Background
The process of banning slavery in Pennsylvania began in 1780, when the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a law to slowly abolish it. The new law stated that all people who were slaves in 1780 were to remain slaves until they were freed by their owners and that all children of slaves would remain as slaves until they reached the age of 28. This slow abolition of slavery lasted until 1847 (67 years) when it was fully abolished.
The census of 1790 showed that slaves made up one percent of the population of Pennsylvania (for comparison, in New York and New Jersey slaves made up to six percent of the population in the same census). Two cultural influences in Pennsylvania helped keep the numbers of slaves down. The Quaker founders of Pennsylvania were, as a rule, anti-slavery. Their Testimony of Equality held that all people are created equal in the eyes of God. They believed that since all people embodied the same divine spark, all people deserved equal treatment. Quakers were some of the first to value women as important ministers and to campaign for women's rights. They became leaders in the anti-slavery movement, and were among the first to pioneer humane treatment for the mentally ill and for prisoners. Another group of settlers in early Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Dutch, were self-reliant in their beliefs. They avoided the "outside world" as much as possible and had no need for slaves.
This does not mean that all Pennsylvanians of that time were against slavery. Many of the immigrants that followed the Quakers and the various sects of Pennsylvania Dutch were pro-slavery, or at least definitely not abolitionists. They saw freed slaves as competitors for their jobs. One of the common misconceptions about United States history prior to the Civil War is that all the citizens of the northern states were against slavery. In fact many of the "Yankees" were for slavery, especially in states closer to what became the Confederacy, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Delaware.
Read more about this topic: Muncy Abolition Riot Of 1842
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