Wednesday, February 13, 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia

15 South 7^th Street (between Market and Chestnut streets)

Free with AKMP admission: adults, $5; seniors and ages 13-17, $3; members, free.

Positioned at the mid-point of the Atlantic coast, Philadelphia abolitionists played a pivotal role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. V. Chapman-Smith, regional director of the National Archives and Records Administration, and Kenneth Finkel, executive director of arts and culture at WHYY, discuss Philadelphia's emerging anti-slave trade protests in the 1790s that made the city a safe port to test the law regarding the fate of Africans captured on slave ships. They recount the story of the Ganges, a United States warship that liberated Africans destined for slavery and the stories of their descendents who continue to live in the Philadelphia region.  Participants receive a high quality digital copy of the ship's register from the National Archives holdings.

In 1800, 8 years before the abolition of the slave trade and 39 years before the Amistad episode, Philadelphia was at the center of a federal case challenging the slave trade.  The USS Ganges escorted two American schooners carrying Africans transported for slavery to Philadelphia's quarantine hospital, the Lazaretto, in Delaware County, where they were cared for until their future was determined.  Using a little-known 1794 law prohibiting American ships from participating in the slave trade, Federal Judge Richard Peters turned 134 enslaved Africans over to the care of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Given the surname Ganges, they were indentured mostly to Quakers throughout greater Philadelphia.  When the period of indenture was completed, the people were freed.

Timed to coincide with the Presidents' Day holiday, the program is part of a ten-day focus on Philadelphia's tenure as the United States capital, including a special display of objects and portraits associated with George Washington, including the presidential desk.  Public hours:  1-5 p.m., February 9-10, 13-18.  For information about this and other programs, visit www.philadelphiahistory.org or call 215.685.4832.  

Philadelphia: The Capital City, 1790-1800 is sponsored by Fox Rothschild LLP and supported by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities' We the People initiative on American History.