[jeffersondem]

“The Founding Father who everybody will recognize, who was also an ardent abolitionist, was Benjamin Franklin. Franklin is often times most remembered for Poor Richard's Almanack, also for the key and the kite in the lightning storm. But Franklin was also a great man in another way - his ardent belief in the necessity of abolitionism.”

Benjamin Franklin was a slaveowner most of his life. Near the end he became outspoken opponent of slavery even publishing articles against the practice.

[BroJoeK]

from the article: "But Franklin was also a great man in another way - his ardent belief in the necessity of abolitionism."

jeffersondem: "Benjamin Franklin was a slaveowner most of his life.
Near the end he became outspoken opponent of slavery even publishing articles against the practice."

It appears that Franklin owned a half-dozen slaves, from the time Franklin was 30 (1736) to age 75 (1781), when the last of his old slaves passed away.
However:

Dr. Thomas Bray:

1. In his 50s (after 1756), Franklin began to question the basics on which slavery was built -- African inferiority -- when he saw the results of schools teaching black children to read the Bible and learn Christianity.

2. So, in 1760, while in England, Franklin joined the Associates of Dr. Bray, who established such schools in England.

3. During the 1760s, Franklin helped establish Bray Schools in American cities like Philadelphia, New York, Newport, and Williamsburg.

4. In 1763, Franklin wrote that African “ignorance” was not innate but a result of slavery and lack of education, and that Black children were equally capable of learning as white children.

5. From the 1760s on, Franklin was close friends with Anthony Benezet, a Quaker abolitionist who founded a school for Black children and co-founded the original Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, in 1775.

So, in 1787, after 30 years of increasing abolitionism, Franklin became President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery -- the first abolitionist society in America.

In 1790, Franklin petitioned Congress to abolish slavery nationwide.
Franklin's petition was debated and rejected, and became the first of annual petitions from abolitionists -- often running dozens, sometimes hundreds of petitions per year -- even during the eight years of Congressional "gag rule" (1836-1844) intended to prevent anti-slavery petitions being discussed in Congress.

Bottom line: like all US Founders, Franklin considered his first and foremost priority to be establishing a Union of States which would include both slave states and free states.
Once that task was accomplished, Franklin's next biggest priority was freeing the slaves.

Franklin's Williamsburg, VA, Bray school at the Dudley Diggs house: