A white American living in Philadelphia during an age of slavery, Shipley’s lifelong devotion to freedom made him a beloved icon within the Black community. His tireless efforts helped free hundreds of Black Americans captured by slaveowners and kidnappers while his lobbying of the Pennsylvania state legislature protected thousands more. Despite his pacifist upbringing as a Quaker, Shipley did not hesitate to throw himself into carnage, whether that meant testifying against slaveowners, pursuing slavecatchers, outwitting kidnappers, or charging headlong into a vicious race riot.
One of his eulogists and fellow abolitionist friends Isaac Parrish christened him an “advisor and protector” of Black Americans, for, on every occasion of popular tumult in which the safety of the black community was under threat, Shipley could be found at his post, “fearlessly defending their rights” and using his political influence with those in authority to “throw around them the protection of the laws.”
