[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. Also ibid., 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’s Journal, 61. Janney, History of the Friends, III, 178.
[201] Pennypacker, “The Settlement of Germantown,” in Pa. Mag., IV, 28; McMaster, “The Abolition of Slavery in the United States,” in Chatauquan, 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,” in Pa. 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.