Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath

266 Pages·1991·16.4 MB·English

by  Gary B. Nash

Freedom by Degrees
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FREEDOM
BY DEGREES
Emancipation in Pennsylvania
and Its Aftermath
GARY B. NASH
JEAN R. SODERLUND
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1991
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
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and associated companies in
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Copyright © 1991 by Gary B. Nash, Jean R. Soderlund
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nash, Gary B.
Freedom by degrees :
emancipation in Pennsylvania and its aftermath /
Gary B. Nash and Jean R. Soderlund.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-504583-1
1. Slaves—Pennsylvania—Emancipation.
2. Slavery—Pennsylvania—History—18th century.
3. Afro-Americans—Pennsylvania—History—18th century.
4. Pennsylvania—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
5. Pennsylvania—History— 1775-1865.
I. Soderlund, Jean R., 1947- .
II. Title. E445.P3N37 1991
974.8'00496073—dc20 90-38380
24689753 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For the staff members of the
Manuscripts Department and Library
of the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
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Contents
Introduction, ix
1. Slavery in the "Best Poor Man's Country," 3
2. The First Emancipators, 41
3. Slavery and Abolition in the Revolutionary Era, 74
4. Dismantling Slavery: Institutions, 99
5. Dismantling Slavery: People, 137
6. After Freedom, 167
7. The Legacy of Antislavery Reform, 194
Notes, 207
Index, 237
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Introduction
On April 19, 1730, the 24-year-old co-owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette
advertised "A likely Negroe Woman to be Sold." Prospective buyers could
see the slave "at the Widow Read's in Market-Street."1 Thus began Benjamin
Franklin's more than half-century direct involvement with slavery, for he,
along with Samuel Meredith, was the recent purchaser of the Pennsylvania
Gazette, and Franklin was living as a boarder in Widow Read's house and
hence knew personally the slave woman he was advertising for sale.
Over the next sixty years, until his death in 1790, Franklin remained engaged
with the issue of slavery—as a buyer, seller, and master of slaves; as reluctant
abolitionist; and, finally, as outspoken critic of the institution. Oddly, his
experience with slavery encapsulates the history of slavery in his adopted city,
Philadelphia, and in the state to which he devoted so much of his life. To sketch
Printer Ben's awkward and shifting relationship to the peculiar institution is to
foreshadow several major themes of this book.
The massive collection of papers that have been gathered from around the
world for a modern edition of the papers of Benjamin Franklin do not reveal
when Franklin first purchased slaves. But it was probably in the late 1740s,
after Franklin achieved financial security as a result of his astounding success
with the Pennsylvania Gazette, Poor Richard's Almanack, and other publish-
ing ventures. The black couple—Peter and Jemima—bought by Franklin and
his wife Deborah (the daughter of the landlady whose slave woman he had
advertised in 1730) were not working out, he wrote his mother in Boston in