Hicksite Quakers
A few weeks ago we gave a talk at the McAllister House Museum about Hicksite Quakerism and its relationship to Colorado Springs focusing on some of the important abolitionists in our country’s history. It turns out that the McAllister family knew many of the early abolitionists like Elias Hicks and Lucretia Mott.
Recently, we have discovered that Major McAllister’s sister, Matilda, married into a long standing abolitionist family, the Garrigues family. Matilda married Thomas Garrigues and Thomas’s father Edward Garrigues was a member of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. This was an elite group of quakers and non-quakers that felt compelled at the time of the American Revolution to stand up for the rights of all humans. The image above is Robert Garrigues’ certificate of membership in the organization dated the 7th month 12th day 1794, in quaker fashion.
For more information on this topic Click Here to see a short film by Ken Burns about Benjamin Franklin’s time as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.