Slaves and Slaveowners in Colonial Philadelphia

Abstract

LTHOUGH historians have recognized the importance of slavery in the social and economic life of colonial America, they have associated the institution primarily with the plantation economy of the southern colonies. Textbooks in colonial history and black history rarely mention urban slavery in the northern colonies or take only passing notice of the institution and conclude that the small number of slaves in northern cities served as domestic servants, presumably in the households of the upper class.' The history of slavery in the colonial period is particularly obscure for Philadelphia, the largest city in British North America on the eve of the Revolution. In the extensive literature on William Penn's colony the inquiring student finds only the most impressionistic