Note A — APPENDIX.

"I must observe, that soon after the colony (Pennsylvania) had been planted, that is, in the year 1682, when William Penn was first resident in it, some few Africans had been imported, but that more had followed. At this time the traffic in slaves was not branded with infamy, as at the present day. It was considered, on the other hand, as favorable to both parties: to the American planters, because they had but few laborers, in comparison with the extent of their lands; and to the poor Africans themselves, because they were looked upon as persons redeemed out of superstition, idolatry, and heathenism. But though the purchase and sale of them had been admitted with less caution upon this principle, there were not wanting among the Quakers of Pennsylvania those who, soon after the introduction of them there, began to question the moral licitness of the traffic. Accordingly, at the Yearly Meeting for Pennsylvania, held in 1688, it had been resolved, on the suggestion of emigrants from Crisheim, who had adopted the principles of William Penn, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery, was inconsistent with the tenets of the Christian religion. In 1696, a similar resolution had been passed at the Yearly Meeting of the same religious society for the same province. In consequence, then, of these noble resolutions, the Quakers had begun to treat their slaves in a different manner from that of other people. They had begun to consider them as children of the same great Parent, to whom fraternal offices were due; and hence, in 1698, there were instances where they had admitted them into their meeting houses to worship in common with themselves.A