Quakers and the 1780 Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act

Yes, some Quakers owned slaves in the early 1700s. In 1758 Quakers Anthony Benezet and John Woolman, believing slavery to be inconsistent with Christianity and common justice, persuaded the Philadelphia Quaker Yearly Meeting to take an official stance on slavery. It was concluded that slave-owning was incompatible with membership so by 1774, if any Quaker continued to own slaves they were disowned by the Quaker Community. The Quakers didn’t stop with their own community, they moved on to raise the moral issue for everyone both in Britain and North America. Active campaigners for complete abolition. AND so it was with the Barnards and other abolitionists in Chester County.

Richard Barnard, grandfather of Eusebius, kept a diary. An entry for May 1779 read “at a conference about slaveholding” and 10 days later an entry read “committee about slaves”. He was a model Quaker and active in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, so the timing of this activity corresponds to the strong lobbying efforts by the Quakers for an emancipation law in PA, which did occur a year later in 1780.

Richard Barnard becomes a member of “The Society for the Relief for Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage”. This is the first anti-slavery society in America which was originally formed by the Barnard family’s friend and legendary Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet and a few other Quakers and concerned Philadelphians in 1775, days before the fighting began for the Revolutionary War. This society later became known as, and is still today the “Pennsylvania Abolition Society” dedicated to providing educational and informational services.

Pennsylvania Abolition Society
• Notable members included Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush
• The society worked closely with the “Free African Society”, formed in 1787 in Philadelphia, in a wide range of social, political and educational activity.
• It organized local efforts to support the crusade to ban the international slave trade and had Benjamin Franklin bring the matter of slavery to the United States Constitutional Convention of 1787 held in Philadelphia. Unfortunately this did not make it into the U.S. Constitution.
• In 1790 under its president, Benjamin Franklin, the society sent to the first Congress, then meeting in New York City, a petition asking for the abolition of slavery and an end to the slave trade. It sparked heated debate in both the House and Senate, resulting in a select committee “claiming that the Constitution restrains Congress from prohibiting the importation or emancipation of slaves until 1808” and so they tabled the petition.
• The Pennsylvania Abolition Society inspired the establishment of anti-slavery organizations in other cities and it acquired a nationwide reputation for its work.

Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery
• As the American Revolution began establishing the United States, the northern states began to abolish slavery, beginning with the 1777 constitution of Vermont which actually was before it became a part of the United States in 1791.
• Followed by Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. The goal of the PA Act was “to remove as much as possible the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage”. Notice the word “gradual”, it appeased slaveholders to keep the enslaved individuals they already owned unless they failed to register them annually. It did however, prohibit further importation of enslaved people and it provided for eventual freedom of individuals born of an enslaved mother.
• Quaker lobbying had much to do with getting this legislation and Richard Barnard was part of that as noted in his diary.
• Statistics report, by 1820 the statewide population was 30,202 African Americans with 211 of those classified as enslaved. That same year in Chester County alone 2,734 were classified as “free colored persons” and only 7 classified as " slaves."