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The 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery was the first protest against enslavement of Africans made by a religious body in the Thirteen Colonies. Francis Daniel Pastorius authored the petition; he and the three other Quakers living in Germantown, Pennsylvania (now part of Philadelphia), Garret Hendericks, Derick op den Graeff, and Abraham op den Graeff, signed it on behalf of the ...
[9] It was not until the passage of the signed First Amendment to the Constitution over a century later that religious freedom was enshrined as a fundamental guarantee, [3] but even that document echoes the Toleration Act in its use of the phrase, "free exercise thereof". Thus, despite its lack of a full guarantee of religious freedom or broad ...
The colonies of Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Jersey went further than the Act of Toleration by outlawing the establishment of any church and allowing a greater religious diversity. [6] Within the colonies in the year 1700 Roman Catholics were allowed to practice their religion freely only in Rhode Island. [13]
Rhode Island was the first colony to declare freedom of religion for all faiths, including all denominations of Christianity, in 1636. In 1739 there were thirty-three churches in the colony; twelve Baptist, ten Quaker, six Congregational or Presbyterian, and five Episcopalian. It is said that in 1680 there was not one Catholic in the colony ...
During the American colonial period a freeman was a person who was not a slave. The term originated in 12th-century Europe. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman; in neighboring Plymouth Colony a man did not need to be a member of the Church, but he had to be elected to this privilege by the General Court.
At this time, however, there was no official attempt by the English government to create a colonial empire. Rather the motivation behind the founding of colonies was piecemeal and variable. Practical considerations played their parts, such as commercial enterprise, over-crowding, and the desire for freedom of religion. The main waves of ...
These colonies were part of British America, which also included territory in The Floridas, the Caribbean, and what is today Canada. [3] The Thirteen Colonies were separately administered under the Crown, but had similar political, constitutional, and legal systems, and each was dominated by Protestant English-speakers.
Religious enthusiasm and the great demand for bibles and other religious works is largely what promoted the first printing efforts in the American colonies. Before and during the American Revolution colonial printers were also actively publishing newspapers and pamphlets expressing the strong sentiment against British colonial policy and taxation.