Colonial Quakers: Enslavers to Abolitionists
Colonial Quakers: Enslavers to Abolitionists
The Religious Society of Friends, or more commonly known as, the Quakers, arrived in the colonies around the mid-1650s after the English Civil War to escape religious persecution. Upon arrival, the Quakers practiced their faith in God through admirable demonstrations of discipline, peace, and frugality. Compared to their Puritan counterparts, the Quakers believed that God lived in everyone. Moreover, Quakers had no clergy and did not require sacrament. These fundamental disagreements helped the Puritans justify the persecution of Quakers on moral and religious grounds. As such, Quaker resolve was tested, not only in England, but also in the colonies. As a result, these shared experiences informed and influenced much of early colonial American Quakerism.
Yet, much less is understood of early Quaker abolitionism. While the Quakers remained divided on slavery in New England, numerous Quakers still emphatically expressed notions of antislavery. In one case, George Fox, one of the Quakers founders, appeared more concerned with gospel family ordering than eradicating slavery.[1] Others, however, expressed deep concerns over notions of equality. To make their case, the Quakers utilized a variety of methods. On one hand, some employed conventional methods such as essays, broadsides, and Christian appeal to garner support for abolitionism. On the other hand, others applied more compelling and heavy-handed techniques such as “guerilla theater.”
For instance, Benjamin Lay’s activism and methodologies held many forms. Nicknamed the “Quaker Comet,” Lay, who stood four feet tall and was plagued by kyphosis, vehemently opposed slavery. He also believed in living modestly. To make his point, Lay lived in a cave with his wife, Sarah, during which time he manufactured his own clothes to contest slavery, well before the mid-nineteenth century free-produce movement, a global boycott of goods produced by enslaved peoples. He too practiced strict veganism to advocate for animal rights.
That said, Lay expressed distinct contempt for slaveholding Quakers who preached of Christian virtue. Law described Quaker slaveholders and slave traders as those who “pretend to lay claim to the pure and holy Christian religion.”[2] To build his case, Lay publicly shamed slaveholding Quakers through dramatic “guerilla theater.” For instance, in one case, Lay kidnapped the child of a Quaker slaveholder to underscore African trauma resulting from enslavement of their children. In another, Lay shamed Quaker enslavers by using dramatically staged violence at an annual Quaker gathering. In the 1738 meeting, Lay dressed as a soldier, and armed himself with a sword, and a hollowed-out Bible. In it, Lay enclosed a bladder filled with red juice meant to represent blood. At one point, Lay forcefully interrupted the meeting and stabbed the Bible with his sword. Red juice subsequently spattered all over some parishioners and leading committee members. Lay then declared, “Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures.” Immediately thereafter, Lay was removed from the meeting, and soon after banned from church functions.
Most Quaker activists, nevertheless, applied more conservative methods of political engagement. Anthony Benezet, for example, wrote extensively on various social injustices such as slavery, the treatment America Indians, and education, to name a few. His works circulated on both sides of the Atlantic. Deemed the most prolific writer in Quaker history, Benezet, like Lay, developed a unique awareness and compassion for enslaved peoples during his times in Barbados. Despite being born to a wealthy French Huguenot family, Benezet remained steadfast in his beliefs of slavery’s inherent inconsistencies with Christian doctrine. As Benezet put it in a treatise:
“What is your heart made of?..Do you never feel another’s pain? Have you no fympathy [sic]? No fesfe [sic] of human woe?...When you faw [sic] the flowing eyes, the heaving breaft [sic], or bleeding fides [sic] and tortured limbs or your fellow-creatures…Then will the great God deal with you, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands.”[3]
Centering the efforts of Lay and Benezet in Quaker and abolitionist histories do not diminish the primary contributions of more celebrated abolitionists. Rather, this blog aims to extend the conversation. In the end, a broader range of actors helped eradicate slavery. As such, one must also observe abolitionism as a phenomenon that unfolded over broader periods of time and space than most acknowledge.
Further Reading:
Marcus Rediker, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017.
Jonathan D. Sassi. “With a Little Help from the Friends: The Quaker and Tactical Contexts of Anthony Benezet’s Abolitionist Publishing.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 135, no. 1 (2011): 33–71.
[1] Fox, George, and F., G. Gospel family-order, being a short discourse concerning the ordering of families, both of whites, blacks and Indians. [Philadelphia]: n.p., 1701. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926.
[2] Lay, Benjamin. All slave-keepers that keep the innocent in bondage, apostates pretending to lay claim to the pure & holy Christian religion, of what congregation so ever, but especially in their ministers, by whose example the filthy leprosy and apostacy is spread far and near : it is a notorious sin which many of the true Friends of Christ and his pure truth, called Quakers, has been for many years and still are concern'd to write and bear testimony against as a practice so gross & hurtful to religion, and destructive to government beyond what words can set forth, or can be declared of by men or angels, and yet lived in by ministers and magistrates in America. Philadelphia: n.p., 1737. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926, 1.
[3] Benezet, Anthony. Serious considerations on several important subjects : viz. on war and its inconsistency with the gospel : observations on slavery : and remarks on the nature and bad effects of spirituous liquors ... Printed by J. Crukshank, 1778. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926, 36.