The Fry family began selling chocolate in 1759. By the 1820s they were using up to 39% of the nation's imports of cocoa beans. There is no evidence that they owned slaves or traded in enslaved people.

1 No members of the family claimed compensation when Britain abolished slavery in 1833, and the family's property records reveal that they held no land in the United States prior to the 1890s. 2 The ...