Freedom Isn’t Free: Liberty and Slavery in Revolutionary Philadelphia
The Declaration of Independence justified independence through a detailed list of grievances against King George III, asserting that all people have the right to challenge rulers who fail to protect their interests. In doing so, it framed dissent not as disorder, but as a political necessity.
Not everyone had a right to challenge rulers freely in Revolutionary America, however. Most especially, enslaved Africans were denied this opportunity. Although that denial was firmest in the American south, it was also apparent in Philadelphia, including in the Germantown neighborhood where this conversation will take place. It was so resounding that in 1852, decades after the Revolution, Fredrick Douglass was still able to ask “What to a slave is the fourth of July?” Hosted by Stenton, this conversation address the complexities of freedom at the time of the Declaration. It was at this Quaker-owned property that formerly enslaved woman Dinah prevented the house from being burned to the ground by the British. Traditionally, the Quakers have been connected with the abolition of slavery, but as Stenton’s project “Wrestling with Justice: Quakers and Northern Slavery” reveals, the situation in Revolutionary Germantown was far more complicated.
The discussion will address the question of freedom and who had the right to fight for it – both on behalf of America and themselves. Who was allowed to enjoy the Revolution’s promises of liberty? Who wasn’t? And in what ways does the denial of freedoms for some, but not others, still shape neighborhoods like Germantown today?
