Benjamin Franklin
Slavery
Franklin owned as many as seven slaves, two males who worked in his household and his shop. Franklin posted paid ads for the sale of slaves and for the capture of runaway slaves and allowed the sale of slaves in his general store. Franklin profited from both the international and domestic slave trade, even criticizing slaves who had run off to join the British Army during the colonial wars of the 1740s and 1750s. Franklin, however, later became a "cautious abolitionist" and became an outspoken critic of landed gentry slavery. In 1758, Franklin advocated the opening of a school for the education of black slaves in Philadelphia. Franklin took two slaves to England with him, Peter and King, and King left his service there in 1756: by 1758 he was working for "a lady in Suffolk". Whether Franklin could have compelled King's return is open to doubt in the light of earlier English Common Law decisions and the subsequent case of Shanley v Harvey, but in any case he did not attempt to do so.
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