Slavery in the British Colonies

Slavery in the British Colonies. .

"In the Constitution and the Fugitive bill, no mention is made of Black people or Slaves, therefore if the Bill of Rights, or the declaration of Congress are of any validity, we beseech that we as men, we may be admitted to partake of the Liberties and unalienable Rights therein held forth firmly believing that the extending of justice and equity to all Classes would be a means of drawing down the blessing of Heaven upon this Land…" , Petition of Absalom Jones, and Others, People of Colour, and Freemen Against the Slave Trade to the Coast of Guinea (December 30, 1799)

, In the 1600s, Britain expanded its empire and wealth by colonizing the eastern seaboard of the North American continent. The first permanent English settlements in North America were Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 and Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. By 1732, there were thirteen British colonies., The British wanted cheap human labor to harvest cash crops. At first, colonists employed indentured servants who worked in exchange for free passage to North America. British merchants soon began importing enslaved workers from Africa to the colonies to help generate more profits for the Empire., The transatlantic slave trade involved slave ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas where captured Africans were then sold as property. Enslaved Africans were forced to work as laborers and domestic servants in bondage and did not have the same freedoms or rights as European settlers., Early Philadelphian Abolitionists , The Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 , Pennsylvania was the first state to adopt a measure towards the abolition of slavery. The act stated that children born to enslaved mothers on or after March 1, 1780, were to be bound as indentured servants until their 28th birthday. After that, they were legally free. It also guaranteed freedom to any enslaved person brought into the state and held there for at least six months., Benjamin Franklin's Anti-Slavery Petitions , In the last public act of his life, 84-year-old Benjamin Franklin submitted a series of anti-slavery petitions to Congress as the President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Franklin urged Congress to end the transatlantic slave trade and to give liberty to the enslaved, "who alone, in this Land of Freedom, are degraded into perpetual Bondage," and wished to remove "this Inconsistency from the Character of the American People." After some debate, Congress tabled the petition., Philadelphian Black Abolitionists , Free black Philadelphians actively petitioned Congress for citizenship and the end of slavery. Led by clergymen Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, both formerly enslaved, they argued for citizenship and the emancipation of all enslaved persons., Jones and Allen secured freedom for themselves and their families before becoming religious leaders. Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, known as Mother Bethel, while Jones, founder of The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, became the first African American priest in the Episcopal Church. Together, they established the Free African Society, which aided black Philadelphians and repeatedly petitioned Congress to end slavery and the slave trade. In 1799, Jones and 70 other free black men petitioned Congress to end the slave trade, appealing to the U.S. Constitution., The Founding of Pennsylvania , Originally claimed by Swedish and later Dutch settlers, the region that became Pennsylvania came under British control in the late 1600s. In 1681, Quaker William Penn established a proprietary colony based on the principles of religious tolerance, to be governed by him and his descendants. He named the capital city, Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love." Many Quakers and members of other non-conforming religious sects sailed to Pennsylvania to escape religious persecution. , From the colony's earliest years, slavery was tolerated, and some settlers, including William Penn himself, owned enslaved laborers. Philadelphia was the colony's main slave trading port. In 1688, the Quaker community in Germantown signed an anti-slavery petition that criticized Pennsylvanian slaveholders for moving to the colony for religious freedom yet denying freedom to the enslaved Africans working their lands. By the 1750s, Pennsylvanian Quakers began to demand that their leaders formally denounce slavery., In 1775, the first American abolition society was founded in Philadelphia. Seventeen of its original twenty-four members were Quakers. Founding Fathers and signers ofthe Declaration of Independence Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush also joined, and Franklin later became its president. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society had an immediate effect. By 1776, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Quakers took the stance that slavery was incompatible with the Christian faith and common justice. The Philadelphia Society of Friends disowned members who were slaveholders and expelled them from the Quaker community., The Abolitionist Movement Grows , Slavery Ends in Pennsylvania , In 1847, Pennsylvania's state legislature officially abolished slavery. This new law was also applied to non-resident slaves who were brought into the state. Pennsylvania and other Northern states' abolition laws worried Southerners, and they turned to the federal government to enforce the return of escaped enslaved laborers. In Congress, they pushed for the passage of a much stronger Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to supersede individual state laws. Congress passed that act as part of the Compromise of 1850, which contained several legislative items meant to hold the Union together.,

Slavery by the Numbers in Philadelphia , Year | Count , 1767 | 1,400 , 1775 | 690 , 1790 | 301 , 1800 | 55 , 1840 | 0.

, The Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade , In his 1806 State of the Union Address, President Thomas Jefferson called for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade at the first moment it was allowed under the Constitution. In 1807, Congress passed an act prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States, which went into effect January 1, 1808, the first day that such legislation was permitted. Although it was illegal to import enslaved Africans into the United States, domestic slavery did not come to an end., [Captions:] , African Methodist Episcopal Church known as Mother Bethel., Absalom Jones, born enslaved, bought his freedom in 1802 and became the first African American to be ordained as a priest in the United States Episcopal Church., Together with Richard Allen, Jones founded the Free African Society, a non-denominational religious organization that provided aid for free African Americans in Philadelphia.