"Consider Well This Thing": America's First Anti-Slavery Protest

My apologies for the following post, for it falls under "fascinating" rather than "funny." Hope you like it!

Since practically the beginning of the school year, I've been working on a huge essay on the 1688 Germantown Anti-Slavery Petition. It's hypothetically for Philadelphia's National History Day contest, or NHD Philly, though the paper is required for class, but not everyone can submit to the contest. Anyway, it's complicated.
But after writing a five-page paper on this topic, not to mention  an annotated bibliography that's longer than the paper itself, which I find ridiculous, I've really become... well, fascinated by the Petition. Read on if you like. Warning: It's quite longer than I originally intended.


The earliest formal petition in America to question the moral correctness of slavery, the Germantown Anti-Slavery Petition of 1688 began the long process of change leading to the emancipation of slaves in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. It was signed by four Quakers in Germantown, now part of Philadelphia. Read and be fascinated.

George Fox, founder of Quakerism, wrote Gospel Family-Order in 1676, basing it on a speech he made in 1671. In this pamphlet, which is, like, 80% Bible quotations, he provided biblical examples of Africans being equal to white Christians in God’s eyes, and also advocated the religious education of slaves, saying, “…therefore you should preach Christ to your Ethyopians… that so they may be free Men indeed, and be tender of and to them, and walk in Love." He did not suggest ending slavery.

And, on a not entirely unrelated topic, Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 by William Penn, a convert to Quakerism. He's the big statue on top of City Hall, which pretty much everyone knows. Anyway, Penn wanted his colony to be based on Quaker principles of freedom and respect, and indeed, Penn was usually a good example—even though he was granted the colony by the king, he paid Native Americans for their land before settling on it. But apparently he couldn't be a pleasant human being all the time, because he also owned slaves. At the time, this was acceptable for Quakers, but that would soon change. 

(Cue dramatic music.)

The Germantown Anti-Slavery Petition was signed on April 4, 1688. (Which means that its 325th anniversary is coming up soon. And it looks quite fine. I've seen it.) The authors—Francis Daniel Pastorius, Gerret Hendericks, Herman up de Graeff, and Abraham up de Graeff—condemned slavery on a moral basis, asking rhetorically, “Is there any[one] that would be done or handled at in this manner? viz., to be sold or made a slave all the time of his life?” They also pointed out that slavery could be considered robbing, and so concluded that “we who profess that it is unlawfull to steal, must lickewise avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing if possibel." This is all very nice, but the signers were people, too.

A rather odd-seeming part of the document says that slavery should be abolished because it is making Pennsylvania look bad to Germany. But it makes sense when put in context, as Pastorius—the  document’s main author—was “essentially a real estate agent” entrusted with selling land in Pennsylvania to Germans. Similarly, the up de Graeffs were weavers, along with many other Germantown Quakers, and were worried about the possible loss of trade from the acquisition of West African slaves, who were often skilled weavers. A logical argument, if not entirely altruistic. Hey, they were businessmen. But weren't they very faithful businessmen, you ask?

Yes! The signers of the Petition were Quakers and attending Quaker meetings, but “they were most likely also influenced by early Mennonite society." Indeed, the up de Graeff brothers were raised as Mennonite and probably converted to Quakerism only when in Pennsylvania. In fact, Pastorius was not a Quaker at all, but a Lutheran Pietist who was participating in Quaker meetings because his wife was Quaker.

But did anything happen? What did they do with it? Did they just sign it and leave it on the table?* No!

The Petition was brought up at the Germantown Quakers’ monthly meeting, which sent it to the quarterly and then the annual meeting in Philadelphia. The quarterly meeting declared the Petition “a thing of too great a weight for this meeting to determine." Likewise, the minutes for the yearly meeting barely mention the Petition, reading that “It was adjudged not to be so proper for this meeting to give a positive Judgement in the Case." 

(In other words, dream on, idealists.) 

However, the Quakers of Pennsylvania were not silent for long—the Petition had brought into consideration the idea of antislavery. The Merion Protest of 1696 was written and signed by Cadwalader Morgan (don't you love his name? He's Welsh), who “was in Perplexity concerning [slavery], and…could find no satisfaction through Enquiries of men." Morgan prayed for guidance on the topic, and received the answer from God that slavery was wrong. He advised other Quakers to give up their slaves as well, bolstering his argument by citing the biblical story of Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his only son when God commanded him to do so. If Abraham was willing to give up his child, Morgan argues, then Quakers should much more easily be willing to give up their slaves. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting actually addressed Morgan’s protest and joined him in his denunciation of the slave trade. So there.

The Petition helped inspire Quakers in Britain to speak for the abolition movement, and eventually, in 1780, slavery in Pennsylvania was officially abolished.**

But what happened to this influential document? The house in which it was signed was demolished in the 1980s and is now unfortunately a parking lot, albeit a parking lot with a historical marker.*** The Petition itself was found in 1844, used by abolitionists to promote their cause, then “filed away and forgotten." It was rediscovered in Philadelphia the past decade and restored by the Conservation Center for Art and Historical Artifacts in Philadelphia. Ink had bled through, and the paper had been damaged by water, mold, and folding). However, this pivotal piece of antislavery history happily survives intact, now at Haverford College’s Magill Library. (The librarians there are really nice, so if you live nearby, you can go and see it. We did.)


*We went and saw the table on which it was signed. It was cool. It's here.

**But not really. The Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery actually only grants freedom to slaves not yet born... and they still have to work, unpaid, until they're twenty-eight. Boo.

***Voila: