AGAINST SLAVERY DRAUGHTED AND ADOPTED BY THE
     GERMANTOWN FRIENDS.—­WILLIAM PENN PRESENTS A BILL FOR THE
     BITTER REGULATION OF SERVANTS.—­AN ACT PREVENTING THE
     IMPORTATION OF NEGROES AND INDIANS.—­RIGHTS OF NEGROES.—­A
     DUTY LAID UPON NEGROES AND MULATTO SLAVES.—­THE QUAKER THE
     FRIEND OF THE NEGRO.—­ENGLAND BEINGS TO THREATEN HER
     DEPENDENCIES IN NORTH AMERICA.—­THE PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA
     REFLECT UPON THE PROBABLE OUTRAGES THEIR NEGROES MIGHT
     COMMIT.

Long before there was an organized government in Pennsylvania, the Swedes and Dutch had planted settlements on the western bank of the Delaware River.  But the English crown claimed the soil; and the governor of New York, under patent from the Duke of York, sought to exercise jurisdiction over the territory.  On the 11th of July, 1681, “Conditions and Concessions were agreed upon by William Penn, Proprietary,” and the persons who were “adventurers and purchasers in the same province.”  Provision was made for the punishment of persons who should injure Indians, and that the planter injured by them should “not be his own judge upon the Indian.”  All controversies arising between the whites and the Indians were to be settled by a council of twelve persons,—­six white men and six Indians.

The first laws for the government of the colony were agreed upon in England, and in 1682 went into effect.  Provision was made for the registering of all servants, their full names, amount of wages paid, and the time when they received their remuneration.  It was strictly required that servants should not be kept beyond the time of their indenture, should be kindly treated, and the customary outfit furnished at the time of their freedom.

The baneful custom of enslaving Negroes had spread through every settlement in North America, and was even “tolerated in Pennsylvania under the specious pretence of the religious instruction of the slave."[509] In 1688 Francis Daniel Pastorius draughted a memorial against slavery, which was adopted by the Germantown Friends, and by them sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence to the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia.[510] The original document was found by Nathan Kite of Philadelphia in 1844.[511] It was a remarkable document, and the first protest against slavery issued by any religious body in America.  Speaking of the slaves, Pastorius asks, “Have not these negroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them slaves?” He believed the time would come,—­

    “When, from the gallery to the farthest seat,
    Slave and slave-owner shall no longer meet,
    But all sit equal at the Master’s feet.”

He regarded the “buying, selling, and holding men in slavery, as inconsistent with the Christian religion.”  When his memorial came before the Yearly Meeting for action, it confessed itself “unprepared to act,” and voted it “not proper then to give a positive judgment in the case.”  In 1696 the Yearly Meeting pronounced against the further importation of slaves, and adopted measures looking toward their moral improvement.  George Keith, catching the holy inspiration of humanity, with a considerable following, denounced the institution of slavery “as contrary to the religion of Christ, the rights of man, and sound reason and policy."[512]