Local Icons Penn and Ben Were Also Slave Masters

by Ron Avery

The press and the public seem interested and surprised by the archeological dig at the site of George Washington's presidential residence at 6th and Market, that includes some traces of a slave quarters

It should be no surprise that Washington - who owned one of the largest plantations in Virginia - held scores of blacks in bondage and would bring household slaves to Philadelphia during his presidency here.

What may be surprising to some is that our beloved Quaker founder William Penn - a man who championed non-violence and religious toleration - was also a slave owner.

And the most famous Philadelphian ever - that wise, witty, man of science Benjamin Franklin - not only owned household slaves but profited by advertising the sale of slaves in his newspaper and often acted as the middle-man in the transaction.

Late in life, after Ben had protested loudly and passionately about the rights and liberties of the American colonists, he recognized the hypocrisy of slave-holding and became a staunch abolitionist.

Penn., like Washington, was a plantation owner. Pennsbury Manor in Bucks County was a much smaller spread than Washington's Mount Vernon but most of the labor was provided by slaves.

Penn biographer Harry Emerson Wildes writes: "Penn determined in early 1687 that he would staff his Pennsbury plantation exclusive with black labor under a white overseer. In a letter from England to his agent in Philadelphia, Penn writes: "It was better they were black for then a man has them while they live."

Exactly how many slaves worked at Pennsbury is not clear but in his writings two slaves, Yaffe and Chevalier, are mentioned as Penn's favorite servants. (In the City of Brotherly Love slaves were always referred to as "servants") A slave called Tish was the personal servant of Penn's daughter, Letitia . Penn sold at least one slave described as "an expert fisherman." Penn wrote that he "exacted a full price because the man would expect it of me."

To some degree, Penn, recognized the injustice of slavery. At one point, he proposed that slaves in Pennsylvania be freed after a certain period of bondage. He suggested a township be created called Freetown where they could live together. But the elected Pennsylvania Assembly rejected the idea.

In an early will, Penn gives his slaves their freedom upon his death. But a later will doesn't even mention the slaves.

Ben Franklin and his wife, Deborah, owed household slaves for 30 years. His son, William and daughter, Sarah were also slave-holders |As a young man in 1731 Franklin wrote with callous insensitivity of slaves as a mere commodity, like woolens or lumber. "The smallpox has quite left this city. The number of those who died here of that distemper is exactly 288. . . 64 of the number were Negroes; if these be valued one with another at 30 pounds per head, the loss to the city in this article is near 2,000 pounds."

Sometime later, Franklin expressed opposition to slavery - not because it was morally wrong - but because slave labor made white people lazy.

But all the time, Ben's newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, contained countless paid advertisements for the sale of slaves and notices about runaway slaves. Very often the ad for a hard-working black "servant" ended with words "Enquire of the printer hereof." In other words, printer Ben would handle the sale and take his commission.

Example: "To Be Sold. A likely young Negro woman, can wash or iron or do any kind of household work, as is fit for either town or country; with two children. Inquire of George Harding Skinner, or the Printer hereof.

Another ad where Ben acted as sales agent said the female slave would be sold with her two year-old son. But "another boy aged about six years who is the son of the abovesaid woman will be sold with his mother or by himself, as the buyer pleases."

Most colonial newspapers carried such notices, but Philadelphia's German language paper, published by Christopher Sauer, refused to run advertisements for slaves.

Finally, when Franklin was confronted in England by the hypocrisy of demanding rights for American colonists while enslaving thousands, Franklin became anti-slave and lashed out at Britain for its deep involvement in the slave trade and its slave-based economy in the Caribbean: "Can the sweetening of our tea with sugar be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential, detestable traffic in the body and souls of men?"

The man was eloquent. After the founding of the United States under the Constitution, Franklin joined with Quakers and other liberals to petition Congress to abolish slavery. The petition got nowhere.

At age 80, Franklin was named president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society - an organization that still meets today once a year.