Jeffrey A. Denman

Fleeing political upheavals in England for settlement in the New World, Quakers rose to unprecedented economic and political power in the Pennsylvania colony. However, the failure of the Quaker-dominated government to provide for defense in the wars from the 1730s into the 1760s was the beginning of their downfall. By the Revolution, their fortunes had waned, and they were brutally suppressed by their political foes. Seventeen Quakers and three others were exiled to Virginia

Pennsylvania and western New Jersey Quakers had endured much for their cause. The men who were exiled to Virginia, for example, suffered deprivation, loneliness, and loss, as did the families they left behind. It was clear that the civil liberties of the exiles had been violated, but in times of extreme duress and fear of the unknown, democratic ideals are all too often tossed to the wind. Quakers paid a high price for their "liberty of conscience," while Pennsylvania's leade

Key Quaker diarist in Philadelphia On the day the British landed in Maryland, another event was revealing itself that would have catastrophic consequences for Quakers. On August 25, 1777, the Continental Congress received an unusual letter from Major General John Sullivan. Three days prior, while on Staten Island, Sullivan had searched the baggage of one of his officers whom he believed had defected to British lines. Sullivan reported that he “found a Number of papers of Inte