WEBVTT - Benjamin Lay, the Quaker Comet 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.000 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:12.800 of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.320 to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.520 Several times in previous episodes we have talked about the 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.880 role of Quakers, who are also called Friends in the 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:27.080 abolition of slavery. We haven't, though, really talked about the 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.000 Religious Society of Friends before it became such a visible 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:35.120 part in the movement for abolition. Benjamin Leigh was a 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.400 Quaker and our radical abolitionist who lived in this period 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.920 between when the Religious Society of Friends started and when 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.360 it started formally banning slave ownership among its members. During 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.360 that time, there were actually a lot of Quaker slave owners, 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.640 especially among the more wealthy and more powerful members, and 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:58.600 Lay was incredibly outspoken about this issue in an incredibly 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:04.039 visible and memorable way. In the words of Robert's Vox, 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.319 who wrote a brief biography of Late in the nineteenth century, quote, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.840 if the comparison be admissible, he appeared rather like the comet, 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.759 which threatens, in its irregular course the destruction of the 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.720 world's near which it passes. Then as one of those 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.959 tranquil orbs which hold their accustomed place and dispensed their 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.399 light in the harmonious order of heaven. So because of 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.760 this comet like behavior and this advocacy, Benjamin Lay was 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.679 disowned from multiple Quaker meetings. He's been described as the 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.880 most frequently disowned Quaker of his time. We're going to 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:39.959 talk more about what that means and how that happened 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.080 in a bit, and this is who we are talking 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.080 about today. I like that there's a superlative of most 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:51.120 disowned Quake. Yes, like who's number two. He was also 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.840 the last Quaker known to be disowned for advocating against 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.680 slavery and for the abolition of slavery. So he was 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.440 not the only person to be disowned, but he was 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.000 disowned a lot the most last owned for this reason. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:11.400 Benjamin Lay was born in Essex County, England on April two. 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.720 His parents, William and Prudence Ley, were of course Quakers, 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.639 as were his grandparents, and Benjamin's father had a small farm, 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:20.880 but his family did not have a lot of money, 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.000 so Benjamin didn't really have much of a formal education. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.120 He did a lot of self study later in his life, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.920 though he liked to call himself just a just a poor, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:35.240 illiterate sailor, but eventually he was very widely and well read, 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:37.720 and when he was in his teens, Benjamin went to 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.639 live on his brother's farm, where he worked as a shepherd. 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.040 This is something he seems to have really dearly loved, 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.560 but his time as a shepherd was temporary. Eventually he 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.760 was apprenticed to a glovemaker, and that was something he 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.880 did not enjoy at all, So when he was about 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.240 twenty one years old, he left and he went to 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.840 London to become a sailor instead, having made some gloves 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:01.880 that can understand if it's not for you, it's really 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.239 not free. He did not like it one bit. This 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.480 was an interesting choice for him to have made this 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.560 move to become a sailor. He was expected to inherit 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.000 a family farm and he was giving that up by 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.919 becoming a sailor instead. He also had caposis, or an 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.280 excessive front to back curvature of the spine, as well 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.480 as some form of dwarfism, and this would have made 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.160 some of the work on a ship farm or challenging 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.360 for him, but it also would have allowed him to 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.480 maneuver into tight spaces and through the rigging in the 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.400 ways that larger men really couldn't. Lay was a sailor 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.080 for about twelve years, and during that time when he 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.160 wasn't at sea, he usually lived in London. He also 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.640 spent some time in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:48.240 visiting various sites that had been mentioned in the Bible. Otherwise, 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.480 we don't have a whole lot of detail about these 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.680 years at sea, but it is where Lay started learning 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.280 about the horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade. He heard 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.880 these stories from men who had either worked on slave 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.120 ships themselves or had heard about it from other sailors. 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.640 At some point during these years, Lay met Sarah Smith 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.240 of Deptford, England. Sarah had become a Quaker in her youth, 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.240 and by seventeen twelve she was an approved minister. Sarah's 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.920 late father had been a plasterer, and if her mother 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.640 was still living when she and Benjamin met, she had 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.960 died by the time that they married. Like Benjamin, Sarah 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.279 had both kiphosis and Dwarfism, and in their life together 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.560 people sometimes commented on how much they resembled each other. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.760 Benjamin himself described them as quote being pretty much alike 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.800 in stature and other ways. In seventeen sixteen, when he 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.440 was thirty four and she was four or five years older, 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.080 Benjamin started trying to get the necessary permissions to marry Sarah, 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.560 but this presented a problem. In order to marry within 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.240 the Religious Society of Friends, you had to be a 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.279 member in good standing. But Benjamin had made some waves 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.360 in his home congregation in London, which was Devonshire House 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.440 Monthly Meeting. When the Quaker movement was very first evolving 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.039 in Britain in the mid sixteen hundreds, a lot of 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.279 the time it was really confrontational. One of the movement's 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.120 core beliefs was that each person could have a direct 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.479 relationship with God, and in terms of the movements ideals, 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.119 it didn't have any sort of hierarchy. Early Quakers also 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:23.160 spoke out against established churches and their leaders, including during services, 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.400 but by the time Benjamin Lake came along, the Religious 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.440 Society of Friends had become much more conservative. Speaking out 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.400 against ministers and elders and weighty friends, which is a 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.919 term for influential Quakers, was just not done. Benjamin did it, 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.440 though we don't know what exactly he had been criticizing 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.719 in Devonshire. He had a particular dislike for vanity, pride, 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.159 and covetousness, and he also didn't like preaching that seemed 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.000 like the minister's own words rather than the word of God. 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.560 Based on later incidents that were more well documented, it 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.479 could have been any number of things, but whatever it was, 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:01.920 he was in enough trouble over it that he did 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.320 not go directly to Devonshire House monthly meeting to ask 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.680 for the certificate that he needed to marry his beloved. Instead, 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.760 he worked on a ship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean, 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.920 and in Salem, Massachusetts, he went to the local Quaker 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.599 meeting house there and said that he wanted to marry 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.960 Sarah Smith of Deptford. In seventeen seventeen, the Salem Congregation 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:27.120 wrote to Devonshire House. After some discussion, Devonshire House wrote 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.440 back that Benjamin was quote free and clear from all 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.599 persons here relating to marriage, and also free and clear 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.520 of debts so far as we know. But their letter 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.240 went on to say that they thought Benjamin was quote 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.120 convinced of the truth, but for want of keeping low 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.000 and humble in his mind, hath by an indiscreet zeal 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.120 been too forward to appear in our public meetings to 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.800 the uneasiness of friends like, he's not in trouble, but 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:59.479 he is a sas pants. Yeah, and it's possible that 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.520 he may have been criticizing people who who were slave 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:04.479 owners at this point. That seems to have come along 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.000 much later into his line of thoughts. So I think 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.520 this was more like, if he didn't like your face, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:12.239 do you would tell you that he didn't like your face, 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.240 if he didn't like your preaching, Same deal. He's an 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.640 upstart at heart. Once he got back to England with 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:23.480 that somewhat reluctant approval, Benjamin continued to criticize ministers and 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.960 others at Devonshire House and at other Quaker meetings in 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.920 and around London, where he also worshiped. He roused enough rabble. 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.800 The Devonshire House refused to give him the formal certificate 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.880 that he needed for marriage. He appealed their refusal to 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.480 the London Quarterly Meeting, which investigated the situation and said 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.280 that while it didn't approve of his behavior, it also 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.040 did not approve of Devonshire House withholding his certificate. So 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.360 although Devonshire House Monthly Meeting did issue the certificate, it 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:56.440 also ultimately disowned Benjamin it It said something to the 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.840 effect that he could it couldn't consider him part of 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.720 their number. That meant that he was allowed to still 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.320 worship there, but he wasn't considered a member in good standing, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.720 and he wasn't allowed to take part in business meetings. 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.840 Benjamin and Sarah did finally marry in Deptford on July tenth, 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:17.280 seventeen eighteen. They left London shortly thereafter and moved to Barbados, 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.040 which was also home to a Quaker community. And we're 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.120 going to get into their time there after. We first 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:32.720 paused for a little sponsor break. When Benjamin and Sarah 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.199 Lay got to Barbados, Benjamin established himself as a merchant 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.920 with a small shop that was stocked with provisions that 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.960 he'd bought before leaving England. Before long, they experienced a 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.640 series of small thefts from this store, and if Benjamin 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.959 was able to catch the perpetrator, he had punished them 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.600 with a lash, which was a pretty common punishment for 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.640 theft at the time. But soon Lay realized that the 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.960 enslaved people who were stealing from his store were driven 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:03.880 to it by absolutely desperate circumstances. They were either stealing 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.960 food because they were starving, or they were stealing items 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.280 that they could sell or trade for food. So upon 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.400 this revelation, Benjamin was full of remorse for what he 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.319 had done, and he and Sarah set up an informal 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.920 ministry for the enslaved people of Barbados. They fed as 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.400 many as they could with what they had, although it 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.960 was often spoiled in the Caribbean heat, and they established 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.320 a Sunday school where Benjamin both taught and counseled enslaved 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.040 people and listened to them as they talked about their 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.120 own lives and experiences. So by listening to the words 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.480 of the people around them and by their own observations, 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.600 the Lays quickly learned that conditions in Barbados were really horrific. 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:48.240 They repeatedly witnessed people collapsing from exhaustion and overwork. One 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.920 enslaved man that Benjamin knew, took his own life rather 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:55.079 than continuing to be subjected to regular beatings. At one point, 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.199 Sarah was going to visit another Quaker who was living nearby, 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.960 and on our way there she found him man hanging 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:05.959 in Benjamin's words quote stark, naked, trembling and shivering with 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.600 such a flood of blood under him, that's so surprised 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.280 the little woman she could scarce contain. So when Sarah 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.200 got to the house the people she was visiting, she 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.719 asked them what was going on, and they told her 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.000 that this man was being punished for quote absconding a 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.960 day or two. This experience in Barbados influence not only 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.240 Benjamin Lay's views on slavery, but also his views on 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:32.120 Africans and people of African descent in general. A lot 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.520 of the other white abolitionists that we have talked about 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.360 on the show argued that slavery was immoral, but they 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.400 were also racist. But Lay really believed that all people 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.840 were equal, later writing, for example, quote the many hundreds 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.679 of thousands that are now in slavery, were they at 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:52.600 liberty as we are, had the same education, learning conversation books, 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.800 sweet communion, and our religious assemblies. I believe many of 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.240 them would exceed many of their tyrant masters in pie. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.600 The virtue and godliness and their bright genius which I 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.040 know they have would be enlivened, for I have conversed 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.439 with many of them. For liberty is life and slavery 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.040 is death. One of the other things that gets pointed 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:14.920 out about his writing a lot is that there were 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:19.280 a lot of abolitionists that still talked about Africans and 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:23.280 people of African descent as savages, and he reserved that 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.320 kind of language for the people who owned slaves. He 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.600 never used that sort of language about people who were 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.559 enslaved or people who were of African descent. So Sarah 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:35.839 and Benjamin only stayed in Barbados for about a year 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.080 and a half. Their work with the enslaved population really, 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.080 of course, drew the ire of the slave owning community. 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.840 They faced harassment and threats over it. Sarah was also 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.959 afraid that if they stayed there they would eventually become 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.480 desensitized to what they were seeing, So in seventeen twenty 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.960 they went back to London, where Benjamin seems to have 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.400 re established his relationship with the Devonshire House Monthly meeting. 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.640 But soon Benjamin was once again speaking out against other Quakers. 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.760 In September seventeen twenty, a complaint was recorded that he 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.520 had disturbed Zachary Rouse in his public testimony and also 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.640 had called him a drunkard and a sinner. After some 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.920 back and forth, a man named Joseph Norris brought Benjamin 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:22.000 a notice from a meeting about his misbehavior, and Benjamin 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.520 through that notice out the window. He was disowned for 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.800 a second time, and then he and Sarah moved to Colchester, 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.679 which is northeast of London. And Colchester Benjamin had a long, 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.840 confusing and frankly pretty petty seeming dispute with the Colchester 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.360 Two Weeks Meeting. This dispute went on for years, with 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:44.599 Benjamin criticizing people and then the meeting demanding that he apologized, 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.920 and then he would double down or refuse to apologize 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.440 or give kind of a non apology. Sometimes it seems 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.040 as though Sarah tried to smooth things over here, especially 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.520 at various times she was preparing to travel without him 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.000 as a minister and who be gone for a long time. 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.240 She was concerned about his being isolated from his religious 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.839 community while she was gone. The Colchester two Weeks Meeting 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.560 wanted to disown Benjamin but couldn't because he was still 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:16.160 disowned from Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. He'd never formally become 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:20.320 a member of Colchester Two Weeks Meeting, and then Benjamin 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.720 and Sarah started attending a different Colchester meeting, the Colchester 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.120 Monthly Meeting, which added another layer of strife thanks to 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.400 an apparent power struggle between those two different Colchester meetings. 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.320 In the middle of all this dispute, Benjamin and Sarah 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.080 disappear from the record for about three years. It's possible 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.320 that they moved somewhere else and became part of a 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.280 congregation where a Benjamin's behavior didn't draw any of this 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.480 kind of notice, or he might have gone traveling her 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.640 with her while she worked as a minister. Regardless, in 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.880 seventeen twenty nine, they were back in Colchester trying to 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.040 make arrangements to immigrate to Pennsylvania. The colony of Pennsylvania 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.840 had been founded by William Penn in sixteen eighty one 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.600 in part to be a home for Quakers who were 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.760 facing violence and persecution in Europe. He called it his 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.199 Holy Experiment, and he wanted it to follow Quaker ideals. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.440 Penn wanted fair treatment of the native people, no military, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.640 and a government that ran on principles of freedom, including 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.840 religious liberty, access to education, and universal suffrage for men. 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.040 So this was an obvious place for the Lays to 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.920 want to move, but once again to immigrate the Pennsylvania 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.320 they meeted a certificate from a Quaker meeting in England. 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:36.520 Colchester Monthly Meeting, maybe motivated by the idea of Benjamin 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:41.120 Lay living somewhere else, agreed to provide the certificate if 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.120 Benjamin made amends with Devonshire House, which he did on 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.920 November three, seventeen thirty one. Devonshire House sent a letter 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:53.840 to Colchester Monthly Meeting clearing Benjamin of wrongdoing. Colchester Monthly 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.480 Meeting received Benjamin as a member and issued the certificate 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.080 for him to move to Pennsylvania. Mean while the cultures 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.400 are two weeks meetings still very mad at him wrote 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.720 letters ahead of him, warning Quakers in Pennsylvania about what 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:11.080 they were in for. I'm wildly abused by all of 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:15.680 the letters and the like. It's it's very ninth grade drama. 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:20.480 And so what it is? Do you like? Benjamin? Yes? 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.720 Box notebox um. When the Lays got to Philadelphia, Benjamin 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.280 opened a bookshop specializing in books by Quakers, as well 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.120 as psalters, Bibles, and classical works of literature. But he 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.120 and Sarah were dismayed to discover that, in spite of 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.800 everything that they had imagined about Penn's Holy Experiment and 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.160 its dedication to Quaker ideals, Slavery was still practiced in 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:47.040 the colony. About ten percent of the population of Philadelphia 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.359 was enslaved, and about half the membership of the Philadelphia 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:54.760 Monthly Meeting owned slaves. Among the wealthiest and most powerful 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.560 friends in the congregation, that number was even higher. Rather 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.840 than advocating the abolition of slavery, the religious Society of 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.840 Friends was more likely to advocate treating enslaved people humanely 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.640 or freeing people after a certain number of years, rather 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.160 than enslaving them and all their descendants for life. Benjamin 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:18.120 started criticizing slavery and slave owners right away. He also 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.360 met other abolitionists, including fellow Quaker Ralph Sandiford, who by 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.080 that point was in very poor physical and mental health, 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.320 in part due to being harassed by other Quakers over 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.160 his abolitionist beliefs, which had gone on for years. Sandofford 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.800 died in seventeen thirty three, so when Leigh met him 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:37.880 it was towards the end of his life. After a 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.000 couple of years of this, Benjamin and Sarah decided to 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.760 move to Abington, about fifteen miles north of Philadelphia, and 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:48.120 they may have chosen this location because Susannah Morris lived there. 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.640 She and Sarah were friends and they had traveled together 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:55.280 as ministers, including surviving a shipwreck together. But when the 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.080 Lace tried to get their certificate from Philadelphia so they 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:02.040 could join a meeting in Abington, Robert Jordan Jr. Objected, 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.120 arguing that because of all of the conflict back in England, 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.479 Benjamin's membership in Philadelphia was not authorized in the first place. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.960 Not long after they moved to Abington, Sarah Lay died 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.760 at the age of about fifty eight. Her cause of 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.960 death is unknown, it does seem to have been unexpected 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.600 and pretty sudden. Benjamin also seems to have thought that 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.639 Jordan's treatment of the two of them contributed to it, 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.680 maybe by causing them both a lot of stress. A 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.480 notice from the Abington Monthly Meeting mentioned Sarah's quote gift 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.280 of ministry and her travels through England, Scotland and Ireland 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.400 and some parts of the continent as a minister. It's 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.720 very likely that Sarah had been a tempering influence in 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.119 Benjamin's life, not just smoothing things over with the various 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.760 Quaker meetings that they were part of, but also in 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.800 reigning in his more radical impulses, and without her, he 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:57.399 dedicated himself to aggressively speaking out against slavery. And we're 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:06.720 going to get to that after we have another sponsor break. 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.639 Some of the chronology of Benjamin lays life is a 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.919 little bit fuzzy, so it's possible that some of the 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.320 things we're about to talk about happened before his wife died. 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.360 Even if that's the case, though, after Sarah's death, Benjamin 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:25.160 became known as an increasingly eccentric figure. He was heavily 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:29.679 influenced by the Cynic philosophers, particularly Diogenes. If you need 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.480 a refresher on that, we just reran our episode on 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.560 him as a Saturday classic. But in general, the Cynics 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.240 were in favor of living with nature, abandoning social conventions, 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:44.040 and living in an ascetic, minimal existence. Lay started living 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:47.119 in a cave in Abington, which was spacious enough that 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.400 he had an extensive library there. It was also big 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.240 enough for a spinning wheel, which he used to spin flax. 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.119 He made all of his own clothes from undyed to 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.119 linen because he didn't want to wear any material that 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.880 harmed animal or was connected to slavery. He would use 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.720 leather from animals that had died naturally, but he would 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.480 not use it from ones that had been slaughtered or hunted. 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.840 Lay had also become a strict vegetarian, although he did 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.119 drink milk and he ate honey that was made by 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.240 bees that he raised himself, taking care not the harmony 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.119 of them when he harvested it. He didn't drink tea 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.880 because of the abuses and the tea industry in Asia, 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.840 and he didn't eat sugar because it was grown, harvested, 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.960 and processed by enslaved Africans. He also went everywhere on 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.160 foot because he didn't want to exploit the labor of horses. 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:38.200 He started publicly condemning slave owners, especially Quaker slave owners, 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:43.360 including during meetings, and he became increasingly dramatic in his protests. 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.960 After interrupting someone in a meeting, he was forcibly carried 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.240 out into the rain, and he lay in the mud 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.040 so that the whole congregation had to step over him 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.280 as they left. On another occasion, he stood outside the 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.920 meeting house in the snow with one boot off and 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.680 the leg of his pants rolled up. When people asked 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:02.399 what he was doing, or said that he should go 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.560 inside because he might get sick. He answered, quote, you 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.040 pretend compassion for me, but you do not feel for 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.680 the poor slaves in the field who go all winter 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.280 half clad. To protest the use of slave labor in 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:20.320 the tobacco industry and tobacco's unwholesome effects on health, Ley 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.359 took three pipes to an annual Quaker meeting and he 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:27.200 smashed each of them, one among the ministers, one among 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.920 the women, and one among the men, a lot of 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.720 Quaker congregations at that point separated by gender. He did 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.640 a similar demonstration against the tea industry, protesting the conditions 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.800 in the tea and sugar industries and the luxury that 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:45.120 was associated with tea, by smashing his late wife's tea 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.399 set with a hammer in a public square. Lay also 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.040 tried to convince some neighbors to free a young girl 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.119 that they were enslaving as a household servant. He had 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.760 also made friends with their child. In some accounts this 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.520 was a son, and in others it's a daughter. One 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.040 day he convinced this child to come stay with him 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.240 for the afternoon, and when he saw the parents that evening, 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.800 distraught over their missing child, he said, quote, your child 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.600 is safe in my house. And now you may conceive 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.479 of the sorrow you inflict upon the parents of the 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.680 Negro girl you hold in slavery, for she was torn 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:21.000 from them by avarice. At one point, Lay traveled to 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.879 Philadelphia to visit another Quaker family. He arrived as they 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.639 were having breakfast, and he asked them whether the person 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.320 who was serving their meal was enslaved. When they answered 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:33.920 that yes, he was, Lay said, quote, then I will 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.600 not share with thee in the fruits of thy unrighteousness. 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.600 And he left. There's so many points in his story 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:44.840 where I want to yell right on, Benjamin Lay is 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.159 putting the rest of us to shame completely. U Lay's 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:52.240 most famous anti slavery demonstration took place at the Philadelphia 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.600 Yearly Meeting on September ninety eight. This was an annual 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.320 meeting of all the Philadelphia area Quaker meetings held in Burlington, 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.880 New Jersey. Lay walked about twenty miles to get there, 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.840 wearing a military uniform with a sword belted to his 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.640 hip under an overcoat. He also carried a hollowed out 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.520 book in which was concealed a bladder filled with bright 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:18.480 red pokeberry juice. During this meeting, he stood up and said, quote, Oh, 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.320 all you Negro masters, who are contentedly holding your fellow 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.800 creatures in a state of slavery during life, well knowing 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.600 the cruel sufferings those innocent captives undergo in their state 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.760 of bondage, both in these North American colonies and in 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.880 the West India Islands, you must know they are not 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.280 made slaves by any direct law, but are held by 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:43.360 an arbitrary and self interested custom in which you participate. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.520 And especially you who professed to do unto all men 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.199 as you would they should do unto you. And yet, 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:55.080 in direct opposition to every principle of reason, humanity, and religion, 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.240 you were forcibly retaining your fellow men from one generation 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.720 to another a state of unconditional servitude. You might as 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:06.359 well throw off the plain coat as I do. He 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:08.919 unbuttoned the one button of his coat and let it 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.600 fall on the ground, and then went on, quote, it 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.320 would be as justifiable in the sight of the Almighty, 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.520 who beholds and respects all nations and colors of men 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:20.760 with an equal regard, if you should thrust a sword 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:23.959 through their hearts as I do. Through this book. In 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:26.760