“A Minute against Slavery, Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Germantown Quakers’ Monthly Meeting felt an obligation to protest against what they perceived as immorality surrounding them. The Rhinelanders, coming from a situation in Europe in which they were actively hounded and disenfranchised for their beliefs, were particularly sensitive to the plights of others they saw as mistreated simply on the basis of who they were. In creating ”A Minute against Slavery” they acted in accord with their belief system, which requires Quakers to seek independent answers to pressing social issues, to strive for moral perfection, and to abjure violence.

The authors of the Germantown protest—Pastorius, the Opden Graffs, and Henderich—open their statement with the title “A Minute against Slavery, Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting.” Here, minute refers to a formal record of matters of importance to the writers, often for a superior audience and especially in the context of a meeting. In this case, the authors drafted a statement of their arguments against slavery at the Germantown Monthly Meeting, for formal presentation at the regional Monthly Meeting held at Richard Worrell’s house in Dublin Township, Bucks County. The authors proceed to voice their protests against slavery and to present evidence supporting their points. Their prefatory statement, “These are the reasons why we are against the traffick of men-body,” clearly indicates their intent: They oppose the selling, buying, and use of human beings as slaves.

The first point raised by the Germantown protesters echoes the Golden Rule. They ask their audience, “Is there any that would be done or handled at this manner? viz., to be sold or made a slave for all the time of his life?” In other words, they ask their fellow colonists how many of them would appreciate being taken and sold into permanent bondage without their consent. They remind their readers of the fear inspired by the Turks and their practice of taking Christian captives in eastern Europe and around the Mediterranean basin, and they ask if Africans facing the same danger should feel less terror or believe themselves less wronged. A bit later in the document the authors return to this theme, suggesting that the racial origin of slaves should not be a factor in determining the morality of enslaving others. Here they affirm,

Now, tho they are black, we can not conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves, as it is to have other white ones. There is a saying that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are.

Thus the Germantowners explicitly invoke the Golden Rule and make reference to issues of race and equality, emphasizing the obligation to treat others, no matter how different, as they themselves would wish to be treated. They return to this point a final time in drawing a very specific comparison between the plight of those abused for the nature of their faiths—“for conscience sake”—in Europe and the plight of “those oppressed who are of a black colour” in America.

Next the protesters turn to two issues they perceive as threats to the morality of the enslavers: their participation in theft and the temptations of vice. Opening their argument on this point, they characterize those who take slaves as thieves and those who purchase the captives as accomplices, stating, “And those who steal or robb men, and those who buy or purchase them, are they not all alike?” The Germantowners suggest that in Pennsylvania there is “liberty of Conscience,” or freedom of faith, as well as freedom of “body”; thus, to steal and sell the body of a person without consent is a sin that they, the members of the meeting at Germantown, must oppose. Later in the opening paragraph they return to this point and emphasize their obligation to stop such behavior, contending, “And we who profess that it is not lawful to steal, must, likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing if possible.” Here, their argument reaches its most radical and far-reaching point. They continue by suggesting, in accord with Christian obligation, not only that the trafficking of human beings should be stopped but also that the unlawfully enslaved “ought to be delivered out of ye hands of ye robbers, and set free” everywhere. This is a clear denunciation of the slave trade and of slavery in general; it is a call to abolition.

In the course of the first paragraph, the authors also worry about the exposure of their brethren to other vices, in particular those associated with the sanctity of marriage and the family. They argue that slavery presents the opportunity for adultery. They specifically cite the evils of “separating wives from their husbands and giving them to others.” They also refer to the consequences of family dissolution imposed when the offspring of slaves are sold away from their parents. The petitioners warn their audience that Christians ought not do such things, not simply because they are sins but also because those actions damage the image of the colony and threaten the morality of the whole Pennsylvania enterprise.

The Germantown protesters proceed to question both the inhumanity of slavery and the appearance of their colony in the eyes of the larger world should they permit the institution to flourish within their boundaries. They challenge the morality of all who engage in the institution of slavery, condemning not only those who own slaves and profit from their unlawful labors but also those who join in the buying and selling of slaves. The petitioners then point out that Europeans pay attention to the residents of the colonies and judge their behaviors, and they ask what the nature of European opinions will be when “they hear of, that ye Quakers doe here handel men as they handel there ye cattle.” The Germantowners then profess doubt regarding any possible defense against such judgments. In their eyes, slavery violates the most basic of Christian tenets—treat others as you wish to be treated—and they can find no way to “maintain this your cause, or pleid for it.” They also imply that colonists who participate in slavery exceed the European evils of religious and political oppression through their sinful treatment of their fellow men.

Drawing on their own experiences, they suggest to those Christians engaged in slavery, “You surpass Holland and Germany in this thing”—in the mistreatment of their fellow human beings. The protesters close the opening paragraph with clear opposition to the reduction of Africans to objects to be bought and sold and used as chattel. Referring to how morality is skewed by the presence of slavery in society, they state in closing, “Europeans are desirous to know in what manner ye Quakers doe rule in their province;—and most of them doe look upon us with an envious eye. But if this is done well, what shall we say is done evil?”

The second paragraph of the protest contains a warning of a different sort, one that is nearly prophetic in its content. It is a statement concerning the ongoing dangers of holding men in bondage against their wills. The Germantowners here assume the slaveholders’ arguments and turn them against those who employ slaves. Owners, supporting permanent bondage of Africans, voice the notion that their slaves represent the basest of all human beings and need to be enslaved. The authors thus ask what would stop these “wicked and stubbern men” from aggressively seeking their liberty and thereupon using “their masters and mastrisses as they did handel them before.” The authors go on to ask slaveholders if they would then rebel against the injustice of permanent servitude, wondering, “have these negers not as much right to fight for their freedom, as you have to keep them slaves?” These questions touch on the deepest fears of slave owners and foreshadow the slave rebellions brewing on the horizon. The Germantowners are furthermore expressing concerns over the bearing of arms in response to the threat of revolt. Ingrained in the Quaker belief system is a commitment to pacifism. The petitioners question the ability of slave-owning Quakers to resist the temptation of defending themselves, by taking “the sword at hand,” in the case of an insurrection.

The argument closes in the third paragraph with a formal request to be informed of the regional meeting’s findings concerning their protests. In good Quaker fashion, they state, “And in case you find it to be good to handle these blacks at that manner, we desire and require you hereby lovingly, that you may inform us herein.” They do not demand that their counterparts, meeting at Richard Worrell’s house in Dublin, support their cause but rather request that the members of the Dublin Meeting search their consciences and report their findings. They note that up to this point no religious authority had defined the Christian legitimacy of slavery; thus, they in Germantown needed guidance and answers to their questions. They also hoped to calm the fears of their brethren back in their “natif country”—that is, both Germany and Holland—“to whose it is a terror, or fairful thing, that men should be handeld so in Pennsylvania.”

“A Minute against Slavery” concludes as it begins, by formally addressing the protests to the next regional Monthly Meeting at Worrell’s house. The four signers of the document—Henderich, Pastorius, and the two Opden Graff brothers—follow in no particular order and with no reference to rank or status within Germantown. This presentation is very Quakerly, in that it privileges none of the participants and so emphasizes their equality. The four were, perhaps, more important for what they represented about their community. Although not indicated in the document, Pastorius’s name carried considerable weight beyond Germantown, and any petition from the community without his support would have been treated with greater suspicion. The other signers represented the diversity of Germantown and its possible factions. The Opden Graffs were German in origin and among the first wave of colonists. Henderich represented the Dutch voices in the meeting and was a fairly recent arrival. Together the men embodied the larger population of their community.