Many of the major Founding Fathers owned numerous slaves, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Benjamin Franklin, who owned slaves early in his life, later became president of the first abolitionist society in the United States.

Benjamin Franklin

William Wilberforce

In 1780 Pennsylvania passed the first state Abolition Act in the United States under the leadership of George Bryan. It followed Vermont’s abolition of slavery in its constitution of 1777.

But many black Pennsylvanians were in bondage long after that. How forced labor persisted in Pennsylvania until at least the late 1840s. The moment that Pennsylvania abolished slavery came at a time of transitions.

An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, passed by the Fifth Pennsylvania General Assembly on 1 March 1780, prescribed an end for slavery in Pennsylvania. It was the first act abolishing slavery in the course of human history to be adopted by a democracy.

Nevertheless, slavery never was prominent in Pennsylvania. In 1700, when the colony’s population was approximately 30,000, there were only about 1,000 slaves present. Even at the institution’s numerical peak in 1750, slaves numbered only 6,000 of a total of 120,000 residents.

From the founding of the colony (1681/2) to the early post-revolution period (1820s), indentured servants contributed considerably to the development of agriculture and various industries in Pennsylvania. Moreover, Pennsylvania itself has a notable place in the broader history of indentured servitude in North America.

But an estimate in 1721 numbered enslaved Africans in Pennsylvania between 2,500 and 5,000, according to Turner. By the 1790 federal census, the number of slaves in the state totaled 3,737, or about 0.9% of the state’s population. (Free Blacks in the state numbered 6,537.)

1684

The average property in southeastern Pennsylvania in 1700 was six hundred acres, making most early tracts plantation-sized; by 1765 the average holding was still 135 acres. …

Pittsburgh’s population was some 2,400 people; 64 of them were slaves. On the streets, one saw a few free Black men.

In 1681, King Charles II gave William Penn, a wealthy English Quaker, a large land grant in America to pay off a debt owed to his family. Penn, who had been jailed multiple times for his Quaker beliefs, went on to found Pennsylvania as a sanctuary for religious freedom and tolerance.

Canterbury Merchant

Penn

Armed with a charter granted by England’s King Charles II, William Penn (1644-1718) and one hundred travel-weary Quakers arrived in the New World aboard the Welcome on October 27, 1682, with the intention of establishing the founder’s “holy experiment,” a colony that would be free of the religious persecution they …

1682

Quaker Oats advertising dating back to 1909 did, indeed, identify the “Quaker man” as William Penn, and referred to him as “standard bearer of the Quakers and of Quaker Oats.”

Quakers have also been known for their use of “thee” and “thou” instead of “you.” This was considered disrespectful in England, because “thee” was used as second person singular. This was an assault on the social strata of the time as common people were to address those above them as “you”.

Although Swedes and Dutch were the first European settlers, William Penn, a Quaker, named Pennsylvania in honor of his father by combining the name Penn and the Latin term sylvania, which translates as “woodlands,” to come up with “Penn’s woodlands.” Known as the “Keystone State,” Pennsylvania is one of the original 13 …

Fort Nya Gothenburg

Virtue, liberty, and independence

Virtue, Liberty, and Independence is the state motto of Pennsylvania. The meaning of the Pennsylvania State Motto reflects the attitude and hope of the people of New York following the outbreak of the War Of Independence in 1775-1783.

The state motto, “Virtue, Liberty and Independence”, appears festooned below. Atop the coat of arms is a bald eagle, representing Pennsylvania’s loyalty to the United States….

State Motto Pennsylvania’s motto is “Virtue, Liberty, and Independence.”

The state motto, “Virtue, liberty and independence,” is inscribed on the ribbon below the arms. The standard of the Pennsylvania governor employs the same design on a background of white rather than blue.

The flag of Philadelphia is the municipal flag of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Official but seldom seen variations include a Merchant Flag, Pennant, and Streamer. The blue and yellow colors commemorate the original Swedish colonization of Philadelphia.