One of Pennsylvania's greatest resources is its population. Few states can boast the multitude of ethnic groups and cultural heritages that coexist within the commonwealth's boundaries. Frequently un noticed is the fact that racial and ethnic groups have often shared the same living space. The results of such historic interactions need to be studied. In doing so, perhaps we can develop strategies which will facilitate the peaceful coexistence if not the active cooperation of Pennsylvania's diverse groups.Î n the following I propose to explore one such historic relationship of a racial and an ethnic group: Afro-Americans and Pennsylvania Ger mans. Obviously the limits of the present format preclude a truly comprehensive study of this complex topic. Instead, my comments will focus on a historic document whose three-hundredth anniversary falls in 1988: the Germantown Protest. Much has been written about this first protest in the New World against the African slave trade and it seems improbable that anything startlingly new or different could be said about it. However, a "reception history" of the document may perhaps shed some new light on its significance and its importance for German-Black relations after 1688.In attempting to trace the origins and manifestations of German-Black interactions it is important to place those interactions in the general context of race relations in the commonwealth. Such an under taking must of necessity thread its way between the Scylla of plati tudinous generalities and the Charybdis of anecdotal speculation. Recent commentaries on German-Afro-American attitudes indicate that the truism of monolithic German anti-slavery sentiment does not withstand the acid test of close scrutiny. In the 1985 edition of his Pennsylvania Germans: A Persistent Minority, William Parsons charac terizes German-Black relations thusly: 19
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