The Warrington and Fairfax Quarterly Meeting (Baltimore Yearly Meeting) reported in 1776 that their Negroes were well taken care of, but their education was “much neglected.”[1320] Three years later they reported:
Some care taken in their education
By the accounts now received it appears that the religious education of such negroes and their children as have been restored to freedom has been attended to and a visit performed to most of them to good satisfaction, and there appears to be a hopeful prospect that those who have been under their immediate care will comply with Friends’ advice with respect to the school education. Some care has been taken therein.[1321]
ATTITUDE TOWARD THE INDIANS
Friendly relation of Quakers and Indians
The uncommon relation existing from the time of the first settlement of Penn’s colony throughout the entire colonial history, is well known to every schoolboy; such relations, between any possibly antagonistic groups, have been without parallel in the history of this country. Applegarth, speaking of this happy relationship, states that the results of his study revealed but two instances in which Friends had been massacred by Indians, and these cases were entirely the results of misunderstanding.[1322]
It is aside from the point to relate at length the means employed by Penn and the Quakers to cultivate the friendship of these people. Nothing was more forceful than his immediate association with, and travels among them, and the messages in which he explained that he and his people were one with them and that they were all the “Friends of Onas.”
No rum to any but chieftain by law, 1701
Indian affairs were considered in a rational manner and occupied much of the time of the Governor and Council. Instances of a solicitous interest in the Indians[1323] are seen in the laws of 1701, forbidding the sale of rum to any but the chiefs, who should distribute it as they thought best,[1324] and a still more restrictive law in 1722, which prohibited the sale of liquor to Indians. Of still more importance was the establishment of the principle that an abuse committed by an Indian towards the Whites must be adjusted by the Indian chief, not revenged by the Whites, which was given out in the instructions to colonists; and the converse stated later (1728) by the Governor, that if a White injured an Indian he should make complaint to the Whites, who would then punish the offense under their own laws.[1325]