The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery of 1688 is best known as the first organized protest against slavery to have been penned in North America. Written by four Germantown Quakers, this extraordinary document raises objections to slavery on both moral and practical grounds at a time that Pennsylvania Quakers were nearly unanimous in their acceptance of the institution of slavery. It took another 88 years of activism among a growing number of Quakers before the Society of Friends would completely denounce slavery among its membership, and by this time the Germantown Quaker Protest had been completely forgotten. The document came to light again in 1844 and served as an important tool to the Quaker abolition movement of the 19th century. It was misplaced in the 20th century and was only re-discovered in 2005 in the vault of the Arch Street Meeting House. This document is but one famous example of the extensive records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which are divided between Haverford’s Quaker Collection and Swarthmore’s Friends Historical Library. A larger image and transcript of the protest can be found in Triptych: the Tri-College Digital Library.

A recent deposit to the Quaker Collection is on loan to the National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA.  The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery of 1688 is best known as the first protest against slavery to have been written in North America.  Written by four Germantown Quakers, this extraordinary document raises objections to slavery on both moral and practical grounds at a time that Pennsylvania Quakers were nearly unanimous in their acceptance of the institution of slavery.  It took another 92 years of activism among a growing number of Quakers before the Society of Friends would completely denounce slavery among its membership, and by this time the Germantown Quaker Protest had been completely forgotten.  The document came to light again in 1844 and served as an important tool to the Quaker abolition movement of the 19th century.  Unfortunately, the protest was again misplaced in the early 20th century and was only re-discovered just over a year ago in the vault of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

The protest has now been professionally conserved and has been deposited in the Quaker Collection of Haverford College where it makes a home among our many related Quaker documents.  The Quaker Collection, with the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, serves as the joint-repository for the records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, of which this document is an integral part.

The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery of 1688 is currently on display at the National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA, as a featured work in the exhibition Philadelphia Treasures, which itself accompanies a larger exhibition Eyewitness: American Originals from the National Archives.  The exhibition runs from May 25 to September 3, 2007.

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The Haverford Bible, the oldest Hebrew Bible located in North America, is now on loan to the Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia, PA.  This beautiful manuscript was copied in Spain in 1266 in a very square and even hand.  The pages are made of a fine goatskin vellum.  Conservation work on the Bible establishes that it required the skins of 220 very small animals.

The lower margin of each page is decorated with lines of tiny writing, which form a zig-zag or woven pattern.  This textual marginalia actually forms a concordance on selected terms located within passages of the main text.  In the side margins are colorful abstract ornaments.  At the beginning and end of the volume are “carpet pages,” richly colored patterns of diamond shapes or interlocking chains that resemble the patterns of carpets.

The Haverford Bible contains a colophon which indicates it was copied by “Solomon, son of Moses.”  Further inscriptions document that the Bible remained in Spain until the expulsion of the Jews, at which time it made its way to Egypt. Three changes of ownership are documented: one in 1714-15, one in 1755-56, and the last in 1890 when it was acquired by J. Rendel Harris, professor of Ecclesiastical History at Haverford.  Harris’s gift of the Bible plus 46 additional Semitic manuscripts form the nucleus of the J. Rendel Harris “Oriental” Manuscript Collection of Haverford College.

The Rosenbach Museum and Library is currently displaying the Haverford Bible as part of its exhibition Chosen: Philadelphia’s Great Hebraica, which runs from March 29 to August 26, 2007.

Emily Higgs, a student assistant in Special Collections, has completed an annotated index to the Robert Pleasants letterbook, a part of the records of Baltimore Yearly Meeting (item #168). Pleasants (1722-1801), a member of Curles Monthly Meeting, Virginia Yearly Meeting, is known for his work as an abolitionist. He freed his eighty slaves and urged the ratification of a law proposing gradual emancipation for the children of slaves. Pleasants established the Gravelly Hill School for the free children of slaves. The letterbook covers the period 1754-1797 and centers on matters of religion and abolition. We anticipate making the letterbook web-accessible in the near future.

The Franklin Speaker Series concludes Wednesday, December 7 at 4 pm, Magill Library, Philips Wing. David Waldstreicher, Professor of History at Temple University, is the author of Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery and American Revolution. He will speak on the topic of Franklin, Quakerism and Slavery. Free and open to the public.