When Jonathan Jasper Wright was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, circa 1839-1840, he was born into a free state, arguably the epicenter of abolitionist thought in the Union. But it had not always been so - a mere 60 years earlier, slavery was legal and regularly practiced in the state. Only in 1780 was legislation passed to outlaw slavery. (To be fair, it was the first act of its kind in the colonies.)
This legislation was conservative - emancipation was, per the title of the act itself, “gradual.” According to the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, “Pennsylvania's Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery was the most conservative of the laws emancipating slaves that were passed in northern states between 1780 and 1804.”
After its passage, the act prohibited importation of slaves. Black children born after 1780 would be free as of their twenty-eighth birthday. Slaves were required to be registered, and anyone not registered was considered free.
There were exceptions written in for a number of cases. Members of the Continental Congress from other states, along with “foreign Ministers and Consuls,” were allowed to bring their slaves to Pennsylvania.
Harboring runaway slaves from other states was also expressly forbidden.
Nonetheless, the act was the beginning of the end of slavery in Pennsylvania. Slave population by 1780 was roughly 3,500, with nearly twice that many registered in the census as free. The population of slaves in the state continued to drop, reaching less than a thousand by 1810.
By the time Jonathan Jasper Wright was born, 60 years following the passage of the Act, there were still 64 slaves registered in the state.
Sources:
“An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery,” Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/documents/1776-1865/abolition-slavery.html. Accessed 15 June 2023.
William J. Switala, Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania, Second Edition, Stackpole Books, 2008