The reform really began in 1688, a year memorable for the first formal protest against slavery in North America.[201] Germantown had been settled by German refugees who in religious belief were Friends. These men, simple-minded and honest, having had no previous acquaintance with slavery, were amazed to find it existing in Penn’s colony. At their monthly meeting, the eighteenth of the second month, 1688, Pastorius and other leaders drew up an eloquent and touching memorial. In words of surpassing nobleness and simplicity they stated the reasons why they were against slavery and the traffic in men’s bodies. Would the masters wish so to be dealt with? Was it possible for this to be in accord with Christianity? In Pennsylvania there was freedom of conscience; there ought likewise to be freedom of the body. What report would it cause in Europe that in this new land the Quakers handled men as there men treated their cattle? If it were possible that Christian men might do these things they desired to be so informed.[202]
This protest they sent to the Monthly Meeting at Richard Worrel’s. There it was considered, and found too weighty to be dealt with, and so it was sent on to the Quarterly Meeting at Philadelphia, and from thence to the Yearly Meeting at Burlington, which finally decided not to give a positive judgment in the case.[203] For the present nothing came of it; but the idea did not die. It probably lingered in the minds of many men; for within a few years a sentiment had been aroused which became widespread and powerful.
In 1693 George Keith, leader of a dissenting faction of Quakers, laid down as one of his doctrines that negroes were men, and that slavery was contrary to the religion of Christ; also that masters should set their negroes at liberty after some reasonable time.[204] At a meeting of Friends held in Philadelphia in 1693 the prevailing opinion was that none should buy except to set free. Three years later at the Friends’ Yearly Meeting it was resolved to discourage the further bringing in of slaves.[205] In 1712 when the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia desiring counsel applied to the Yearly Meeting at London, it received answer that the multiplying of negroes might be of dangerous consequence.[206] In the next and the following years the Meetings strongly advised Friends not to import and not to buy slaves.[207] From 1730 to 1737 reports showed that the importation of negroes by Friends was being largely discontinued. By 1745 it had virtually ceased.[208]
It is generally believed that Pennsylvania’s restrictive legislation, that long series of acts passed for the purpose of keeping out negroes by means of prohibitive duties, was largely due to Quaker influence. This is probably true, but it is not easy to prove. The proceedings of the colonial Assembly have been reported so briefly that they do not give the needed information. When, however, the strong feeling of the Friends is understood in connection with the fact that they controlled the early legislatures, it is not hard to believe that the high duties were imposed because they wished the traffic at an end. Their feeling about the slave-trade and their desire to stop it are revealed again and again in the meeting minutes.[209] The most drastic law was certainly due to them.[210]
But the small number of negroes in Pennsylvania as compared with the neighboring northern colonies was above all due to the early and continuous aversion to slavery manifested by the Germans. The first German settlers opposed the institution for religious reasons.[211] This opposition is perhaps to be ascribed to them as Quakers rather than as men of a particular race. But as successive swarms poured into the country it was found, it may be from religious scruples, more probably because of peculiar economic characteristics and because of feelings of sturdy industry and self-reliance, that they almost never bought negroes nor even hired them.[212] As the German element in Pennsylvania was very considerable, amounting at times to one-third of the population, such a course, though lacking in dramatic quality, and though it has been unheralded by the historians, was nevertheless of immense and decisive importance.[213]
During this period, then, much had been accomplished. Not only had the Germans turned their backs upon slave-holding, but the Friends, brought to perceive the iniquity of the practice, had ceased importing slaves, and for the most part had ceased buying them. It was another generation before the conservative element could be brought to advance beyond this position. It was not so easy to make them give up the slaves they already had.
The succeeding period was characterized by an inevitable struggle which ensued between considerations of economy and ethics. The attitude of many Friends was that in refusing to buy any more slaves they were fulfilling all reasonable obligations. Sometimes there was a desire to hush up the whole matter and get it out of mind. Isaac Norris tells of a meeting that was large and comfortable, where the business would have gone very well but for the warm pushing by some Friends of Chester in the matter of negroes. But he adds that affairs were so managed that the unpleasant subject was dropped.[214] What would have been the result of this disposition cannot now be known; but it proved impossible to smooth matters away. There had already begun an age of reformers, forerunners by a hundred years of Garrison and his associates, men who were content with nothing less than entire abolition.
The first of the abolitionists was William Southeby of Maryland, who went to Pennsylvania. For years the subject of slavery weighed heavily upon his mind. As early as 1696 he urged the Meeting to take action. His petition to the Provincial Assembly in 1712 asking that all slaves be set free was one of the most memorable incidents in the early struggle against slavery. But the Assembly resolved that his project was neither just nor convenient; and his ideas were so far in advance of the times that not only did he a little later lose favor among the Friends, but long after it was the judgment that his ill-regulated zeal had brought only sorrow.[215]
The next in point of time was Ralph Sandiford (1693–1733), a Friend of Philadelphia. His hostility to slavery was aroused by the sufferings of negroes whom he had seen in the West Indies; and his feeling was so strong that on one occasion he refused to accept a gift from a slaveholder. In 1729 he published his Mystery of Iniquity, an impassioned protest against slavery. Although threatened with severe penalties if he circulated this work, he distributed it wherever he felt that it would be of use.[216] Such enmity did he arouse that he was forced to leave the city.[217]
His work was carried forward by Benjamin Lay (1677–1759), an Englishman who came from Barbadoes to Philadelphia in 1731. He too aroused much hostility by his violence of expression and eccentric efforts to create pity for the slaves. He gave his whole life to the cause, but owing to his too radical methods he was much less influential than he might have been.[218]