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Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest

Petition to the Assembly of Pennsylvania against the Slave Trade

by Aaron Gulyas, MA

Date: 1780

Authors: Various

Genre: Petition

Summary Overview

While Pennsylvania made one of the earliest attempts by a state to end slavery in 1780, its petition for gradual emancipation contained several loopholes. The greatest one was that it did not actually free anyone who was currently enslaved in the state. Rather, it ended outright slavery for children born to slaves in the state, along with some other measures. Almost immediately after that law was passed, petitioners began circulating requests to eliminate those exceptions and grant freedom to a broader audience. This petition, from 1780, addressed concerns about the ongoing slave trade in the state.

Defining Moment

From its earliest days, citizens of Pennsylvania had been active in the fight to end slavery. While the impetus for these efforts had originally come from the Society of Friends (Quakers) in the colony, anti-slavery sentiment was not confined to that particular religious sect. Baptists, Methodists, and many German immigrants also opposed slavery. During the American War for Independence, the long-standing religious opposition to slavery was bolstered by those who believed the institution to be incompatible with the revolution’s ideal of liberty. In 1780, Pennsylvania became the first state to enact legislation restricting slavery. The law, entitled “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery” declared all children born to enslaved women to be indentured servants rather than slaves. The children would have to serve their master until age 28. It outlaw bringing new slaves into the state and required slave owners to register their slaves. Those who did not would see their slaves freed as a penalty. Despite this law, slavery still existed in Pennsylvania. Those who were slaves when the law was enacted would remain slaves. During the time Philadelphia was the national capital, members of Congress were exempt from the law. Finally, as this petition explains, the slave trade was still active in Philadelphia. The petition would have an effect, but not an immediate one. In 1788, The Pennsylvania legislation would amend the 1780 law to forbid Pennsylvanians from having any association with the slave trade.

Author Biography

This petition was submitted and signed by over one hundred Pennsylvanians. While, as discussed above, Quakers and others had long opposed slavery, in 1775 residents of the state founded the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first organized abolition group in the American colonies. While the signers of this petition are not identified specifically as members of the organization, the Society was reorganized in 1784 as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and continued to lobby government officials for further restrictions on slavery. It is likely that the originators and signers of this petition were connected with the organization.

Historical Document

Petition to Prevent Slaves from Being Fitted Out at the Port of Philadelphia

To the Representatives of the Freemen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in General Assembly met,

The Representation and Petitions of the SUBSCRIBERS, Citizens of Pennsylvania.

YOUR Petitioners have observed, with great satisfaction, the salutary effects of the Law of this State, passed on the first day of March, 1780, for the “gradual abolition of slavery.”—They have also seen, with equal satisfaction, the progress which the humane and just principles of that Law have made in other States.

They, however, find themselves called upon, by the interesting nature of those principles, to suggest to the General Assembly, that vessels have been publicly equipt in this Port for the Slave Trade, and that several other practices have taken place which they conceive to be inconsistent with the spirit of the Law abovementioned; and that these, and other circumstances relating to the afflicted Africans, do, in the opinion of your Petitioners, require the further interposition of the Legislature.

Your Petitioners therefore earnestly request that you will again take this subject into your serious consideration, and that you will make such additions to the said Law as shall effectually put a stop to the Slave Trade being carried on directly or indirectly in this Commonwealth, and to answer other purposes of benevolence and justice to an oppressed part of the human species.

Glossary

benevolence: mercy and generosity

equipt: stocked and provisioned for carrying slaves

interposition: to act on a situation

“the afflicted Africans”: slaves

Document Analysis

This very brief petition, weighing in at only 232 words, came soon after the legislation that granted the gradual abolition of slaves in Pennsylvania. After the official salutations at the beginning of the petition, the petitioners express “satisfaction” the March, 1780 abolition law and express “equal satisfaction” that similar laws were progressing in other states. It would take until 1783 for gradual abolition laws to take effect in New Hampshire, for example. A 1783 court decision in Massachusetts ruled slavery illegal under the 1780 state constitution.

While the abolition law is satisfying, the citizens bringing the petition to the Pennsylvania General Assembly are compelled to express concern over the slave trading ships in the port of Philadelphia. The petitioners argue that the existence of the slave trade in their city and state is “inconsistent with the spirit” of the abolition law. The slave trade, and the horrific conditions that accompany it deserve more attention from the state legislature.

In the concluding paragraph, the petitioners ask the assembly to consider a ban on the slave trade in the Pennsylvania—“either directly or indirectly”—and address in other ways the condition of the “oppressed” residents of the state.

Essential Themes

The key concern expressed by the petitioners is that the slave trade taking place in the port of Philadelphia is morally and ethically equivalent to the institution of slavery itself. How could Pennsylvania abolish slavery within its own borders while, at the same time, tolerate Pennsylvanians profiting from slavery elsewhere in the United States? If the legislature saw fit to abolish slavery, then logically, they must end their connection with the business of slavery as well.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

1 

Berlin, Ira. Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004).

2 

Bradley, Patricia. Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution. (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1999).

3 

Jackson, Maurice and Susan Kozel, eds. Quakers and Their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754-1808 (London: Routledge: 2015).

4 

Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440 - 1870 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999).

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Gulyas, Aaron. "Petition To The Assembly Of Pennsylvania Against The Slave Trade." Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest, edited by Aaron Gulyas, Salem Press, 2017. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=DDProtest_0022.
APA 7th
Gulyas, A. (2017). Petition to the Assembly of Pennsylvania against the Slave Trade. In A. Gulyas (Ed.), Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Gulyas, Aaron. "Petition To The Assembly Of Pennsylvania Against The Slave Trade." Edited by Aaron Gulyas. Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2017. Accessed May 30, 2026. online.salempress.com.