The first two sections of the act praised God for delivering Americans from the “tyranny of Great Britain.” It urged citizens of the fledgling United States to extend God’s merciful hand towards “negro or mulatto slaves.” 3 Section Two compared the brutalization of human slavery to British oppression of its colonial subjects. The act contained fourteen sections in total, some of which outlined the rules and regulations to gradually abolish slavery in Pennsylvania. On the morning of March 1, 1780, House Speaker John Bayard read the Gradual Abolition Act as well as petitions from inhabitants of Lancaster and Chester counties who opposed the bill. In response, the assembly appointed a specific committee, consisting of four legislators, to present a gradual abolition bill in the 1780 session. Additionally, Bryan’s bill also called for slaveholders to register enslaved people.

Females would obtain their freedom at 18 years of age. Bryan’s bill focused on the emancipation of children born into slavery after a certain period of laboring for their masters. He originally drafted and submitted his bill as a part of a message to the General Assembly on February 5, 1779. In 1779, George Bryan, a judge who served as vice president on the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, authored the legislation that became the Gradual Abolition Act. After its first reading, the House tabled the bill in favor of more pressing reports and petitions regarding Revolutionary War efforts. On August 21, 1778, an assemblyman presented a draft bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania to the General Assembly. Two years before the passage of the 1780 Gradual Abolition Act, Pennsylvania lawmakers entertained the idea of gradual emancipation. At the same time, the act provided for the eventual freedom of individuals who were newly born into slavery. The act permitted Pennsylvania slaveholders to keep the enslaved individuals they already owned unless they failed to register them annually. To appease slave owners, the act gradually emancipated enslaved people without making slavery immediately illegal.

The Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, the first extensive abolition legislation in the western hemisphere, passed the Pennsylvania General Assembly on March 1, 1780.

When was slavery abolished