Robert Hill: How Pittsburgh's slave-owning history marked the city
Pennsylvania's 1780 'act for the gradual abolition of slavery' is regarded as the first anti-slavery legislation in world history. It was amended 8...
May 24, 2023
4:14 PM
Pennsylvania's 1780 'act for the gradual abolition of slavery' is regarded as the first anti-slavery legislation in world history. It was amended 8 years later to close loopholes. Freedom lovers such as myself are underwhelmed by both acts. University of Pittsburgh history Professor Laurence Glasco has written that the 1780 act actually freed no one. It mandated that those already enslaved there could remain so for life and that children born after March 1 of that year be indentured for 28 years.
Robert Hill