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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Eves and Welcome to This Day

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Speaker 1: in History Class, a show that uncovers a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about history every day. Today is April eighteen nineteen.

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Speaker 1: The day was April eighteen sixty eight. Several Quakers in

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Speaker 1: what was then Germantown, Pennsylvania authored a petition against slavery.

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Speaker 1: Early on, Quakers were proponents of slavery and complicit in

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Speaker 1: the slave trade, but by the late sixteen hundreds, some

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Speaker 1: Quaker columnists were calling the institution of slavery into question.

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Speaker 1: Quakers weren't prohibited from owning slaves until seventeen seventy six.

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Speaker 1: In less than two decades after that, they petitioned the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Congress for the abolition of slavery. But the sixteen eighty

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Speaker 1: eight petition marked the first time a religious body in

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Speaker 1: the English colonies protested the brutal system. Francis Daniel Pastorius,

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Speaker 1: who was a German born lawyer and founder of Germantown,

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Speaker 1: as well as three other Quakers in Germantown, drafted the

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Speaker 1: petition on behalf of the Germantown meeting of the Religious

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Speaker 1: Society of Friends In the petition, the authors argued that

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Speaker 1: the oppression of black people was just as bad as

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Speaker 1: that of Quakers and Mennonites in Europe, that slavery was

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Speaker 1: a turn off for potential European immigrants, and that slave

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Speaker 1: rebellions posed a huge threat to the non violent Quakers.

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Speaker 1: In the late sixteen hundreds, in the colonies, many Quakers

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Speaker 1: owned slaves, and the Quaker slave trade was growing. Many

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Speaker 1: English Quakers saw slavery as necessary to drive economic prosperity.

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Speaker 1: Some Quakers had already found fault with the practice of

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Speaker 1: slavery well before the Germantown petition, like the founder of Quakerism,

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Speaker 1: George Fox, He said that Quakers should treat enslaved people

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Speaker 1: the way they would want to be treated, and believed

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Speaker 1: that the presence of non Christian enslaved people could threaten

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Speaker 1: the integrity of the Quaker family. Some Quakers against slavery

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Speaker 1: thought that the practice was in opposition to Quaker values

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Speaker 1: of non violence, equality, hard work, and humility, and in

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Speaker 1: sixteen eighty three, English Quaker Benjamin Furley was inspired by

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Speaker 1: his fear of flavor bolts to write a letter to

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Speaker 1: William Penn, a Quaker and founder of the colony of Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: Furley requested an end to the importation of enslaved people

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania and the eventual freeing of enslaved people that

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Speaker 1: came from other colonies. A lot of the English Quakers

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Speaker 1: who objected to slavery did so because they believed slaves

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Speaker 1: were unenlightened and dangerous, and many Quakers were fearful for

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Speaker 1: their safety. The German Town petition, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: made the argument against slavery one about human rights and

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Speaker 1: practical concerns. German and Dutch Quakers weren't as you to

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Speaker 1: slavery and black people, while the English had long been

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Speaker 1: reliant on slavery. That meant that slavery was more of

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Speaker 1: an issue for Germantown Quakers than English Quakers, because people

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Speaker 1: in Germany and Holland weren't particularly into moving to a

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Speaker 1: colony where slavery was the norm. Though the German Towners

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Speaker 1: were Quakers, they were still outsiders in the Quaker community

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Speaker 1: and had a cultural disconnect with the English Quakers. So

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Speaker 1: several German Town Quakers decided to raise the issue of

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Speaker 1: slavery through a petition they drafted the Germantown Friends protest

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Speaker 1: against slavery on April eighteen sixty eight. They said in

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Speaker 1: the petition, now though they are black, we cannot conceive

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Speaker 1: there is more liberty to have them slaves as it

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Speaker 1: is to have other white ones. There is a saying

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Speaker 1: that we shall do to all men like as we

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Speaker 1: will be done ourselves, making no difference of what generation, descent,

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Speaker 1: or color they are. And those who still are rob men,

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Speaker 1: and those who buy or purchased them, are they not

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Speaker 1: all alike? Here's liberty of conscience, which is right and reasonable.

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Speaker 1: Here ought to be likewise liberty of ye body, except

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Speaker 1: of evil doers, which is another case. But to bring

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Speaker 1: men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will,

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Speaker 1: we stand against. The petition was first presented at a

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Speaker 1: monthly meeting at Abington, where it was considered too weighty

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Speaker 1: an issue to deal with. From there it was kicked

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Speaker 1: to the Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,

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Speaker 1: and rejected in both places. Since the petition was not published,

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Speaker 1: it did not have any immediate effect on slavery and

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Speaker 1: society in Pennsylvania. Slavery continued and Quakers continued to profit

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Speaker 1: off of enslaved labor even as the authors kept protesting

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Speaker 1: the institution and other Quakers wrote petitions. But the document

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Speaker 1: resurfaced in eighteen forty four when a Quaker publication called

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Speaker 1: The Friend and Now is Rediscovery. At that point, the

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Speaker 1: abolitionist movement was active and the document gained renewed interest,

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Speaker 1: but the petition was once again misplaced and rediscovered in

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Speaker 1: March two thousand five at the Arch Street Meeting House

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. Now the document whole significance as a testament

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Speaker 1: to the anomalous perspective on slavery German Town Quakers brought

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Speaker 1: to the colony of Pennsylvania and abolition overall. I'm Eve

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Speaker 1: Jeff Coo and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. And if you like

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Speaker 1: to follow us on social media, you can find us

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Speaker 1: at T d i h C Podcast on Twitter, Instagram,

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Speaker 1: and Facebook. Thanks for showing up. We'll meet here again

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Speaker 1: tomorrow