They were most
numerous, of course, in the older counties which lay in the southeastern
corner of the province, and particularly in the city of Philadelphia.
Occasional owners had as many as twenty or thirty slaves, employed either
on country estates or in iron-works, but the typical holding was on a petty
scale. There were no slave insurrections in the colony, no plots of any
moment, and no panics of dread. The police was apparently a little more
thorough than in New York, partly because of legislation, which the white
mechanics procured, lessening negro competition by forbidding masters to
hire out their slaves. From travelers' accounts it would appear that the
relation of master and slave in Pennsylvania was in general more kindly
than anywhere else on the continent; but from the abundance of newspaper
advertisements for runaways it would seem to have been of about average
character. The truth probably lies as usual in the middle ground, that
Pennsylvania masters were somewhat unusually considerate. The assembly
attempted at various times to check slave importations by levying
prohibitive duties, which were invariably disallowed by the English crown.
On the other hand, in spite of the endeavors of Sandiford, Lay, Woolman
and Benezet, all of them Pennsylvanians, it took no steps toward relaxing
racial control until the end of the colonial period.
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