Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Condemns Slaveholding Among Quakers

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting ruled that Quakers who bought or sold enslaved people would be disowned from the meeting. Influenced by John Woolman and Anthony Benezet, this was the first formal religious body in America to make slaveholding a disciplinary offense. By 1776 the Meeting required members to free all enslaved people or face expulsion — a model for later abolitionist organizing.