{"id":215947,"date":"2026-06-10T22:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215947\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T22:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:29:08","slug":"event-explores-contradictions-of-revolutionary-philadelphia-and-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215947\/","title":{"rendered":"Event explores contradictions of revolutionary Philadelphia and slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many visitors to Stenton, Keim noted, are surprised to learn that members of the Logan family practiced slavery while they belonged to a religious community that would eventually become associated with abolition.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think of Quakers as abolitionists,\u201d she said. \u201cMany people would be surprised when they realized that the Logans were Quakers \u2014 that they were also enslavers.\u201d
\n\"SarahFrom left, panelists Sarah Glover, Emma Hart and Laura Keim discuss the impact of the Revolutionary War era on Germantown in Philadelphia. (Marissa Weekes Mason for WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

In reality, attitudes toward slavery evolved slowly.\n<\/p>\n

Hart described the efforts of early antislavery activists such as Benjamin Lay, a radical Quaker who publicly protested against slavery decades before abolition became a mainstream cause.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was too radical for the Quaker congregation at that time,\u201d Hart said. \u201cThey ejected him for his very firm antislavery stance \u2026 I think it\u2019s also important to say that these Quaker abolitionists were not really in majority yet by the time of the Revolution.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u2018I want my freedom\u2019<\/p>\n

Unlike many enslaved people who escaped or purchased their freedom, Dinah repeatedly pressed her enslavers to free her. Gardner-Hammond captured that determination in her performance.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI want my freedom, and I want it now,\u201d she declared. \u201cI want to be able to come and go when I get ready. I want to wear the clothes that I want to wear. I want to have some time when I have time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Eventually, the Logans relented. Dinah was freed in 1776, the same year the Declaration of Independence was signed.\n<\/p>\n

Historians know that from Dinah\u2019s manumission, the formal, voluntary act of a slaveholder freeing an enslaved person.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a copy of it on site here, and it literally says, \u2018and William and Hannah are signing off on this, she having requested us to let her have her freedom,\u2019\u201d Keim said. \u201cSo she\u2019s all about dissent, really.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Dinah\u2019s most famous act came later during the turmoil of the Revolutionary War. With much of the Logan family absent and military forces moving throughout the region, Dinah remained at Stenton as its primary caretaker. The estate became a strategic location during the conflict. Gen. George Washington and his troops camped there in 1777, and British forces later occupied the area.\n<\/p>\n

One evening, Dinah encountered two British soldiers who arrived at Stenton with orders to burn the property.\n<\/p>\n

According to the story passed down through generations, the soldiers were drunk and careless. After learning their intentions, Dinah directed them toward the barn under the pretense of helping them find hay and straw.\n<\/p>\n

When they entered, she locked them inside. Soon afterward, a British patrol searching for deserters arrived.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYes sir,\u201d Dinah told them. \u201cThere\u2019s two right there in our barn.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The soldiers were arrested and taken away, and Stenton was spared.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many visitors to Stenton, Keim noted, are surprised to learn that members of the Logan family practiced slavery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,4001,71,70,34251],"class_list":["post-215947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-250","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}