1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery

The Germantown Petition was a protest by American Quaker settlers in Pennsylvania demanding the abolition of slavery, the first formal petition of its kind. It was authored by Francis Daniel Pastorius, the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, with support from several of the Original 13 settlers of Pennsylvania including Derick op den Graeff and Abraham op den Graeff, who signed it on behalf of the Germantown Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. A highly controversial document, Friends forwarded it up the hierarchical chain of their administrative structure—monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings—without either approving or rejecting it. The petition effectively disappeared for 150 years into the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's archives, but was republished in 1844 in support of abolitionism after its rediscovery by the Philadelphia antiquarian Nathan Kite.