ABSTRACT
In the years after the American Revolution slavery came closer to being abolished in North America than at any other time before 1865. For a short time a window of emancipation existed before being effectively closed again until the 1860s. The emancipation acts, whether gradual or not, was often the result of active campaigns by abolitionist societies such as the New York Manumission Society and the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes, Unlawfully Held in Bondage first met in 1775 and stepped up its attempt to end slavery while the Revolutionary War was still raging. Like other gradual emancipation acts that would follow, Pennsylvania’s statute freed all those born after the passing of the act, but instead of life-long servitude it substituted twenty-eight years of indentured service to those who would have been their masters.
