and set free as well as in Europe. Then is Pensilvania to have a good report, in stead it hath now a bad one for this sacke in other Countries. Especially whereas ye Europeans are desirous to know in what manner ye Quackers doe rule in their Province & most of them doe loock upon us with an envious eye. But if this is done well, what shall we say, is don evil?
If once these slaves (wch they say are so wicked and stubbern men) should joint themselves, fight for their freedom and handel their masters & mastrisses, as they did handel them before; will these masters & mastrisses tacke the sword at hand & warr against these poor slaves, licke we are able to belive, some will not refuse to doe? Or have these negers not as much right to fight for their freedom, as you have to keep them slaves?
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 herein, which at this time never was done, viz. that Christians have Liberty to do so, to the end we shall be satisfied in this point, & satisfie lickewise our good friends & acquaintances in our natif Country, to whose it is a terrour or fairfull thing that men should be handeld so in Pensilvania. This was is from our monthly meeting at Germantown hold ye 18 of the 2 month 1688 to be delivred to the monthly meeting at Richard Warrels.
gerret hendericks
derick op de graeff
Francis daniell Pastorius
Abraham op den graef[1]
- ↑ The Friends at Germantown, through William Kite, have
recently had a fac-simile copy of this protest made. Care has been
taken to give it here exactly as it is in the original, as to language,
orthography, and punctuation. The disposition which was made of
it appears from these notes from the Friends records: “At our
monthly meeting at Dublin ye 30 2 mo. 1688, we having inspected
ye matter above mentioned & considered it we finde it so weighty
that we think it not Expedient for us to meddle with it here, but
do Rather comitt it to ye consideration of ye Quarterly meeting,
ye tennor of it being nearly Related to ye truth, on behalfe of ye
monthly meeting. signed, pr. Jo. Hart.”
“This above mentioned was Read in our Quarterly meeting at
Philadelphia the 4 of ye 4 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.”
At the yearly meeting held at Burlington the 5 day of 7 mo.
1688. “A paper being here presented by some German Friends
Concerning the Lawfulness and Unlawfulness of buying and Keeping
of Negroes, It was adjudged not to be so proper for this Meeting
to give a Positive Judgment in the case, It having so General a
Relation to many other Parts, and, therefore, at present they
forbear it.”
The handwriting of the original appears to be that of Pastorius.
An effort has been made to take from the Quakers the credit of this
important document, but the evidence that those who sent and those
who received it regarded each other as being members of the same
religious society seems to me conclusive.
