His death became symbolic of what was to be an underlying question in the years to come: "What place would there be for the African in America once the colonies gained freedom from the old world ?" The Quakers were the first group in America to attack slavery.

In his book Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, John Woolman contended that no one had the right to own another human being.

In 1758 the Philadelphia yearly meeting said that slavery was inconsistent with Christianity, and in 1775 Quakers played a dominant role in the formation of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first antislavery society in America.
As the colonists began to agitate for their own freedom, many of them became increasingly aware of the contradiction involved in slaveholders fighting for their own freedom.

"To contend for liberty," John Jay wrote, "and to deny that blessing to others involves an inconsistency not to be excused." James Otis maintained that the same arguments which were used to defend the rights of the colonists against Britain could be used with at least equal force against the colonists by their slaves.

"It is a clear truth," he said, "that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own." In the same vein, Abigail Adams wrote her husband: "It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have." Perhaps the most radical statement was made by the Reverend Isaac Skillman in 1773.