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An Amendment, created to explain and to close loopholes in the 1780 Act, was passed in the Pennsylvania legislature on March 29, 1788. The Amendment prohibited Pennsylvanians from transporting pregnant enslaved women out-of-state so that their children would be born enslaved, and also prohibited Pennsylvanians from separating enslaved husbands from wives and enslaved children from parents.
During the American Revolutionary War, Pennsylvania passed the Gradual Abolition Act (1780), the first such law in the new United States. Pennsylvania law freed those children born to enslaved mothers after that date. They had to serve lengthy indentured servitude until age 28 before becoming free as adults.
Pennsylvania's An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery of 1780 was the first legislative enactment in the United States. [4] It specified that Every Negro and Mulatto child born within the State after the passing of the Act (1780) would be free upon reaching age twenty-eight." [4]
Philadelphia: Printed by T. Bradford [1788] Printed broadside Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Slave Records. "Pennsylvania’s Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 did not free any slaves immediately. Instead, all slaves born prior to the law remained in bondage, while their children were free, but deemed indentured servants until age 28.
With the 1780 Gradual Abolition Act, Pennsylvania became the first state to establish a process to emancipate slaves. However, no one was freed immediately. The process was to play out over decades and not end until the death of the last person enslaved in Pennsylvania. [13]
Pages in category "Abolitionism in Pennsylvania" The following 10 pages are in this category, out of 10 total. ... An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery; H.
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On March 29, 1788, the State of Pennsylvania passed an amendment to one of its laws (An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, originally enacted March 1, 1780): "No negro or mulatto slave... shall be removed out of this state, with the design and intention that the place of abode or residence of such slave or servant shall be thereby altered or changed."