First Quakers Oppose Slavery

Quakers in Pennsylvania owned slaves. William Penn had slaves when he lived in Pennsylvania for four years. Some Quakers in Barbados in the 1670s began to question slavery. It was first openly denounced in 1688 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, by four German settlers, a Lutheran, and three Quakers. They said that slavery was in opposition to Christianity and the Rights of man.Their public denouement of slavery began a debate in the Quaker community that eventually led the Quakers to lead the Abolitionist movement.