The Anti-Slavery Protest of 1688

28 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION lives we had before recounted, and young faces in old-fashioned " scoop " bonnets were unmistakably the daughters of women who, only a few years ago, bore the burden of Chester Monthly Meeting. We do well thus to have the past brought before us so appealingly, for it is out of the past that we must gather our inspiration to press on toward the Quakerism of the future. C. Wilfred Conard. [The above account is copied, with permission, from The Friend (Philadelphia), Tenth Month 29, 1931. In the same issue and the one following, is printed a valuable paper entitled " The Early History of Chester Monthly Meeting " by Anne Walton Pennell. In the Friends Intelligencer of Tenth Month 24, 1931, is reproduced a photograph taken on the occasion, showing the procession of " ancient Friends " entering Providence Meeting House.] THE ANTI-SLAVERY PROTEST OF 1688 In a review below of H. H. Shenk's new Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania reference is made to an article in that volume, page 17, on the "AntiSlavery Movement in Pennsylvania." The article says : " The first protest against slavery was made by the Germantown Mennonites, sometimes called German Quakers, in 1688." Several statements of that nature have been made recently and they revive an old question of fact. The question is whether those residents of Germantown who signed the protest were Mennonites , merely called " German Quakers," or whether they were actually members with Friends. The question was first prominently raised, apparently, by Isabella (Mrs. Thomas Potts) James in her book entitled Memorial of Thomas Potts, Jr., privately printed in 1874. She clearly challenged the statement that the protest of 1688 was made by Friends, and referred to it as " an error that has crept into history." The most detailed and convincing reply to her contention was by O. Seidensticker in The Penn Monthly (Phila.), 5 (1874) : 496-503. See also The Friend (Phila.), 48 (1874) : 51 ff.; the same, 53 (1880) : 189-90. On the discovery by Nathan Kite in 1844 of the original manuscript Protest, see The Friend (Phila.), 17 (1844) : 125-126. There seems to be no doubt that the Protest of 1688 was issued by Friends to Friends. It originated at a Preparative Meeting in Germantown, went thence to a Monthly Meeting at Dublin, next to Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting and finally to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. At the close of the paper is the statement : " This is from our meeting at Germantown, held ye 18 of the 2 month 1688, to be delivered to the Monthly Meeting at Richard Worrell's. [Signed] Garret hendericks, derick up de graeff, Francis daniell Pastorius, Abraham up Den graef." (See Special Note below.) ANTI-SLAVERY PROTEST OF 168829 The endorsement of Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting is as follows : " This, above mentioned, was read in our Quarterly Meeting at Philadelphia, the 4 of ye 4th mo. '88, and was from thence recommended to the Yearly Meeting, and the above said Derick, and the other two mentioned therein, to present the same to ye above said meeting, it being a thing of too great a weight for this meeting to determine. Signed by order of ye meeting, Anthony Morris " In the first place, it is not likely that this Protest would have been passed along so punctiliously from meeting to meeting if it had not come originally from a Friends' meeting. Nor is it at all probable that the German signatories , if they had been non-Friends, would have been appointed to carry it up from the Quarterly to the Yearly Meeting. Moreover, it is well known that Pastorious was in membership with Friends, his name frequently appearing in Friends' records. Abington Friends' records contain the names of many Germans of Germantown. Dirk op den Graeff signed a Quaker protest against George Keith, while Abraham op den Graeff is recorded on the Keithian side. Many other facts pertinent to the question may be found in the works cited above. One more work should be cited here. It is " The Mennonite Immigration to Pennsylvania in the Eighteenth Century," by C. Henry Smith, which is Part II of the Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society, vol. 35, 1924. (There...