When the Negroes of Philadelphia paraded the city in 1842, celebrating the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, there ensued a battle led by the whites who undertook to break up the procession.

Along with the beating and killing of the usual number went also the destruction of the New African Hall and the Negro Presbyterian church.

The grand jury charged with the inquiry into the causes reported that the procession was to be blamed.

For several years thereafter the city remained quiet until 1849 when there occurred a raid on the blacks by the _Killers of Moyamensing_, using firearms with which many were wounded.

This disturbance was finally quelled by aid of the militia.[22] These clashes sometimes reached farther north than the free States bordering on the slave commonwealths.