Social Reformer, Religious Figure. He worked for a member of his Quaker Meeting who told him to write a bill of sale for a slave. Woolman was torn between doing his job as clerk and "doing his conscience"; he told his employer "that I believed slave-keeping to be a practice inconsistent with the Christian religion." But he reluctantly wrote the bill of sale, and the slave was sold. Shortly thereafter another man in his Meeting made a similar request. Woolman politely declined, explaining that all human beings were equal. The other man told him that he agreed, but still sold the slave. Years later Woolman was asked to write a will for a man wanting to give his slaves to his children. Woolman politely declined; another clerk prepared his will. A fourth time, Woolman was asked to write a will by a Quaker giving his slaves to relatives. Woolman politely refused, but some time later the man returned announcing that had freed his slaves. His impact was being felt when Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends reached a consensus that slavery was inconsistent with Christianity. Three years later, though some still held slaves, the Quakers decided to exclude slave traders from Meeting. Woolman's approach to dismantling slavery had its effect. It was to this anti-slavery Yearly Meeting that Lucretia Mott would arrive in 1821. Woolman traveled throughout New England and what are now the Middle Atlantic States, visiting Meetings, and sharing the anti-slavery message of Philadelphia. In 1772, he wanted to end England's involvement in the slave trade. He arrived in London. Four months later he died of smallpox in York, England. But by that time, he had spoken to Meetings in over half of England. After his death, the Philadelphia Quakers organized the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery--the first anti-slavery society in the United States. His reason and persistence, and his faith which they reflected, empowered an anti-slavery movement that eventually ended the practice in the United States.

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