Quakers in Pennsylvania Begin Refusing to Participate in Slave Trade (1688–1696)

Following the Germantown Petition of 1688, a small but growing number of Quakers in Pennsylvania began refusing to buy or sell enslaved people. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1696 issued a formal caution against importing enslaved Africans, though it fell short of requiring members to free those they already held. These early actions, while limited, represented the first organized religious antislavery movement in North America. Figures like William Southeby and Robert Piles argued within the Quaker community that slaveholding was incompatible with Christian faith, laying groundwork for later abolitionist Quakers like John Woolman.