Anthony Benezet, 1713-1784.
Observations on the Inslaving, Importing, and Purchasing of
Negroes . Germantown: Printed by Christopher Sower, 1760.
Born to French Huguenot parents who fled France because of religious
persecution, the Benezet family settled in Philadelphia in 1731,
where Anthony Benezet founded the African School for Blacks. Among
his students were Absalom Jones, the first African American priest
in the Episcopal Church, and Richard Allen, founder of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church.
Franklin credited Benezet's anti-slavery pamphlets with the 1772
decision of the Virginia House of Burgesses to petition the King
for an end to the slave trade.
John Woolman, 1720-1772.
Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes; Considerations
on the Keeping of Negroes . Northampton, Mass.: Gehenna Press,
John Woolman was a Quaker leader and abolitionist who published
important essays opposing slavery. The first printing of Considerations
on the Keeping of Negroes was published by Franklin in 1762.
This modern edition of the work includes an illustration by Leonard
Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.
The Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the
Abolition of Slavery and the relief of Free Negroes, unlawfully held
in bondage, begun in the year 1774 and enlarged on the twenty-third
of April 1787. To which are added the Acts of the General Assembly
of Pennsylvania for the gradual abolition of slavery . Philadelphia:
Printed by J. James, 1787.
||Phillis Wheatley, 1753-1784.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral . London:
Printed for A. Bell, bookseller, Aldgate; and sold by Messrs.
Cox and Berry, King-street, Boston, 1773.
In 1773, the American slave Phillis Wheatley became the first
person of African descent to publish a book of poems in the
English language. The toast of London and lauded by Europeans
as diverse as Voltaire and Gibbon, Wheatley was for a time
the most famous black woman in the West. Franklin called upon
Wheatley in London in 1773. She intended to dedicate her next
volume of poetry to him, but it was never published.
Purchased through the Matthew Newkirk Memorial Fund
Thomas Clarkson, 1760-1846.
An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly
the African ... Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank, 1786.
Thomas Clarkson was a twenty-five year old divinity student when
he wrote an essay on slavery for a Latin essay contest. Not only
did the essay win first prize, but the research he did changed his
life. He was so affected by what he discovered about the slave trade
that he became an abolitionist and spent the rest of his life fighting
to abolish slavery.
Thomas Clarkson, 1760-1846.
An Essay on the Impolicy of the Slave Trade, in Two Parts. Philadelphia:
Printed by Francis Bailey, 1788.
As one of the founders of the Society for the Abolition of the
Slave Trade, Thomas Clarkson was convinced that slavery was offensive
to law and to Christianity. But he saw that overcoming the strength
of the slaveholders would need arguments based on economics as well.
In his Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, he contended
that, once all the numbers were done correctly, the slave trade
could be shown to be uneconomic.
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