An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery

An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, passed by the Fifth Pennsylvania General Assembly on 1 March 1780, prescribed an end for slavery in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States. It was the first slavery abolition act in the course of human history to be adopted by an elected body.

This state legislative action prohibited the further importation of children and adults into the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the purposes of enslaving them, required Pennsylvania slaveholders to annually register the names of the individuals they were continuing to enslave (with forfeiture for noncompliance, and manumission for the enslaved), and established that all children born in Pennsylvania were free persons regardless of the condition or race of their parents.

Individuals who had been enslaved in Pennsylvania before the 1780 law came into effect remained enslaved for life. Pennsylvania's legislative "gradual abolition" —rather than Massachusetts's 1783 judicial ruling ordering immediate abolition— became a model for freeing enslaved people in other northern states.

1780 Act

A draft bill for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery was initially presented on August 21, 1778. It eventually passed on March 1, 1780. Matthew Hughes (1733-1810) of Buckingham Township, Bucks County, is credited as the author and chief advocate of the legislation. He was the great-grandson of Judge William Biles, an early Pennsylvania legislator and justice of the first Supreme Court for Pennsylvania. He was also a great-grandson of Governor Samuel Jenings, the first elected governor of West New Jersey.