History of slavery in Pennsylvania facts for kids

1796 Runaway advertisement for Oney Judge, a slave from George Washington's presidential household in Philadelphia.

When the Dutch and Swedes first settled in the Delaware Valley (which is now Pennsylvania), they brought enslaved Africans to work. Slavery was recorded in this area as early as 1639. Even though William Penn and other early settlers allowed forced labor, some groups quickly spoke out against it. The English Quakers, and later German immigrants, were among the first to oppose slavery. Many Methodists and Baptists also believed it was wrong because of their religious beliefs. During a religious movement called the Great Awakening in the late 1700s, preachers encouraged slave owners to free their slaves. High taxes from Britain also made it less appealing to import more enslaved people. This encouraged the use of white indentured servants (people who worked for a set time to pay off a debt) and free workers instead.

During the American Revolutionary War, Pennsylvania made history. In 1780, it passed the Gradual Abolition Act. This was the first law of its kind in the new United States. This law said that children born to enslaved mothers after that date would be free. However, they still had to work as indentured servants until they were 28 years old before gaining full freedom. Because of this law, the number of enslaved people in Pennsylvania dropped. By 1810, there were fewer than 1,000 enslaved people left. After 1847, there were no more records of enslaved people in the state.

Early Pennsylvania and Slavery

After Pennsylvania was founded in 1682, Philadelphia became the main port for bringing in enslaved people. Most enslaved people in the colony and later the state lived in or near Philadelphia. While most arrived in small groups, one ship, the Isabella, brought 150 enslaved people from Africa in December 1684. We don't have exact numbers for the early years. However, records from 1682 to 1705 show that less than 7% of families in Philadelphia owned enslaved people.

The first official protest against slavery happened in 1688. It was called the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery. German members of a Quaker meeting signed it. However, the main Quaker group in Philadelphia didn't support the petition at that time. Many Pennsylvania Quakers continued to own enslaved people in the early 1700s. Still, some Quakers like Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, and Anthony Benezet spoke out against slavery. By 1776, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (a Quaker group) told its members they could no longer own enslaved people.

William Penn, who founded the Province of Pennsylvania, owned at least 12 enslaved people. They helped build his main house and other buildings at his estate, Pennsbury. Penn left the colony in 1701 and never came back.

Slavery Laws in Pennsylvania

Before 1700, enslaved people were treated under the same laws as indentured servants. But starting that year, Pennsylvania began passing laws specifically for enslaved people and free Black people. These laws meant they were tried in courts without juries, unlike other colonists.

One important law was An Act for the Better Regulating of Negroes in this Province, passed in 1725–1726. This law put many limits on enslaved and free Black people:

• If an enslaved person was sentenced to death, the owner would be paid for their loss.
• If an enslaved person was freed, their owner had to pay a bond. This was to make sure the freed person wouldn't become a burden on the government.
• A freed enslaved person who was able to work but refused could be forced to work as an indentured servant. Their children could also be forced to work until they were young adults.
• Free Black people and mixed-race people could not host, trade with, or sell things to enslaved or indentured servants without permission from their master. If they did, they faced fines or whipping.
• If fines couldn't be paid, the free person could be forced into servitude.
• Ministers or magistrates who married a Black person to a white person faced a large fine.
• Enslaved people found drinking near liquor shops or out after 9 PM could be whipped.
• If enslaved people were more than 10 miles from their master's home without permission, they could be whipped.
• Masters who let their enslaved people work on their own faced fines.
• Hiding an enslaved person who had run away also led to fines.
• The money from these fines was sometimes used to pay owners whose enslaved people were sentenced to death. This law was later removed in 1780.

During the colonial period, Pennsylvania also tried to limit the slave trade. Starting in 1700, it put taxes on imported enslaved people. England's Board of Trade often canceled these taxes. But the Pennsylvania Assembly kept putting them back in place. For example, the tax was 20 shillings per enslaved person in 1700, and it increased over time.

Life for Enslaved People

In the early years of the colony, enslaved people mostly cleared land and built homes. Once the colony was more settled, they did many different jobs. In Philadelphia, many enslaved people worked as household servants. Others were trained in various trades and became skilled workers. In 1767, the wealthiest 10% of people owned almost half of all enslaved people. They used them as servants and as a way to show off their wealth. Merchants also used enslaved people as servants or as apprentices in their businesses. Since Philadelphia was a port city, many enslaved people worked in jobs related to shipping, like making ropes or sails. Some sailors even took enslaved people with them on voyages to increase their own profits, as the enslaved people were not paid.

In the countryside, enslaved people usually worked as household servants or farmhands. Sometimes they did both, depending on what was needed. In southeastern Pennsylvania, some iron masters who owned enslaved people would rent them out to work in charcoal production or mining.

Philadelphia was not a healthy place during the colonial period due to poor sanitation. Many enslaved people died young. Also, more enslaved men were brought in than women, which made it hard for families to form. Without new enslaved people being brought in, the enslaved population would not have grown.

Fighting for Freedom

By the time of the French and Indian War, the number of enslaved people in Pennsylvania was at its highest. More had been imported in the mid-1700s because fewer white immigrants were coming as indentured servants. However, as more Europeans continued to move to the colony, the percentage of enslaved people compared to the total population actually went down over time. By the American Revolution, slavery was less important for labor in Pennsylvania.

The Quakers had long believed slavery was wrong for religious reasons. Methodists and Baptists, who were active in the Great Awakening, also opposed it. Many recent German immigrants were against slavery due to their religious and political beliefs. The Scots-Irish, another group of recent immigrants, usually lived on small farms and were too poor to buy enslaved people. In the late colonial period, it became more affordable to pay for free labor. Also, the strong feelings about human rights during the Revolution made many people question slavery.

Because of religious opposition to slavery and the taxes on importing enslaved people, the colony banned slave imports in 1767. Some of Pennsylvania's Founding Fathers who owned enslaved people included Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, Edmund Physick, and Samuel Mifflin. Franklin and Dickinson later became strong supporters of ending slavery.

In 1780, Pennsylvania passed the first state Abolition Act in the United States. This was led by George Bryan. It followed Vermont's lead, which had abolished slavery in its constitution in 1777. Pennsylvania's law ended slavery gradually. It stated:

All people, including Black and mixed-race individuals, born in this state after this law is passed, will not be considered servants for life or slaves. All lifelong servitude or slavery for children born after this law, due to their mothers being enslaved, is completely removed and abolished forever.

This act also canceled the older laws from 1700 and 1726 that had created separate courts and rules for Black people. From this point on, enslaved people had the same rights as indentured servants. Free Black people theoretically had the same rights as free white people. However, the law did not free the approximately 6,000 people who were already enslaved in Pennsylvania. Children born to enslaved mothers still had to serve as indentured servants to their mother's master until they were 28 years old. These indentures (agreements to serve) could even be sold to other people.

Pennsylvania became a state with a growing African-American community. Black activists understood how important it was to write about freedom. They played a big part in groups working to end slavery. They wrote articles about freedom for newspapers run by anti-slavery supporters. Anti-slavery pamphlets were rare in the South but were widely shared in Pennsylvania. African-American activists also held meetings around the state. Sometimes white rioters tried to stop these meetings, but the activists kept going. African-American activists also helped with the Underground Railroad. This was a secret network that helped enslaved people escape to freedom. In Philadelphia, activists created the Vigilant Association. This group helped people escaping slavery find new homes in free states.

Slavery's Decline

The 1780 abolition act said that children born to enslaved mothers would remain in servitude until they were 28 years old. Section 2 of the Act explained that any Black or mixed-race child born in Pennsylvania after the law passed would serve the person who would have owned them as a slave until they reached 28 years old. This law also required that these children, and children of African-descended indentured servants, be registered at birth. Some Quaker records show births of children identified as mixed-race or Black.

The official government counts (censuses) show how slavery decreased. Besides the state law, many Pennsylvania masters freed their enslaved people in the years after the Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was one of them. They were inspired by the ideas of the Revolution and by the continued calls from Quaker and Methodist religious leaders to free enslaved people. The first U.S. Census in 1790 recorded 3,737 enslaved people in Pennsylvania. This was about 36% of the Black population. By 1810, the total Black population had more than doubled. But the percentage who were enslaved had dropped to only 3%. Only 795 enslaved people were listed in the state.

Slavery Ends in Pennsylvania

Slavery officially ended in Pennsylvania in 1847. The state legislature passed a law called An Act to Prevent Kidnapping, Preserve the Public Peace, Prohibit the Exercise of Certain Powers Heretofore Exercised by Certain Judges, Justices of the Peace, Aldermen and Jailors in This Commonwealth. This law did not recognize the property rights of slaveholders, whether they were from Pennsylvania or other states. From the Southern states' point of view, the situation in Pennsylvania after 1847 made it necessary for the U.S. government to pass a new, stronger fugitive slave law. Much of Pennsylvania's 1847 law was later replaced by the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. However, by then, all enslaved people in Pennsylvania were already free.

The table below shows how the free Black population grew and the enslaved population declined in Pennsylvania: