Underground Railroad Teaching Partnership of Long Island
SUNY College at Old Westbury
Old Westbury, NY 11568-0210
ph: (516) 477-4455
Quakers and Freedom
The first freedom seekers ran to find other family 
members. Documents like the New-York Gazette still tell these stories.
Enslaved Africans and the search for religious freedom by the early Quakers created a climate of mutual understanding that served to bring them to Long Island.
Some Quakers moved to the geographic region between New York State and Connecticut. This 2 mile wide area is called the Oblong. The Settlement was known as Quaker Hill.
The Query asked if slavery was consistent with the Christianity, and by extension with Quakerism.
Elias Hicks was Quaker minister from Jericho Long Island who believed all men were equal. He was responsible for the manumission of 154 enslaved people from 1773-1791.
In 1773 Elias Hicks told the members of the Westbury Meeting that Quakers could not hold slaves in bondage.
The first women to manumit an enslaved African was Phebe Willits Mott Dodge, according to the Hicks family papers, in the Westbury Historic Library. The letter is shown below.
SUNY College at Old Westbury
Old Westbury, NY 11568-0210
ph: (516) 477-4455