec., Liber A, 158 (1677); MS. Minutes Ct. Quarter Sess. Bucks Co., 1684–1730, p. 138 (1690); MS. Minutes Chester Co. Courts, 1681–1697, p. 222 (1694–1695). For the continual going away of Christopher Marshall’s “Girl Poll,” see his Remembrancer, vol. D.

[157]The following is not only typical, but is very interesting on its own account, since Abraham Lincoln was a descendent of the family mentioned. “Runaway on the 13th ofSeptemberlast fromAbraham LincolnofSpringfieldin the County of Chester, a Negro Man named Jack, about 30 Years of Age, low Stature, speaks little or noEnglish, has a Scar by the Corner of one Eye, in the Form of a V, his Teeth notched, and the Top of one on his Fore Teeth broke; He had on when he went away an old Hat, a grey Jacket partly like a Sailor’s Jacket. Whoever secures the said Negro, and brings him to his Master, or toMordecaiLincoln ... shall haveTwenty ShillingsReward and reasonable Charges.”Pa. Gazette, Oct. 15, 1730.

[158]Mercury, Apr. 18, 1723; July 11, 1723;Gazette, May 3, 1744; Feb. 22, 1775; July 28, 1779; Jan. 17, 1782;Packet, Oct. 13, 1778; Aug. 3, 1779. One negro indentured himself to a currier.Gazette, Aug. 30, 1775. Such negroes the community was warned not to employ.Packet, Feb. 27, 1779.

[159]The penalty was thirty shillings for every day.Stat. at L., IV, 64 (1725–1726). There was need for regulation from the first.Cf.Col. Rec., I, 117. An advertisement from Reading inGazette, July 31, 1776, explains the procedure when suspects were held in jail. Such advertisements recur frequently.Cf.Mercury, Aug. 13, 1730 (third notice);Gazette, Dec. 27, 1774;Packet, Mar. 23, 1779.

[160]For negroes carried off or who ran away at this timecf.MS. Miscellaneous Papers, Sept. 1, 1778; Nov. 19, 1778; Aug. 20, 1779; and others. Numbers of strange negroes were reported to be wandering around in Northumberland County.Ibid., Aug. 29, 1780. In 1732 the Six Nations had been asked not to harbor runaway negroes, since they were “the Support and Livelihood of their Masters, and gett them their Bread.” 4Pa. Arch., II, 657, 658.

[161]So I judge from statistics which I have compiled from the advertisements in the newspapers.

[162]Mercury, Apr. 18, 1723;Packet, July 16, 1778;Gazette, June 12, 1740; Feb. 4, 1775; Jan. 3, 1776; July 2, 1781;Gazette, Nov. 17, 1748; Feb. 21, 1775. “‘Old Dabbo’ an African Negro ... call’d here for some victuals.... He had three gashes on each cheek made by his mother when he was a child.... His conversation is scarcely intelligible”; MS. Diary of Joel Swayne, 1823–1833, Mar. 27, 1828.Mercury, Aug. 6, 1730;Packet, Aug. 26, 1779;Gazette, July 31, 1739–1740;Mercury, June 24, 1725;Packet, June 22, 1789;Packet, Dec. 31, 1778;Gazette, Sept. 10, 1741; July 21, 1779; Sept. 11, 1746; Oct. 16, 1776; July 30, 1747; May 14, 1747; Oct. 22, 1747; Aug. 30, 1775; Mar. 22, 1747–1748; July 24, 1776; Apr. 23, 1761; July 5, 1775;Packet, Jan. 26, 1779.

[163]“My Dear Companion ... has really her hands full, Cow to milk, breakfast to get, her Negro woman to bath, give medicine, Cap up with flannels, as She is allways Sure to be poorly when the weather is cold, Snowy and Slabby. its then She gives her Mistriss a deal of fatigue trouble in attending on her.” Ch. Marshall, Remembrancer, E, Mar. 25, 1779. “To Israel Taylor p order of the Comsfor Cureing negro Jack legg ... 4/10 To Roger Parke for Cureing negro sam ... /9/9.” MS. William Penn’s Account Book, 1690–1693, p. 8. A bill for £10 10 sh. 4d. was rendered to Thomas Penn for nursing and burying his negro Sam. Some of the items are very humorous. MS. Penn Papers, Accounts (unbound), Feb. 19, 1741. The bill for Thomas Penn’s negroes, Hagar, Diana, and Susy, for the years 1773 and 1774, amounted to £5 5 sh. Penn-Physick MSS., IV, 253. An item in a bill rendered to Mrs. Margaretta Frame is: “To bleeding her Negro man Sussex ... /2/6.” MS. Penn Papers, Accounts (unbound), June 5, 1742. St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 221. Masters were compelled by law to support their old slaves who would otherwise have become charges on the community.Cf.Stat. at L., X, 70;Laws of Pa., 1803, p. 103;1835–1836, pp. 546, 547. In very many cases, however, old negroes were maintained comfortably until death in the families where they had served.Cf.MS. Phila. Wills, X, 94 (1794). There are numerous instances of negroes receiving property by their master’s wills.Cf.West Chester Will Files, no. 3759 (1785). For the darker sidecf.Lay,All Slave-Keepers Apostates, 93.

[164]“Many of those whom the good Quakers have emancipated have received the great benefit with tears in their eyes, and have never quitted, though free, their former masters and benefactors.” St. John Crèvecœur,Letters, 222;Pa. Mag., XVIII, 372, 373; Buck, MS.History of Bucks Co., marginal note of author in his scrapbook. For the superiority of slaverycf.J. Harriot,Struggles through Life, etc., II, 409. Also Watson,Annals, II, 265.

[165]It has been suggested that it was milder than the system under which redemptioners were held, and that hence “Quaker scruples against slavery were either misplaced or insincere.” C. A. Herrick, “Indentured Labor in Pennsylvania,” (MS. thesis, University of Pa.), 89. An examination of the Quaker records would have shown that the last part of this statement is not true. See below, chaps.IV,V.

[166]It is of course possible that some of these negroes had been servants, and that their period of service was over.

[167]“Where As William Clark did buy ... An negor man Called and knowen by the name of black Will for and during his natrill Life; never the Less the said William Clark doe for the Incourigment of the sd neagor servant hereby promise Covenant and Agree; that if the said Black Will doe well and Truely sarve the said William Clark ... five years ... then the said Black Will shall be Clear and free of and from Any further or Longer Sarvicetime or Slavery ... as wittnes my hand this Thurteenth day of ... June Anno; Din; 1682.” MS. Ancient Rec. of Sussex Co., 1681–1709, p. 116.

[168]“My will is that my negroes John and Jane his wife shall be set free one month after my decease.” Ashmead,History of Delaware County, 203.

[169]“I give to ... my blacks their freedom as is under my hand already” ... MS. Will of William Penn, Newcastle on Delaware, 30th 8br, 1701. This will, which was left with James Logan, was not carried out. Penn’s last will contains no mention of his negroes. He frequently mentions them elsewhere.Cf.MS. Letters and Papers of William Penn (Dreer), 29 (1689), 35 (1690);Pa. Mag., XXXIII, 316 (1690); MS. Logan Papers. II, 98 (1703).Cf.also Penn. MSS., Official Correspondence, 97.

[170]Col. Rec., II, 120.

[171]Jane “a free negro woman” ... MS. Rec. Christ Church, 46.

[172]“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” ... “An Act for the better regulating of Negroes in this Province.”Stat. at L., IV, 61.

[173]“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” ... Letter of W. Rawle (1787), in MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Slavery.

[174]Votes and Proceedings, II, 336, 337.

[175]“An Act for the better regulating of Negroes in this Province.”Stat. at L., IV, 61 (1725–1726).

[176]“This is however very expensive for they are obliged to make a provision for the Negro thus set at liberty, to afford him subsistence when he is grown old, that he may not be driven by necessity to wicked actions, or that he may be at anybody’s charge, for these free Negroes become very lazy and indolent afterwards.” Kalm,Travels, I, 394 (1748).

[177]Cf.Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 30. The author ofBrief Considerations on Slavery, and the Expediency of Its Abolition(1773) argued that the public derived benefit from the labor of adult free negroes, and that the public should pay the surety required. By an elaborate calculation he endeavored to prove that a sum of about five shillings deposited at interest by the community each year of the negro’s life after he was twenty-one, would amply suffice for all requirements. Pp. 8–14 of the second part, entitled “An Account Stated on the Manumission of Slaves.” He says “As the laws stand at present in several of our northern governments, the act of manumission is clogged with difficulties that almost amount to a prohibition.”Ibid., 11.

[178]Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 696.

[179]Stat. at L., X, 72.

[180]Martin,History of Chester, 480; Watson,Annals, II, 265;Pa. Mag., VII, 82; Davis,History of Bucks County, 798; MS. in Miscellaneous Collection, Box 10, Negroes; Morgan,Annals of Harrisburg, 11; Smedley,History of the Underground Railroad in Chester, etc., 27;Pa. Mag., XII, 188; XXIX, 363, 365; MS. Rec. Christ Church, 46, 352, 356, 379, 400, 403, 404, 440, 441, 455, 475, 4126, 4330, 4356; MS. Rec. First Reformed Church, 4126, 4248; MS. Rec. St. Michael’s and Zion, 97.

[181]Cf.Conyngham’s “Historical Notes,” inMem. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 338.

[182]See below,p. 74.

[183]MS. Miscellaneous Papers, 1684–1847, Chester Co., 101 (1764).

[184]They were generally held longer than apprentices or white servants—until twenty-eight or thirty years of age, but many of the Friends protested against this. MS. Diary of Richard Barnard, 24 5 mo., 1782; M.S. Minutes Exeter Monthly Meeting, Book B, 354 (1779).

[185]“I do hereby Certify that Benjamin Mifflin hath given me Directions to sell his Negro man Cuff to himself for the Sum of Sixty Pounds if he can raise the Money having Repeatedly refused from Others seventy Five Pounds and upwards for him.” MS. (1769) in Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.

[186]Pa. Gazette, Mar. 5, 1751.

[187]Cf.Benezet,Some Historical Account of Guinea, 134, 135, where he laments the difficulties under which free negroes labor. Also same author,A Mite Cast into the Treasury, 13–17, where he argues that negro servants should not be held longer than white apprentices.

[188]“Die mährischen Brüder folgten diesem rühmlichen Beispiel; so auch Christen von den übrigen Bekenntnissen.”Ebeling, inErdbeschreibung, etc., IV, 220.

[189]Cf.preamble to the act of 1780.Stat. at L., X, 67, 68. A negro twenty-one years old was manumitted because “all mankind have an Equal Natural and Just right to Liberty.” MS. Extracts Rec. Goshen Monthly Meeting, 415 (G. Cope).

[190]MS. General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, Phila. Co., 1773–1780. Franklin, Letter to Dean Woodward, Apr. 10, 1773, inWorks(ed. Sparks), VIII, 42.

[191]In 1751 the number of negroes in Pennsylvania, including Delaware, was thought to be 11,000.Cf.above, p. 12. The negroes in Pennsylvania alone by 1780 probably did not exceed the same number. Of these 6,000 were said to be slaves.Cf.above,ibid.In some places by this time manumission was nearly complete.Cf.W. J. Buck, inColl. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 201.

[192]MSS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.

[193]MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 19, 27, 29, 43, 67, andpassim.

[194]A MS. dated Phila., 1769, contains a list of persons who had promised to contribute towards purchasing a negro’s freedom. Among the memoranda are: “John Head agrees to give him Twenty Shillings and not to be Repaid ... John Benezet twenty Shillings ... Christopher Marshall /7/6.... If he can raise with my Donation enough to free him I agree to give him three pounds and not otherwise I promise Saml Emlen jur ... Joseph Pemberton by his Desire [Fiveerased] pounds £3.” MS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.

[195]Misc. MSS. 1744–1859. Northern, Interior and Western Counties, 191 (1782).

[196]In 1779 a negro of Bucks County to secure the freedom of his wife gave his note to be paid by 1783. In 1782, having paid part, he was allowed to take his wife until the next payment. In 1785 she was free. MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 27–43. In 1787 negro Samson had purchased his wife and children for ninety-nine pounds.Ibid., I, 67. James Oronogue, who had been hired by his master to the keeper of a tavern, gained by his obliging behavior sixty pounds from the customers within four years’ time, and at his master’s death was allowed to purchase his freedom for one hundred pounds. He paid besides fifty pounds for his wife.Ibid., I, 69. When Cuff Douglas had been a slave for thirty-seven years his master promised him freedom after four years more. On the master agreeing to take thirty pounds in lieu of this service, Douglas hired himself out, and was free at the end of sixteen months. He then began business as a tailor, and presently was able to buy his wife and children for ninety pounds, besides one son for whom he paid forty-five pounds.Ibid., I, 72. Alsoibid., I, 79, 91.

[197]“Wanted to purchase, a good Negro Wench.... If to be sold on terms of freedom by far the most agreeable.”Pa. Packet, Aug. 22, 1778. In 1791 Caspar Wistar bought a slave for sixty pounds “to extricate him from that degraded Situation” ..., his purpose being to keep the negro for a term of years only. MS, Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes. Numerous other examples among the same MSS.

[198]“I, John Lettour from motives of benevolence and humanity ... do ... set free ... my Negro Girl Agathe Aged about Seventeen Years. On condition ... that she ... bind herself by Indenture to serve me ... Six years”.... MS.ibid.Cf.MS. Abstract Rec. Abington Monthly Meeting, 372 (1765).

[199]“I Manumit ... my Negro Girl Abb when she shall Arrive to the Age of Eighteen Years ... (on Condition that the Committee for the Abolition of slavery shall make entry according to Law ... so as to secure me from any Costs or Trouble on me or my Estate on said Negro after the age of Eighteen Years) ... Hannah Evans.” MS. Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.Cf.Stat. at L., X, 70. At times this might become an unpleasant reality.Cf.MS. State of a Case respecting a Negro (Ridgway Branch).

[200]Edmundson’sJournal, 61. Janney,History of the Friends, III, 178.

[201]Pennypacker, “The Settlement of Germantown,” inPa. Mag., IV, 28; McMaster, “The Abolition of Slavery in the United States,” inChatauquan, XV, 24, 25 (Apr., 1892). For the protest against slavery and the slave-trade (De instauranda Æthiopum Salute, Madrid, 1647) of the Jesuit, Alfonso Sandoval,cf.Saco,Historia de la Esclavitud de la Raza Africana en el Nuevo Mundo, 253–256.

[202]Pennypacker,place cited; Learned,Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius, 261, 262. Facsimile of protest in Ridgway Branch of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

[203]The Monthly Meeting declared “we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here.” Pennypacker,place cited, 30, 31.

[204]Watson,Annals, II, 262. “An Exhortation and Caution To Friends Concerning buying or keeping of Negroes,” inPa. Mag., XIII, 265–270. This is said to have been the first printed protest against slavery in America.Cf.Hildeburn,A Century of Printing, etc., I, 28, 29; Gabriel Thomas,Account, 53; Bettle,Notes, 367.

[205]Clarkson,Life of Penn, II, 78, 79.

[206]Cf.Bettle, 372.

[207]Ibid., 373.

[208]Ibid., 377.

[209]“Whereas several Papers have been read relating to the keeping and bringing in of Negroes ... it is the advice of this Meeting, that Friends be careful not to encourage the bringing in of any more Negroes” ... MS. “Negroes or Slaves,” Yearly Meeting Advices, 1682–1777 (1696). “This meeting is also dissatisfied with Friends buying and incouriging the bringing in of Negroes” ... MS. Chester Quarterly Meeting Minutes, 6 6th mo., 1711. “There having a conscern Come upon severall friends belonging to this meeting Conscerning the Importation of Negros ... after some time spent in the Consideration thereof it is the Unanimous sence of this meeting that friends should not be concerned hereafter in the Importation thereof nor buy any” ... MS. Chester Monthly Meeting Minutes, 27 4th mo., 1715. MS. Chester Quarterly Meeting Minutes, 1 6th mo., 1715. “This meeting have been for some time under a Concern by reason of the great Quantity of Negros fetched and imported into this Country.”Ibid., 11 6th mo., 1729. MS. Yearly Meeting Minutes, 19–23 7th mo., 1730. As soon as Friends had been brought to cease the importation of negroes, attack was made upon the practice of Friends buying negroes imported by others.Cf.MS. Chester Q. M. M., 11 6th mo., 1729; 9 9th mo., 1730. The MS. Chester M. M. M. mention 100 books on the slave-trade for circulation.

[210]“We also kindly received your advice about negro slaves, and we are one with you, that the multiplying of them, may be of a dangerous consequence, and therefore a Law was made in Pennsylvania laying Twenty pounds Duty upon every one imported there, which Law the Queen was pleas’d to disanull, we would heartily wish that a way might be found to stop the bringing in more here, or at least that Friends may be less concerned in buying or selling, of any that may be brought in, and hope for your assistance with the Government if any farther Law should be made discouraging the importation. We know not of any Friend amongst us that has any hand or concern in bringing any out of their own Country.” MS. Yearly M. M., 22 7th mo., 1714. This was written in reply to the London Yearly Meeting, and alludes to the act passed in 1712. See above,p. 3.

[211]See above,p. 65.Cf.also P. C. Plockhoy’s principle laid down in hisKort en Klaer Ontwerp(Amsterdam, 1662): “No lordship or servile slavery shall burden our Company.” Quoted in Pennypacker,Settlement of Germantown, 204, 292.

[212]“The Germans seldom hire men to work upon their farms.” Rush,An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania(1789), 24. “They never, as a general thing, had colored servants or slaves.”Ibid., 24 (note by Rupp). “Slaves in Pennsylvania never were as numerous in proportion to the white population as in New York and New Jersey. To our German population this is certainly attributable—Wherever they or their numerous descendants located they preferredtheir ownlabor to that of negro slaves.” Buck, MS.History of Bucks County, 69. “Of all the nations who have settled in America, the Germans have availed themselves the least of the unjust and demoralizing aid of slavery.” W. Grimshaw,History of the United States, 79. The truth of these statements is revealed in the tax-lists of the different counties. Thus, in Berks County there were 2692 German tax-payers (61%) and 1724 (39%) not Germans. Of these 44 Germans held 62 slaves, and 57 of other nationalities held 92 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XVIII, 303–430. In York County, where there were 2051 German property-holders (34%) and 3993 who were not Germans (66%), 27 Germans held 44 slaves as against 178 others who held 319 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XXI, 165–324. (Both these estimates are for 1780.) In Lancaster County the property-holders included approximately 3475 Germans (48%) and 3706 not Germans (52%). Here 31 Germans held 46 slaves, while 200 not Germans held 402 slaves. 3Pa. Arch., XVII, 489–685 (1779). The records of the German churches rarely mention slaves.

[213]The small number of negroes in Pennsylvania was often noticed. Burnaby,Travels through the Middle Settlements, 63, said “there are few negroes or slaves” ... (1759), Anburey,Travels through the Interior Parts of America, II, 280–281, said, “The Pennsylvanians ... are more industrious of themselves, having but few blacks among them.” (1778).Cf.Proud,History, II, 274. Estimates as to the number of Germans in Pennsylvania vary from 3/5 (1747,cf.Rupp’s note in Rush,Account, 1) to 1/3 (1789,ibid., 54). For many estimatescf.Diffenderffer,German Immigration into Pennsylvania, pt. II,The Redemptioners, 99–108. Some few Germans had intended to hold slaves from the first.Cf.the articles of agreement between the members of the Frankfort Company (1686): ... “alle ... leibeigenen Menschen ... sollen unter Allen Interessenten pro rato der Ackerzahl gemein seyn.” MS. in possession of S. W. Pennypacker, Philadelphia.

[214]Watson, (MS.) Annals, 530. The same spirit is apparent much later. “There generally appeared an uneasiness in their minds respecting them, tho all are not so fully convinced of the Iniquity of the practice as to get over the difficulty which they apprehend would attend their giving them their liberty” ... MS. Abstract Rec. Gwynedd Monthly Meeting, 278 (1770). “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?” Benezet,Notes on the Slave Trade, 8.

[215]Votes and Proceedings, II, 110;The Friend, XXVIII, 293, and following; A. C. Thomas, “The Attitude of the Society of Friends toward Slavery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Particularly in Relation to Its Own Members,” inAmer. Soc. Church History, VIII, 273, 274.

[216]“Ralph Sandiford Crfor Cash receiv’d of BenjaLay for 50 of his Books which he intends to give away ... 10” (sh.) MS. Benjamin Franklin’s Account Book, Feb. 28, 1732–1733.

[217]Sandiford,Mystery of Iniquity, 43; Vaux,Memoirs of the Lives of Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sandiford;The Friend, L, 170; Thomas,Attitude, 274; Franklin,Works(ed. Sparks), X, 403.

[218]Cf.American Weekly Mercury, Nov. 2, 1738, for notice in which the Friends’ Meeting denounces hisAll Slave-Keepers ... Apostates(1737).Cf.anecdotes related by Vaux; Bettle,Notices, 375, 376;The Friend, L, 170; Thomas,Attitude, 274.

[219]Bettle,Notices, 378–382; Thomas,Attitude, 245, 275–279; Tyler,Literary History of the American Revolution, II, 339–347;The Friend, LIII, 190; Woolman,Journal.

[220]Vaux,Memoirs of Benezet;The Friend, LXXI, 369; Thomas, 274, 275; Bettle, 382–387; Benezet’s own writings.

[221]Thomas, 273. There must have been a great many other reformers of considerable influence, but of less fame, about whose work little has come down.Cf.“Thos. Nicholson on Keeping Negroes” (1767). MS. in Misc. Coll., Box 10, Negroes.

[222]Cf.MS. Chester Q. M. M., 14 6th mo., 1738; 8 6th mo., 1743.

[223]Needles,Memoir, 13.

[224]Bettle, 377.

[225]The MS. Chester Q. M. M., 8 8th mo., 1763, say ... “we are not quite clear of dealing in Negro’s, but care is taken mostly to discourage it ....” Three years later they add ... “clear of importing or purchasing Negro’s.”Ibid., 11 8th mo., 1766.Cf.alsoibid., 10 8th mo., 1767; MS. Chester M. M. Miscellaneous Papers, 28 1st mo., 1765; MS. Darby M. M. M., II, 11, 12, 16, 19, (1764), 24, 27, 31, 33, 35, 38, 40, 42, 45, 46, (1764–1765). These references concern the case of Enoch Eliot, who, having purchased two negroes, was repeatedly urged to set them free, and finally did so. MS. Abstract Rec. Abington M. M., 28 7th mo., 1760; 25 8th mo., 1760. “One of the frdsappdto visit Jonathan Jones reports they all had an oppertunity With him sdJonathan, and that he gave them exspectation of not making any more purchases of that kind, as also he is sorry for the purchace he did make” ...Ibid., 24 11th mo., 1760; alsoibid., 24 11th mo., 1760; 20 9th mo., 1762; 29 10th mo., 1764.

[226]MS. Yearly M. M., 23–29 9th mo., 1758, where Friends are earnestly entreated to “sett them at Liberty, making a Christian Provision for them according to their Ages etc”....Cf.report about George Ragan: ... “as to his Buying and selling a Negro, he saith he Cannot see the Evil thereof, and therefore cannot make any satisfaction, and as he has been much Laboured with by this mgto bring him to a sight of his Error, This mgtherefore agreeable to a minute of our Yearly Mgcan do no Less than so far Testify agst him ... as not to Receive his Collections, neither is he to sit in our mgsfor Discipline until he can see his Error” ... MS. Abst. Abington M. M., 288 (1761).Cf.Michener,Retrospect of Early Quakerism, 346, 347;A Brief Statement of the rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends, against Slavery and the Slave Trade, 21–24; Sharpless,A History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, II, 229; Needles, 13. For the fervid feeling at this timecf.Journal of John Churchman(1756), inFriends’ Library, VI, 236.

[227]Bettle, 378; Sharpless, II, 229.Cf.alsoJournal of Daniel Stanton, inFriends’ Library, XII, 167.

[228]MS. Abst. Abington M. M., 328, 336, 347, 351, 358, 368, 372, 398; MS. Min. Sadsbury M. M., 1737–8—1783, pp. 270, 290; MS. Min. Radnor M. M., 1772–1782, pp. 63, 66, 71, 102, 103, 107, etc.; MS. Min. Women’s Q. M., Bucks Co., 26 8th mo., 1779; 30 8th mo., 1781; MS. Darby M. M. M., II, 87, 91, 93, (1769), 178 (1774), 180, 181, 184, 186, 190 (1775), 309, 312 (1780); MS. Women’s Min. Darby M. M., 2 2d mo., 1775; 30 3rd mo., 1775; 3 8th mo., 1780; 31 8th mo., 1780; MS. Extracts Buckingham M. M., 128, 130, 136 (1767–1768); MS. Diary of Richard Barnard, 24 9th mo., 1774; 7 6th mo., 1780; MS. Journal of Joshua Brown, 11th mo., 1775; above all the MS. Diary of James Moon,passim.Cf.Sharpless,Quakerism and Politics, 159–178; Whittier’s introduction to John Woolman’sJournal.

[229]Futhey and Cope,History of Chester Co., 423.

[230]Cf.Abst. Rec. Gwynedd M. M., 201, 204, 213, 218, 240, 270, 271, 273, 278, 280, 307, 311, 312, 316, 321, 322, 323, 336, 348, 374, 471; MS. Papers Middletown M. M., 1759–1786, pp. 386, 388, 389, 390; Franklin,Works, (ed. Sparks). VIII, 42.

[231]Brief Statement, 49.

[232]MS. Yearly M. M., 27 9th mo., 1776;Brief Statement, 24–27; Needles, 13; Thomas, 245; Sharpless,History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, II, 138, 139.

[233]Brief Statement, 31–35; Needles, 13; Sharpless, II, 226. For some years the Meetings continued to make regular reports on this subject. “7th No Slaves among us and such of their Offspring as are under our Care are generally pretty well provided for.” MS. Rec. Warrington Q. M., 25 8th mo., 1788.

[234]In the absence of a plantation system slavery in Pennsylvania never was profitable in the same sense as in Virginia or South Carolina, and where white labor could be obtained slavery could not compete.Cf.Franklin,Works, II, 314, 315 (1751). But as it was almost impossible to obtain sufficient white labor, or at least to retain it, slavery as it existed in Pennsylvania was profitable throughout the colonial period. For the strong desire to import, see above, chap. I. For the high prices paid in the first quarter of the nineteenth century for the right to hold negroes to the age of 28, see below, p. 94.

[235]This is my judgment after a careful investigation of the Friends’ records. Adam Smith, who had not seen these records, but who wrote just when the work was being completed, thought differently.Wealth of Nations(ed. Rogers), I, 391.

[236]Other sects followed the example of the Friends,cf.Ebeling, IV, 220, but their work was mostly significant in connection with the legislative work of the Assembly. For the effects of the work of the Friendscf.Bowden,History of the Friends, II, 221.

[237]Votes and Proceedings, 1767–1776, p. 696.

[238]1Pa. Arch., VII, 79;Journal of House of Rep., 1776–1781, p. 311.

[239]Col. Rec., XII, 99;Pa. Packet, Sept. 16, 1779;Journals of House, 1776–1781, pp. 392, 394, 399, 412, 424, 435;Packet, Mar. 13, 1779; Dec. 25, 1779; Jan. 1, 1780;Gazette, Dec. 29, 1779; Vaux,Memoirs of Benezet, 92. The distribution of the vote seems to have had no political, no religious, and probably no economic significance. The measure was popular in and out of the Assembly.Packet, Dec. 25, 1779;Jour. of House, 1776–1781, p. 435. An earlier bill had been published in thePacket, Mar. 4, 1779. It is very interesting. The bill as finally drafted became the first act for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Accordingly its authors had to do much original and constructive work. In the course of the work their ideas underwent some change, and the transition is easily seen in comparing the first bill of 1779 with the act as passed in 1780. In some respects the first is more liberal than the second; in other respects less so. Thus at first it was intended to make the children of slaves servants until twenty-one only. (Packet, Mar. 4, 1779). “A Citizen” discussing this objected that the master would receive inadequate compensation for rearing negro children, and urged that the age limit be made twenty-eight or even thirty. (Packet, Mar. 13, 1779), and so pay for the unproductive years, which was but just. The law made the age twenty-eight. On the other hand it was at first proposed to continue the prohibition of intermarriage and the permission to bind out idle free negroes. (Packet, Mar. 4, 1779). Both these provisions were omitted from the law.

[240]Stat. at L., X, 67–73; 2 Sergeant and Rawle, 305–309. Many of the Friends thought that negroes ought not to be held after they were twenty-one.Cf.MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 23. Very many masters lost their negroes through failing to register them, through ignorance of the provision requiring registry, or through carelessness in complying with it.Cf.Rush,Considerations upon the Present Test-Law, (2nd ed.), 7 (note);Journals of House, 1776–1781, p. 537, and following; 4Pa. Arch., III, 822.Cf.Christopher Marshall’s Remembrancer, F, Oct. 10, 1780: ... “gott our Negro Recorded.”Cf.York Herald, Apr. 26, 1797. The limit was extended to Jan. 1, 1783, in favor of the citizens of Washington and Westmoreland counties, previously under the jurisdiction of Virginia.Stat. at L., X, 463. Runaways from other states were of course not made free by this provision.Cf.sect. VIII of act.

[241]The repeal of this section was proposed the next year, but failed by three votes.Cf.Journals of House, 1776–1781, p. 605. It was finally repealed in 1847.

[242]Sect. X of act.

[243]For the view that it was drafted by William Lewis,cf.Pa. Mag., XIV, 14; Robert E. Randall,Speech on the Laws of the State relative to Fugitive Slaves, 6; Horace Binney,Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia, 25. There can be little doubt, however, that full credit should be given to Bryan. “He framed and executed the ‘act’” ... Obituary notice in theGazette, Feb. 2, 1791.Cf.inscription on his tomb-stone, copy in Inscriptions in the Burying Ground of the Second Presbyterian Church Phila. (MS. H. S. P.);Mem. Hist. Soc. Pa., I, 408–410; Konkle,Life and Times of Thomas Smith, 105.

[244]Vermont had forbidden slavery by her constitution of 1777. Poore, II, 1859.

[245]Its significance in this respect is remarked by Bowden,History of the Friends, II, 220. Connecticut and Rhode Island provided for abolition in 1784, New York in 1799, New Jersey in 1804. The same was accomplished in Massachusetts in 1780, and in New Hampshire in 1792, by construction of the constitution. Among many instances where Pennsylvania pointed to her great act with pride,cf.Acts of Assembly, 1819–20, p. 199; 4Pa. Arch., VI, 242, 290. Albert Gallatin, writing to Charles Brown, Mar. 1, 1838, says: “It is indeed a great subject of pride ... that as one of the United States she was the first to abolish slavery” ...Writings(ed. Adams), II, 523, 524.

[246]1 Dallas 469; 14 Sergeant and Rawle 443–446; 1Pa. Arch., VIII, 720.

[247]Pa. Mag., XV, 372, 373. The selling-price elsewhere was greater since it included the price of the posterity.

[248]Brissot de Warville,Mémoire sur les Noirs de l’Amérique Septentrionale, 19.

[249]Minutes of Assembly, 1787–1788, pp. 104, 134, 135, 137, 159, 164, 177, 197;Packet, Mar. 13, 1788;Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer, 144.

[250]Laws of Pennsylvania(Carey and Bioren), III, 268–272. Despite this many negroes continued to be sold out of the state, and in 1795 the Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl. was asking for a more stringent law.Cf.MS. Rec. of Soc., IV, 191. Also MS. Supreme Court Papers, nos. 3, 4, (1795). As late as 1796 the author of theReise von Hamburg nach Philadelphiasays:“Häufig kommen, in Philadelphia vorzüglich ... grosze Transporte von Sclaven von Africa vorüber,”p. 24.

[251]1 Dallas 491, 492; 2 Dallas 224–228; 3 Sergeant and Rawle 396–402; 2 Yeates 234, 449; 3id.259–261; 4id.115, 116; 6 Binney 206–211; MS. Sup. Ct. Papers, I, 1; MS. Rec. Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl., I, 197.

[252]2 Rawle, 204–206; 1 Penrose and Watts 93.Cf.Min. of Assembly, 1785–1786, pp. 168, 169.

[253]14 Sergeant and Rawle 442; Brissot,Mémoire, 20.

[254]Brissot,Mémoire, 21.Cf.the severe censure inWhy Colored People in Philadelphia Are Excluded from the Street Cars(1866), 23.

[255]Art. IX, sect. 1.

[256]Journal of the House, 1792–1793, pp. 39, 55.

[257]MS. Docket Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, XXVII, 379. The suit was on a writ “de homine replegiando.”Cf.Stroud,Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America(2d ed.), 227 (note); MS. Docket of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, 1780–1808, p. 126;Pa. Gazette, Feb. 3, 1802; Report of Pa. Soc. Abol. Sl. inMinutes Sixth Convention Abol. Soc., Phila., 1800, p. 7. It was the different decision of an exactly similar question that abolished slavery in Massachusetts.Cf.Littletonv.Tuttle, 4 Massachusetts 128.

[258]Journal of Senate, 1792–1793, pp. 150, 151;1798–1799, p. 149;J. of H., 1799–1800, pp. 76, 123, 153, 160, 172, 190;J. of S., 1799–1800, p. 223;J. of S., 1800–1801, pp. 134, 135;J. of H., 1802–1803, p. 218;J. of H., 1811–1812, pp. 24, 216; 4Pa. Arch., IV, 757, for Governor Snyder’s message.

[259]J. of H., 1796–1797, pp. 283, 308, 354, 355;J. of H., 1797–1798, pp. 75, 269;J. of H., 1798–1799, pp. 20, 354;J. of H., 1799–1800, pp. 23, 76, 93, 123, 153, 160, 162, 172, 176, 190, 236, 303, 304, 306, 309, 310, 313, 314, 330, 358, 376;J. of S., 1799–1800, pp. 144, 223, 235. The bill passed the House 54 to 15.J. of S., 1800–1801, p. 175;J. of S., 1801–1802, p. 24.

[260]J. of H., 1802–1803, pp. 361, 362;1804–1805, p. 61;Pa. Gazette, Feb. 1, 1804;J. of H., 1811–1812, pp. 58, 67, 216;J. of. S., 1820–1821, p. 33;Phila. Gazette, Mar. 6, 1821;J. of S., 1820–1821, pp. 105, 308, 469, 531, 532, 535, 536. For the provisions of such a bill—the abolition of slavery and of servitude until twenty-eight—compensation of owners—permission for negroes to remain slaves if they so desired—cf.House Reportno. 399 (1826);J. of H., 1825–1826, pp. 370, 375, 396, 497, 498. AlsoJ. of S., 1841, vol. I, 249, 294.

[261]The numbers were 1790,3737; 1800,1706; 1810,795; 1820,211; 1830,67; 1840,64(?). The U. S. Census Reports do not mention any after 1840, but it is said that James Clark of Donegal Township, Lancaster County, held a slave in 1860.Cf.W. J. McKnight,Pioneer Outline History of Northwestern Pennsylvania, 311. It is necessary to remark that the U. S. Census reported386as the number of slaves in 1830. As this was in increase of 175 over the number reported in 1820, it aroused consternation in Pennsylvania and amazement elsewhere, so that a committee of the Senate was immediately appointed to investigate. Their account showed that there had been no increase but a substantial diminution in numbers; and that the U. S. officers had been grossly careless, if not positively ignorant in their work.J. of S., 1832–1833, vol. I, 141, 148, 482–487;Hazard’s Register, IV, 380; IX, 270–272, 395; XI, 158, 159;African Repository and Colonial Journal, VII, 315.

[262]Cf.J. of S., 1821–1822, pp. 214, 215.

[263]Minutes Tenth American Convention Abol. Sl., Phila., 1805, p. 13.

[264]Stat. at L., X, 71.

[265]Respublicav.Richards, 2 Dallas 224–228; Commonwealthv.Smyth, 1 Browne 113, 114;Laws of Assembly, 1847, p. 208. This law was affirmed by the courts in 1849. Kauffmanv.Oliver 10Pa. State Rep.(Barr), 517–518. It was at times contested by the citizens of other states, as in the famous episode of J. H. Wheeler’s slaves in 1855.Cf.Narrative of Facts in the Case of Passmore Williamson. In this case the Federal District Court held that Pa. had no jurisdiction over the right of transit. In 1860 a negress was brought from Va. to Pa. She was at once told that she was free; but when her master returned she went back with him.Phila. Inquirer, Aug. 29, 1860.

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