05/13/2026
Today we return to the 1688 antislavery petition endorsed by the Germantown Friends Meeting (where the immigrant ancestors of 3 of the Drumore founding families worshiped) and signed by Francis "Daniel" Pastorius, Garret Hendricks, and the Op den Graeff brothers, Abraham and Dirck. In our last post about it on April 6, 2026 we presented the powerful arguments they made. These focused, in part, on the Golden Rule, a central Quaker concept. But we know that the Abington (then Dublin) Monthly Meeting, and the Quarterly Meeting refused to act upon it, stating it was "too weighty" a matter. In the Quaker organizational decisionmaking process it would then go to the Yearly Meeting. However, at that point it disappeared until 1844.
The authors of the document used excellent logic consistent with Friends' faith. They were even a bit snarky as they issued a challenge ... "Now consider well this thing, if it is good or bad? and in case you find it to be good to handel these blacks at that manner, we desire & require you hereby lovingly, that you may informe us here in, which in this time never was done, viz. that Christians have a liberty to do so, to the end we shall be satisfied in this point ...". They knew slavery could not be justified based upon Quaker and biblical principles.
So, what happened? Their primary obstacle was likely the early immigrant English slave-owning Friends of the Abington Meeting. In the Haverford College Special Collections is a record of manumissions by Abington Friends that identifies 23 individuals who freed people enslaved by them up through 1775. Abolitionism was not common among Quakers until the middle of the 18th century. Dr. Katherine Gerbner is an associate professor of history and the Director of Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota. She talks about the early English Quaker perspective on slavery as "benevolent paternalism" with a focus on evangelizing that would result in "well-ordered Quaker households with Christian slaves."
So the Germantowners' argument that enslaved Africans were social and spiritual equals was a radical departure from the English perspective. Dr. Gerbner also highlights cultural differences that are reflected in the style and language of the document. Her deep textual analysis reveals that the authors wrote in a manner more consistent with the types of protest documents Quakers penned to outsiders than in the way Friends wrote among themselves. Linguistically, they set themselves apart from those they were addressing. She says it "suggests that the Germantowners did not consider themselves to be truly accepted by the English Quakers in Philadelphia.". This cultural mismatch may have reduced their "standing" on the issue of slavery for those who engaged in it.
Dr. Gerbner again, "the Germantowners’ concern for blacks revealed a wholly new perspective on slavery that was unlike the English anti-slavery sentiment of the same period. This cultural disconnect may have been the reason the Protest was rejected by the English, but the Protest would not have been possible without it. By leaving their homeland and attempting to adjust to a foreign way of life in Pennsylvania, the Germantowners offered a new outlook on English customs. The Protest was a refreshing anomaly that emerged neither from a German-Dutch nor English perspective. It was unique to Germantown and the uncommon lives and convictions of the Germantowners."
The humanitarian ideas of the 1688 petition did percolate over time throughout both the colonial and European Quaker worlds. They were echoed in a 1693 document, An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning the Buying and Keeping of Negroes, and in the rights based arguments of later abolitionist Friends such as Anthony Benezet, John Woolman, and others.
https://www.katharinegerbner.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Writing_Against_Slavery-Gerbner.pdf
In our next post, our Germantown Friends will encounter some NEW challenges! Stay tuned!
