Abstract

This chapter argues that the early meetings of the Adams County Antislavery Society were so controversial and sometimes violent that the region’s Quakers decided to return to two traditional, less confrontational antislavery tools, petitioning and literature distribution, such as pamphleting and antislavery lending libraries. The right to petition was treasured in antebellum America, particularly by nonresistant groups such as Quakers. This chapter examines the role and importance of a little known late 1820s regional and national antislavery petition campaign led by the Quaker Benjamin Lundy, and the key role that south central Pennsylvania played in it.

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