USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 6
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER V.
NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
PENN obtained the charter for his province in 1681, and in 1682 the three counties of Kent, Newcastle, and Sussex, now forming the State of Delaware, were formally united to Pennsylvania, and this union lasted until the Revolution. In 1664 there were negro slaves at New Am- stel, now Newcastle, Delaware, New Amstel being a Dutch settlement about ten years old at that time. In that year the Duke of York's men, under the command of Sir Rob- ert Carr, after the conquest of New Amsterdam, compel- led the Dutch of New Amstel to surrender, and "the cows, oxen, horses, and sheep of the settlers were seized," says Jenkins. The same authority adds : "More important than the quadrupeds were a number of negro slaves, who also fell prize to the Englishmen. There were some sixty or seventy of these. They had reached Manhattan in the Gideon, a slave ship, with over two hundred more, just be- fore the arrival of the English fleet, and barely escaped capture there, Peter Alrich having hurried them across the North river and thence overland to New Amstel. They were now divided among the captors, and Carr promptly traded some to Maryland. In his report a few days after the capture he says : 'I have already sent into Maryland some Neegars which did belong to ye late Governor at his plantation above, for beefe, pork, corne, and salt, and for some other small conveniences which this place affordeth not.'"'
That negroes were enslaved in Penn's province, not including Delaware, before Penn visited it is shown in the following extract from a letter from James Claypoole, of England, in 1681, to a friend in Pennsylvania : " I have a great drawing on my mind to remove with my family thither, so that I am given up, if the Lord clears my way, to be gone next spring. Advise me in thy next what I might have two negroes for, that might be fit for cutting
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
down trees, building, ploughing, or any sort of labor that is required in the first planting of a country." The follow- ing provision in the constitution of the Free Society of Traders, which was organized by Penn in England for trad- ing purposes before his departure for his province in 1682, and of which company he was a member, furnishes proof that Penn himself gave his approval to negro slavery : "Black servants to be free at fourteen years end on giving to the society two-thirds of what they can produce on land allotted to them by the society, with stocks and tools; if they agree not to this to be servants till they do." Penn himself owned a few slaves who were employed on his es- tate at Pennsbury, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. It should not, however, be inferred that Penn was at any time an advocate of negro slavery. There is no evidence that he was. So far as he assented to and participated in the buying and selling of negro slaves in his province he sim- ply followed the custom of the times. There were negro slaves in the West Indies and in all the British colonies on the mainland before the granting of Penn's charter.
Before his return to England, after his second visit to Pennsylvania, Penn wrote his will, dated at "Newcastle on Delaware," October 30, 1701. From this document, which was superseded by a later will, we take the following ex- tract, which shows that Penn intended at that time not only to free his slaves at his death but also to provide for the support of one of these slaves and the children of that slave. The will says : "I give to my Servts, John and Mary Sach [indistinct] three hundred acres between them, and my blacks their freedom, as under my hand already ; and to ould Sam 100 acres, to be his children's after he and wife are dead, forever, on common rent of one bushel of wheat yearly forever."
After Penn's death in 1718 his widow, Hannah Penn, writing from London in 1720 to her cousin Rebecca Black- fan, thus referred to negro slaves on Penn's estate of Penns- bury, Rebecca Blackfan then living at Pennsbury : " The young Blacks must be disposed of to prevent their increas- ing Charge. I have offer'd my Daughter Aubrey one, but she does not care for any. I would however have ye like-
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
lyest Boy reserv'd and bred to reading & sobriety as in- tending him for my Self or one of my Children; about wch I design to write to J. Logan, for if Sue proves a good In- dustrious Servant & Sober I would have her ye more ten- derly us'd in ye disposal of her Children." The daughter Aubrey above mentioned was Letitia Penn, who was mar- ried to William Aubrey.
In Penn's last will, executed in 1712, he does not free the slaves he then owned, but the following extract from a letter addressed by James Logan to Hannah Penn, dated Philadelphia, the 11th day of 3d month, 1721, shows that Logan, probably in answer to the letter which Hannah Penn said above she intended to write to him, regarded as binding the provision in the will of 1701 in which Penn gave freedom to "my blacks :" " Honored Mistress : The Proprietor in a will left me at his departure hence gave all his negroes their freedom; but this is entirely private ; however there are very few left. Sam died soon after your departure hence and his brother James very lately. Chevalier, by a written order from his master, had his lib- erty several years ago, so that there are none left but Sue, whom Letitia claims or did claim as given to her when she went to England, but how rightfully I know not. These things you can best discuss. She has several children. There are, besides, two old negroes, quite worn, that re- mained of three that I recovered near eighteen years ago of E. Gibbs' Estate, of New Castle Co." There can be no doubt that Penn's wishes as expressed in his will of 1701, which is the one referred to by Logan, were strictly com- plied with.
After Penn visited Pennsylvania in 1682 and the im- migration of English Quakers and others rapidly increased it appears that negro slavery in the province also rapidly increased, so much so that, in 1688, according to Sharpless, the "German Quakers" of Germantown memorialized the Yearly Meeting in a paper still in existence against " buy- ing and keeping of negroes," and in 1696 the same "Ger- man Quakers" advised against "bringing in any more ne- groes." Other protests against negro slavery were made at other Quaker meetings. Sharpless also says that "many
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
wealthy Friends were slaveholders, and many saw no evil in the established system." Nevertheless, he says, the Yearly Meeting "could not be brought to a definite posi- tion" until 1758, when it declared that Friends should set negro slaves at liberty and "make a Christian provision for them." Many slaves owned by Friends were accord- ingly liberated but others were kept in bondage. In 1774 a further protest against slavery was made by the Friends, and in 1776 it was declared at the Yearly Meeting that all negroes held in slavery by the Friends should be set at liberty. Meanwhile attempts were made by others as well as Quakers to secure the abolition of slavery in Penn- sylvania, but all failed until 1780, when an act of the Gen- eral Assembly to accomplish its gradual abolition became a law.
During the entire colonial period of Pennsylvania ne- gro slavery was recognized as a part of the social order of the times, as it was in all the other colonies, but there were not at any time many negro slaves in Pennsylvania, only a few thousand, and these were generally well treat- ed, although the laws relating to all servants, both white and black, dealt with the latter with particular severity. Diffenderffer quotes an act of the General Assembly which was passed in 1700, " for the better regulation of serv- ants," which provided, among other things, certain pen- alties to be imposed upon servants who should embezzle their masters' or owners' goods, and then adds : "and if the Servant be a black he or she shall be severely whipt in the most Publick Place of the Township where the Of- fence was committed." The advertising columns of the provincial newspapers of Pennsylvania contain many offers of rewards for the apprehension of runaway slaves, show- ing that the negroes were not always satisfied with their condition. These newspapers also contain many adver- tisements of negroes for sale. Two of these, published about 1760, we copy below from McMaster, one of which shows that. the slave trade existed in Pennsylvania at that time. We quote literally. One reads : "Lately im- ported from Antigua and to be Sold by Edward Jones in Isaac Norris's Alley, A Parcel of Likely Negro Women &
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
Girls from thirteen to one and twenty Years of age, and have all had the Small-Pox." The other reads: "To Be Sold, Two very likely Negroe Boys. Enquire of Capt. Benjamin Christian at his House in Arch-Street."
Philadelphia had its "slave market." It was located at the southwest corner of Front and Market streets. Wat- son says of it : "The original building was erected in 1702. It was first used as a coffee-house in 1754 by William Brad- ford, the famous provincial printer. There was a covered shed connected with it, vendues of all kinds were regu- larly held, and often auctions of negro slaves, men, women, and children, were held there."
Pittsburgh also had negro slaves who would sometimes run away and others who were sometimes offered for sale. Chapman writes: "In turning over the files of the old newspapers, for example the old Gazette, right here in Pitts- burgh, it is startling to come across repeated advertise- ments in regard to slaves, where they seem to have been as common as the advertisements of stray horses and mer- chantable oxen. Indeed in one of them Colonel Gibson, at Fort Pitt, offers to take in payment for a certain negro woman, who is described as an 'excellent cook,' produce or cattle of any kind. And Mr. Thomas Girty's 'negro fel- low' Jack figures more than once in the columns of the old newspaper as a runaway for whose apprehension a re- ward will be paid." As the Gazette was not founded until 1786 the occurrences noted above could not have happen- ed until after that year. The negroes referred to were held in bondage, notwithstanding the act of 1780 for the gradual abolition of slavery. It continued in slavery those who were then slaves, as will now be seen.
An act of the General Assembly, approved by Govern- or Snyder on February 28, 1810, provided that the laws of Pennsylvania from 1700 to 1810 should be compiled and published in four volumes. This compilation was made and published and is known to the legal profession as "Smith's Laws." From the first volume of these laws we take the following liberal extracts from "an act for the gradual abolition of slavery," passed March 1, 1780, before the struggle with Great Britain for national independ-
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
ence had come to an end, but when the end which came a few years later was foreseen by the colonies or at least confidently hoped for. They embrace the eloquent pre- amble to the act, written by Judge George Bryan, which breathes a spirit of Christian fellowship that should have had wider recognition than it received at that day. Seven years after the passage of the act referred to the Constitu- tion of the United States permitted slavery to continue and legalized the slave trade until 1808, when it was to be abolished. Few legislative enactments contain sentiments so lofty or reasons for their existence so eloquent as the preamble to this act, which we give in full as follows :
" When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condi- tion to which the arms and tyranny of Great-Britain were exerted to reduce us, when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been exposed, and how miracu- lously our wants in many instances have been supplied, and our deliverances wrought, when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the conflict, we are un- avoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the mani- fold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom every good and per- fect gift cometh. Impressed with these ideas we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been extended to us, and release from that state of thral- dom to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being deliv- ered. It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature and complex- ion. It is sufficient to know that all are the work of an Almighty hand. We find, in the distribution of the hu- man species, that the most fertile as well as the most bar- ren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of complex- ions different from ours and from each other ; from whence we may reasonably, as well as religiously, infer that He who placed them in their various situations hath extended equally his care and protection to all, and that it becom- eth not us to counteract his mercies. We esteem it a pe-
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
culiar blessing granted to us that we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization by remov- ing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the as- sumed authority of the kings of Great-Britain, no effectual legal relief could be obtained. Weaned by a long course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and na- tions ; and we conceive ourselves at this particular period extraordinarily called upon, by the blessings which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our profession and to give a substantial proof of our gratitude.
"And whereas the condition of those persons who have heretofore been denominated Negro and Mulatto slaves has been attended with circumstances which not only deprived them of the common blessings that they were by nature entitled to but has cast them into the deepest afflictions, by an unnatural separation and sale of husband and wife from each other and from their children, an injury the greatness of which can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons so unhappily circumstanced, and who, having no prospect before them whereon they may rest their sor- rows and their hopes, have no reasonable inducement to render their service to society, which they otherwise might, and also in grateful commemoration of our own happy de- liverance from that state of unconditional submission to which we were doomed by the tyranny of Britain,
" Be it enacted, and it is hereby enacted, That all per- sons, as well Negroes and Mulattoes as others, who shall be born within this State from and after the passing of this act, shall not be deemed and considered as servants for life, or slaves ; and that all servitude for life, or slav- ery of children, in consequence of the slavery of their mothers, in the case of all children born within this State from and after the passing of this act as aforesaid, shall be, and hereby is, utterly taken away, extinguished, and for ever abolished." These provisions affected only chil- dren to be born after the passage of the act.
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Following the above provisions in the act were others beginning with the stereotyped phrase, "provided always, and be it further enacted," which is so often at variance with the hopes inspired by the first part of legal enact- ments. It was so in this case. The first addendum pro- vided "that every negro and mulatto child, born within this State after the passing of the act as aforesaid, (who would, in case this act had not been made, have been born a servant for years or life, or a slave,) shall be deemed to be, and shall be, by virtue of this act, the servant of such person, or his or her assigns, who would in such case have been entitled to the service of such child, until such child shall attain unto the age of twenty-eight years."
No provision was made in the act for the freedom of those who were slaves at the time of its adoption, and it was expressly provided that the children of slave parents who were born after the passage of the act should them- selves be slaves until they had attained the age of twenty- eight years. This provision reflects no credit upon those who voted for it, nor is the whole act in harmony with its preamble. It will readily be seen that the act, instead of abolishing slavery, provided for its long continuance. To repeat : The slave fathers and mothers were not to be freed at all, and children who were slaves at the passage of the act were also to remain slaves for life, while children unborn were to be slaves until they reached the age of twenty-eight years. Other provisions of the act refer to the duties of masters to their slaves, the apprehension and punishment of runaway slaves, the registering of slaves, etc. The emancipation of slaves by their masters was permitted, but this privilege had previously existed.
Negro slaves were employed as laborers at early iron works in Pennsylvania. The following notice of the work- men employed in making iron in Pennsylvania prior to the Revolution is taken from Acrelius's History of New Sweden, written about 1756. "The workmen are partly English and partly Irish, with some few Germans. The laborers are generally composed partly of negroes, (slaves,) partly of servants from Germany or Ireland bought for a term.of years. A good negro is bought for from £30 to
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
£40 sterling, which is equal to 1,500 or 2,000 of our dol -. lars, koppar mynt. Their clothing may amount to 75 dol- lars, koppar mynt, their food, 325 ditto-very little, indeed, for the year. The negroes are better treated in Pennsylva- nia than anywhere else in America. A white servant costs 350 dollars, koppar mynt, and his food is estimated at 325 dollars more, of the same coinage." By the phrase "serv- ants from Germany or Ireland" Acrelius meant redemp- tioners, who have been considered in the preceding chapter.
At Green Lane forge, on Perkiomen creek, in Mont- gomery county, built in 1733, the workmen employed were at one time chiefly negro slaves. At Martic forge, built in 1755, negro slaves were employed from the beginning in hammering iron, and negroes continued to be the principal workmen at this forge down to the abandonment of active operations in 1883. A long row of stone houses was occu- pied by the negro workmen. A furnace called Martic was connected with Martic forge, and in 1769 the furnace and forge, with the land and other property appertaining to them, were advertised for sale by the sheriff. Included in the advertisement were "two slaves, one a Mulattoe Man, a good forge man, the other a Negro man," both owned by the company which had been operating the furnace and forge. In 1780 negro slaves were employed at Durham fur- nace, five of whom escaped in that year to the British lines.
Although there were slaves in Pennsylvania after the passage of the act of 1780 and down to 1840, as will soon be shown, a period of sixty years, they are not often re- ferred to in the newspapers published during that period except when they ran away or were to be sold. As they gradually died off there would be fewer of them to give anybody trouble or to experience a change of masters. A letter dated "Bedford county, Pennsylvania, July 18, 1829," written by Thomas B. McElwee, a farmer, and pub- lished in The American Farmer, of Baltimore, in that year, says : "We have no slaves nor do we boast of an exemp- tion from that which it would be degradation to be sub- ject to. Such a miserable thing as a slave and such an arrogant thing as the master of a slave are unknown to us. We are all free as the pure unfettered mountain air
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
we breathe, and we intend to continue so. Nevertheless, some wretched creatures who have escaped from their masters in the neighboring States occasionally seek refuge here, but they are habitually dishonest and lazy."
In Boucher's History of Westmoreland County it is stated that Judge John Moore, of that county, who died in 1811, "set free the older of his colored servants and allow- ed the younger ones to serve an apprenticeship with any of his children they might choose," showing that negro slavery existed in Pennsylvania long after the beginning of the nineteenth century. Two of these "colored servants" were still slaves in the Moore family until after 1825.
Negro slaves were frequently advertised for sale in the Pittsburgh newspapers, or as having run away, down to about 1820. Boucher says that negro slaves were often sold at public outcry in the streets of Greensburg. There was a regular auction-block on the court-house square, and from it the negroes were "knocked down" to the highest bidder. Sheriff Perry sold a number of slaves who had been seized for debt, selling them from this auction-block. As late as 1817 George Armstrong, Greensburg's first bur- gess, auctioned off a negro girl who belonged to a client of his. Boucher also says that white men and women, known as redemptioners, were also sold from the auction-block in Greensburg. He says that the last sale of this kind of which there is any record occurred on March 5, 1819.
In 1901 the Blairsville (Indiana county) Enterprise re- ceived from Mrs. Kate Cunningham the original of the following additional reminder of negro slavery in Western Pennsylvania, which we copy verbatim : " For the sum of Two hundred and fifty dollars to me in hand paid by George Anshutz commission merchant of Pittsburgh I do hereby sell and transfer my black boy Bob to him the said George his heirs and assigns for six years from the first day of January eighteen hundred and thirteen at the ex- piration of which time the said Bob is hereby declared to be a free man. In witness whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal at Pittsburgh Dec. 25th, 1812. A. Boggs. Witness, Christian Latshaw. Bob was born with Coll. Cook, of Pensvalley Center County formerly Mifflin and Recorded
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
in Mifflin County. He was sold by Coll. Cook to Doct. Davis, of Bellefonte, by Doct. Davis' Exors to Roland Cur- tin, and by Roland Curtin to me A. Boggs. He is now about eighteen years of age. A. Boggs."
Mr. Boggs was a pioneer saltmaker in the Conemaugh and Kiskiminitas valleys and George Anshutz was a pio- neer ironmaker at Pittsburgh and Laughlinstown and also in Huntingdon county. Roland Curtin was the father of Governor Andrew G. Curtin. The "boy" referred to by Mr. Boggs was the child of negro parents who remained slaves after 1780, and he himself could become free only after he had reached the age of 28 years, unless manumit- ted. Four years of his legal term of servitude were there- fore remitted by Mr. Boggs. He was probably born in 1794.
In the following table we have compiled from the Com- pendium of the Ninth Census (1870) the statistics of the number of negro slaves in each of the thirteen original States as ascertained at the taking of the first census in 1790 and at each succeeding census down to 1840, after which year we find no mention of slaves in Pennsylvania.
States.
1790.
1800.
1810.
1820.
1830.
1840.
New Hampshire
158
8
0
0
3
1
Massachusetts. .
0
0
0
0
1
0
Connecticut ...
2,764
951
310
97
25
17
Rhode Island ..
948
380
108
48
17
5
. New York
21,324
20,903
15,017
10,088
75
4
New Jersey.
...
11,423
12,422
10,851
7,557
2,254
674
Pennsylvania .
3,737
1,706
795
211
403
64
Delaware
8,887
6,153
4,177
4,509
3,292
2,605
Maryland
103,036
105,635
111,502
107,397
102,994
89,737
Virginia
292,627
345,796
392,516
425,148
469,757
448,987
North Carolina.
100,572
133,296
168,824
204,917
245,601
245,817
South Carolina.
107,094
146,151
196,365
258,475
315,401
327,038
Georgia
29,264
59,406
105,218
149,656
217,531
280,944
Massachusetts, which does not report any slaves at any of the above mentioned periods, except one slave in 1830, which exception we can not understand, was nevertheless a slaveholding colony and State down to 1780, when the bill of rights of her constitution of that year indirectly abol- ished slavery, but it was not until 1783 that this provision
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
was enforced. The large number of slaves in New York and New Jersey will attract attention, while the compara- tively small number in Pennsylvania confirms the state- ment heretofore made that this State never held many slaves, although there have always been many free negroes within its borders. The "lower counties" of Delaware became a slave State. Unlike Massachusetts and perhaps some other colonies Pennsylvania did not enslave Indians, except in one instance, noted by Bolles, when some Tusca- rora Indians were brought from North Carolina into Penn- sylvania as slaves, and it never sold Indians into slavery outside its boundaries, as Massachusetts did. In 1705 the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, with the Tuscarora in- cident before it, passed an act prohibiting the importation of Indian slaves from other colonies. Nor did Pennsylva- nia encourage the slave trade or engage in it to anything like the extent that Massachusetts and Rhode Island did.
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