Redemptioners And Slavery In Delaware County.

The Quarterly Meeting held at Chester for the county of Chester, Sixth month 1, 1700, prohibited the members of the meeting from purchasing Indians as slaves, and in 1711 the same meeting declared that it was "dissatisfied with Friends buying and encouraging the bringing in of negroes." Four years after Chester Monthly Meeting again brought this matter prominently before the society, and determined to press it at the Yearly Meeting. That this was done is evidenced by a letter of Isaac Norris in 1715, quoted by Watson, wherein the writer says, "Our business would have been very well were it not for the warm pushing by some Friends of Chester, chiefly in the business of negroes. The aim was to obtain a minute that none should buy them for the future."

The agitation of the subject had so attracted public attention to the evil of slavery that the Assembly as early as 1705 levied an impost duty on slaves brought within the province, and in 1710 again enacted a similar law. In 1711 an act was passed absolutely forbidding the importation of slaves, but the English ship-owners, at that time largely interested in the traffic in negroes, influenced the crown to declare the colonial law nugatory. The Assembly in the following year imposed a duty of twenty pounds a head on every slave brought into Pennsylvania, and again Queen Anne crushed the provincial statute at the instance of those who were growing wealthy in the trade.

The opponents of the system of slavery were not dismayed into silence by the royal mandate, but in 1716, 1728, and 1730 Chester Quarterly meeting, with no uncertain sound, pressed the matter on the attention of the Society of Friends, and in 1761, Dr. Smith tells us a member of Chester meeting was dealt with by that body for having bought and sold a negro, but having made a proper acknowledgment he was not disowned.

That slaves were generally owned and kept by persons of wealth and by farmers in Chester County at an early date is fully established by an examination of the records, which show in settling estates frequent mention of negro slaves. The first case in this county where slaves were manumitted that I have found is in the will of Lydia Wade, widow of Robert Wade, dated the 30th day of Fourth month, 1701. Lydia Wade, in all probability, died in July, and her will, probated Aug. 8, 1801, before Register-General Moore, at Philadelphia, has the following clauses respecting her slaves:

"161y. My will is that my negroes John and Jane his wife shall be sett free one month after my decease.
"171y. My will Is that my negro child called Jane shall be sett free after it have lived with my negro John twelve years and after that with my kinsman John Wade five years."

As the spirit of liberty spread abroad among the people during the colonial difficulties with Europe, the impression that it was unjust to keep mankind in bondage became so general that it caused many persons in the colony, whose principles were more dear to them than money, to manumit their slaves. In the year 1776 a number of slaves were so made free. William Peters, of Aston, in that year manumitted four bond-servants, - a man, woman, and two children. The document relating to the two last I copy in full:

"To all people to whom these presents shall come: I, William Peters, of Ashtown, in the County of Chester and Province of Pennsylvania, having a certain malattoe boy named Jack, aged about foure years under my care and in my service and also a Mulatto Gerl named Grace aged about two years Likewise under my care. Now Know Ye, that for and in Consideration that all mankind have an Equal, Natural and Just Right to Liberty I do by these Presents promise and Declair that the said Jack and Grace, he when he shall arive at the age of twenty-one that is to say on the first day of the Eighth month in the year of our Lord one thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-three and She when she shall arrive at the age of Eighteen, that is to say on the first Day of the Eighth month in the year one thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-two, they shall be and is hereby Declared, Discharged, Manumitted and at full Liberty and for myself, my Heirs, Executors, Administrators and Assigns and all other persons Claiming under me or any of them do quit all Claim after that time to the said Jack and Grace which by the Laws or Customs of this province or any other Government might have subjected them to Slavery or Deprived them of the full Enjoyment of Liberty. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the Seventh Day of the Eighth month in the year of our Lord one thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Six.

In 1777 the public sentiment among Friends against slavery had become so general that the ownership of a bondsman for life was regarded as a sufficient cause in itself for the meeting to disown members thus offending. As stated before, the conviction of the wrong and evil of slavery made permanent lodgment in the opinion of the people, when the struggle between the colonists and England began, increasing as the spirit of liberty increased until, March 1, 1780, the Assembly enacted a law providing for the gradual abolition of the entire system of servile labor in the commonwealth. Its provisions required a registration of all slaves to be made prior to the 1st day of November following in the office of the clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions in the several counties, and declared that all persons born after that date in Pennsylvania should be free, excepting the children of registered slaves, who should be servants to their parents' masters until they had attained twenty-eight years, after which age they also became freemen. Under this law a registry of the slaves of Chester County, giving the name, age, sex, and time of service of each person held as a slave, as also the name of the owners and the township where they resided, was carefully made. The record shows the following slaves, the number