"How cursed a crime is it," exclaimed old Sewall in 1700, "to equal men to
beasts! These Ethiopians, black as they are, are sons and daughters of the
first Adam, brethren and sisters of the last Adam, and the offspring of
God." On "2d mo. 18, 1688," the Germantown Friends presented the first
petition against slavery recorded in American history. By 1750
professional anti-slavery agitators like John Woolman and Benezet were at
work in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and many wealthy Quakers had set free
their slaves. The wedge which was eventually to divide the North from the
South was already driven in 1750. In his great speech on the Writs of
Assistance in 1761, James Otis so spoke that John Adams said: "Not a
Quaker in Philadelphia, or Mr. Jefferson of Virginia, ever asserted the
rights of negroes in stronger terms."




CHAPTER II.

EXPULSION OF THE FRENCH (1750-1763).


11. REFERENCES.


BIBLIOGRAPHIES.--Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History_, V.
560-622; Channing and Hart, _Guide_, secs. 131-132.

HISTORICAL MAPS.--No. 2, this volume (_Epoch Maps_, No. 5); Labberton,
_Historical Atlas_, lxiii.; B. A. Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, I. 38, 63
(republished from MacCoun, _Historical Geography_); S. R. Gardiner,