Celia, Cesar, and Enslaver Jonathan Evans: My Connection to American History

Blog on Quaker Jonathan Evans

By Kitty Mizuno

September, 2025

Avis Wanda McClinton and I had been working together for several years on her projects

related to Quakers and slavery when she shared with me in 2022 that she had learned of

the Manumissions documents at the Haverford College Library’s Quaker and Special

Collections. These documents were created by Quaker slaveholders in the late 1700’s,

after the 1774 decision by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) stating that

slaveholding was a disownable offense.

I was shocked to learn that two of these documents promised manumission to Celia and

Cesar (no last name), and were signed in 1779 by the man who claimed to “own” them, my

4x great grandfather, Jonathan Evans.

Since then, I have been thinking about how this family history of enslaving people must

have shaped how my family and I think, act and walk through life.

I found one book about this slave-owner’s son, also Jonathan Evans, that tells a little about

the elder, slave-owning Jonathan Evans: Jonathan Evans and his Time, 1759-1839, by

William Bacon Evans, published by the Christopher Publishing House, Boston, in 1959.

The following quotations are all from the introductory chapters of this book.

The author states that the younger Jonathan Evans was born in 1759 into a world of rapid

changes: “The society of Friends could not and did not escape the impact of these

influences. Some Friends, especially in the cities, had become rich and lax. Many forsook

their simple Quaker faith…” (p. 16) I believe that my ancestor the elder Jonathan Evans

must have been one of these “rich and lax” Quakers. He did not give up his membership in

his Quaker Meeting, but I believe that must have been told that if he continued to hold

people in slavery that he would be “read out of meeting” and lose his Quaker membership.

The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, the body that oversaw all of the Quaker

Meetings in the Philadelphia area, made a statement in 1755 prohibiting Quakers from “the

importing, purchasing and selling of slaves, and [advised] liberation.” (p. 22).

The next chapter in the book deals with “The Welsh Origin of the Evans Family”, and

introduces my slave-owning ancestor as follows.

Jonathan Evans (1714-1795)

Jonathan Evans, the eldest son of Evan Evans, was born at Gwynned. As families

increased, they naturally tended to scatter, so it was that in 1734, at the age of

twenty, he moved his certificate of [Quaker] membership from Gwynned to the

Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia. Here he was engaged in importing West

India produce, sugar, molasses, rum and other products… Jonathan and [his wife]

Hannah Evans kept two slaves, Cesar and Celia (or Sela), Celia was said to be one

of the best cooks in the city. The Evans family entertained freely, feasted the

captains in the West India service, and lived well. They left some handsome

furniture, silverware and china. It would seem that Jonathan Evans took his

Quakerism rather lightly. Ministers’ sons do not always follow strictly in the

footsteps of their fathers. It is not known whether he attended meetings regularly or

not. Certain it is that his meeting dealt with him for keeping slaves. Much laboring

and long waiting resulted in his freeing them in 1779. (pp 26-27)

However, no evidence seems to remain when Cesar and Celia might have been actually

freed, and most importantly, what happened to them afterward. Where did they live? How

did they make a living? Who might their descendants be, and how did they fare?

The purpose of the 339 Manumissions and Beyond Project is to discover answers to these

kinds of questions, so that descendants of those manumitted people might know the

details and stories of from whence they came. My personal goal is to continue to work on

this project, share my story, and learn ways to come to terms with it.

Manumissions of enslaved Cesar and Celia