Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Not long ago, we read an email from
Speaker 1: listener Miranda about Judith Sargent Murray, who was a Universalist
Speaker 1: whose family had enslaved household servants, but as a denomination
Speaker 1: Universalists are usually more associated with the abolition movement. I said,
Speaker 1: this reminded me of Benjamin Lay, who was a Quaker
Speaker 1: at a time before the Religious Society of Friends became
Speaker 1: actively abolitionist, and was expelled from various Quaker meetings in
Speaker 1: part for his vocal opposition to slavery, including by prominent
Speaker 1: members of those meetings. We said at the time we
Speaker 1: might run our episode on Benjamin Lay as a Saturday classic,
Speaker 1: and here it is. The original came out on August
Speaker 1: twenty first, twenty nineteen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 1: Several times in previous episodes we have talked about the
Speaker 1: role of Quakers, who are also called Friends, in the
Speaker 1: abolition of slavery. We haven't, though, really talked about the
Speaker 1: Religious Society of Friends before it became such a visible
Speaker 1: part in the movement for abolition. Benjamin Lay was a
Speaker 1: Quaker and a radical abolitionist who lived in this period
Speaker 1: between when the Religious Society of Friends started and when
Speaker 1: it started formally banning slave ownership among its members. During
Speaker 1: that time, there were actually a lot of Quaker slave owners,
Speaker 1: especially among the more wealthy and more powerful members, and
Speaker 1: Lay was incredibly outspoken about this issue in an incredibly
Speaker 1: visible and memorable way. In the words of Robert's Vox,
Speaker 1: who wrote a brief biography of Lay in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: if the comparison be admissible, he appeared rather like the comet,
Speaker 1: which threatens, in its irregular course the destruction of the
Speaker 1: worlds near which it passes, than is one of those
Speaker 1: tranquil orbs which hold their accustomed place and dispense their
Speaker 1: light in the harmonious order of heaven. So because of
Speaker 1: this comet like behavior and this advocacy, Benjamin Lay was
Speaker 1: disowned from multiple Quaker meetings. He's been described as the
Speaker 1: most frequently disowned Quaker of his time. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about what that means and how that happened
Speaker 1: in a bit, and this is who we are talking
Speaker 1: about today. I like that there's a superlative of most
Speaker 1: disowned Quake Yes, like Who's number two. He was also
Speaker 1: the last Quaker known to be disowned for advocating against
Speaker 1: slavery and for the abolition of slavery, So he was
Speaker 1: not the only person to be disowned, but he was
Speaker 1: disowned a lot. He's the most last owned for this reason.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Lay He was born in Essex County, England, on
Speaker 1: April twenty sixth, sixteen eighty two. His parents, William and
Speaker 1: Prudence Lay, were of course Quakers, as were his grandparents,
Speaker 1: and Benjamin's father had a small farm, but his family
Speaker 1: did not have a lot of money, so Benjamin didn't
Speaker 1: really have much of a formal education. He did a
Speaker 1: lot of self study later in his life, though he
Speaker 1: liked to call himself just a poor, illiterate sailor. Eventually
Speaker 1: he was very widely and well read, and when he
Speaker 1: was in his teens, Benjamin went to live on his
Speaker 1: brother's farm, where he worked as a shepherd. This is
Speaker 1: something he seems to have really dearly loved, but his
Speaker 1: time as a shepherd was temporary. Eventually he was apprenticed
Speaker 1: to a glove maker, and that was something he did
Speaker 1: not enjoy at all. So, when he was about twenty
Speaker 1: one years old, he left and he went to London
Speaker 1: to become a sailor instead. Having made some gloves, I
Speaker 1: can understand if it's not for you, it's really not free.
Speaker 1: He did not like it one bit. This was an
Speaker 1: interesting choice for him to have made this move to
Speaker 1: become a sailor. He was expected to inherit a family
Speaker 1: farm and he was giving that up by becoming a
Speaker 1: sailor instead. He also had cayphosis, or an excessive front
Speaker 1: to back curvature of the spine, as well as some
Speaker 1: form of dwarfism, and this would have made some of
Speaker 1: the work on a ship far more challenging for him.
Speaker 1: But it also would have allowed him to maneuver into
Speaker 1: tight spaces and through the rigging in the ways that
Speaker 1: larger men really couldn't lay. Was a sailor for about
Speaker 1: twelve years, and during that time when he wasn't at sea,
Speaker 1: he usually lived in London. He also spent some time
Speaker 1: in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, visiting various sites
Speaker 1: that had been mentioned in the Bible. Otherwise, we don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of detail about these years at sea,
Speaker 1: but it is where Lay started learning about the horrors
Speaker 1: of the transatlantic slave trade. He heard these stories from
Speaker 1: men who had either worked on slave ships themselves or
Speaker 1: had heard about it from other sailors. At some point
Speaker 1: during these years, Lay met Sarah Smith of Debtford, England.
Speaker 1: Sarah had become a Quaker in her youth, and by
Speaker 1: seventeen twelve she was an approved minister. Sarah's late father
Speaker 1: had been a plasterer, and if her mother was still
Speaker 1: living when she and Benjamin met, she had died by
Speaker 1: the time that they married. Like Benjamin, Sarah had both
Speaker 1: Cayphosis and Dwarfism, and in their life together people sometimes
Speaker 1: commented on how much they resembled each other. Benjamin himself
Speaker 1: described them as quote being pretty much alike in stature
Speaker 1: and other ways. In seventeen sixteen, when he was thirty
Speaker 1: four and she was four or five years older, Benjamin
Speaker 1: started trying to get the necessary permissions to marry Sarah,
Speaker 1: but this presented a problem. In order to marry within
Speaker 1: the religious society of Friends, you had to be a
Speaker 1: member in good standing. But Benjamin had made some waves
Speaker 1: in his home congregation in London, which was Devonshire House.
Speaker 1: Monthly meeting. When the Quaker movement was very first evolving
Speaker 1: in Britain in the mid sixteen hundreds, a lot of
Speaker 1: the time it was really confrontational. One of the movement's
Speaker 1: core beliefs was that each person could have a direct
Speaker 1: relationship with God, and in terms of the movement's ideals,
Speaker 1: it didn't have any sort of hierarchy. Early Quakers also
Speaker 1: spoke out against established churches and their leaders, including during services,
Speaker 1: but by the time Benjamin Lay came along, the Religious
Speaker 1: Society of Friends had become much more conservative, speaking out
Speaker 1: against ministers and elders and weighty friends, which as a
Speaker 1: term for influential Quakers, was just not done. Benjamin did it,
Speaker 1: though we don't know what exactly he had been criticizing
Speaker 1: in Devonshire. He had a particular dislike for vanity, pride
Speaker 1: and covetousness, and he also didn't like preaching that seemed
Speaker 1: like the minister's own words rather than the word of God.
Speaker 1: Based on later incidents that were more well documented, it
Speaker 1: could have been any number of things, but whatever it was,
Speaker 1: he was in enough trouble over it that he did
Speaker 1: not go directly to Devonshire House Monthly meeting to ask
Speaker 1: for the certificate that he needed to marry his beloved. Instead,
Speaker 1: he worked on a ship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean,
Speaker 1: and in Salem, Massachusetts, he went to the local Quaker
Speaker 1: meeting house there and said that he wanted to marry
Speaker 1: Sarah Smith of Deptford. In seventeen seventeen, the Salem Congregation
Speaker 1: wrote to Devonshire House. After some discussion, Devonshire House wrote
Speaker 1: back that Benjamin was quote free and clear from all
Speaker 1: persons here relating to marriage, and also free and clear
Speaker 1: of debts so far as we know. But their letter
Speaker 1: went on to say that they thought Benjamin was quote
Speaker 1: convinced of the truth, but for want of keeping low
Speaker 1: and humble in his mind, hath by an indiscreet zeal,
Speaker 1: been too forward to appear in our public meetings, to
Speaker 1: the uneasiness of friends. Look, he's not in trouble, but
Speaker 1: he is a SaaS pants. Yeah, and it's possible that
Speaker 1: he may have been criticizing people who who were slave
Speaker 1: owners at this point. That seems to have come along
Speaker 1: much later into his line of thought. So I think
Speaker 1: this was more like if he didn't like your face,
Speaker 1: do you would tell you that he didn't like your face.
Speaker 1: If he didn't like your preaching, same deal. He's an
Speaker 1: upstart at heart. Once he got back to England with
Speaker 1: that somewhat reluctant approval, Benjamin continued to criticize ministers and
Speaker 1: others at Devonshire House and at other Quaker meetings in
Speaker 1: and around London, where he also worshiped. He roused enough
Speaker 1: rabble the Devonshire House refused to give him the formal
Speaker 1: certificate that he needed for marriage. He appealed their refusal
Speaker 1: to the London Quarterly Meeting, which investigated the situation and
Speaker 1: said that while it didn't approve of his behavior, it
Speaker 1: also did not approve of Devonshire House withholding his certificate.
Speaker 1: So although Devonshire House Monthly Meeting did issue the certificate,
Speaker 1: it also ultimately disowned Benjamin. It said something to the
Speaker 1: effect that couldn't consider him part of their number. That
Speaker 1: meant that he was allowed to still worship there, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't considered a member in good standing, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to take part in business meetings. Benjamin and
Speaker 1: Sarah did finally marry in Deptford on July tenth, seventeen eighteen.
Speaker 1: They left London shortly thereafter and moved to Barbados, which
Speaker 1: was also home to a Quaker community, and we're going
Speaker 1: to get into their time there after. We first paused
Speaker 1: for a little sponsor break. When Benjamin and Sarah Lay
Speaker 1: got to Barbados, Benjamin established himself as a merchant with
Speaker 1: a small shop that was stocked with provisions that he'd
Speaker 1: bought before leaving England. Before long, they experienced a series
Speaker 1: of small thefts from this store, and if Benjamin was
Speaker 1: able to catch the perpetrator, he'd punish them with a lash,
Speaker 1: which was a pretty common punishment for theft at the time.
Speaker 1: But soon Lay realized that the enslaved people who were
Speaker 1: stealing from his store were driven to it by absolutely
Speaker 1: desperate circumstances. They were either stealing food because they were starving,
Speaker 1: or they were stealing items that they could sell or
Speaker 1: trade for food. So upon this revelation, Benjamin was full
Speaker 1: of remorse for what he had done, and he and
Speaker 1: Sarah set up an informal ministry for the enslaved people
Speaker 1: of Barbados. They fed as many as they could with
Speaker 1: what they had, although it was often spoiled in the
Speaker 1: Caribbean heat, and they established a Sunday School, where Benjamin
Speaker 1: both taught and counseled enslaved people and listened to them
Speaker 1: as they talked about their own lives and experiences. So
Speaker 1: by listening to the words of the people around them
Speaker 1: and by their own observations, the Lays quickly learned that
Speaker 1: conditions in Barbados were really horrific. They repeatedly witnessed people
Speaker 1: collapsing from exhaustion and overwork. One enslaved man that Benjamin knew,
Speaker 1: took his own life rather than continuing to be subjected
Speaker 1: to regular beatings. At one point, Sarah was going to
Speaker 1: visit another Quaker who was living nearby, and on our
Speaker 1: way there she found a man hanging, in Benjamin's words
Speaker 1: quote stark naked, trembling and shivering, with such a flood
Speaker 1: of blood under him that so surprised the little woman
Speaker 1: she could scarce contain. So when Sarah got to the
Speaker 1: house the people she was visiting, she asked them what
Speaker 1: was going on, and they told her that this man
Speaker 1: was being punished for quote absconding. A day or two,
Speaker 1: this experience in Barbados influenced not only Benjamin Lay's views
Speaker 1: on slavery, but also his views on Africans and people
Speaker 1: of African descent in general. A lot of the other
Speaker 1: white abolitionists that we have talked about on the show
Speaker 1: argued that slavery was immoral, but they were also racist.
Speaker 1: But Lay really believes that all people were equal, later writing,
Speaker 1: for example, quote the many hundreds of thousands that are
Speaker 1: now in slavery, were they at liberty as we are
Speaker 1: had the same education, learning conversation books, sweet communion, and
Speaker 1: our religious assemblies. I believe many of them would exceed
Speaker 1: many of their tyrant masters in piety, virtue, and godliness,
Speaker 1: and their bright genius which I know they have, would
Speaker 1: be enlivened for I have conversed with many of them.
Speaker 1: For liberty is life and slavery is death. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that gets pointed out about his
Speaker 1: writing a lot is that there were a lot of
Speaker 1: abolitionists that still talked about Africans and people of African
Speaker 1: descent as savages, and he reserved that kind of language
Speaker 1: for the people who owned slaves. He never used that
Speaker 1: sort of language about people who were enslaved or people
Speaker 1: who were of African descent. So Sarah and Benjamin only
Speaker 1: stayed in Barbados for about a year and a half.
Speaker 1: Their work with the enslaved population really, of course, drew
Speaker 1: the ire of the slave owning community. They faced harassment
Speaker 1: and threats over it. Sarah was also afraid that if
Speaker 1: they stayed there they would eventually become desensitized to what
Speaker 1: they were seeing, so in seventeen twenty they went back
Speaker 1: to London, where Benjamin seems to have re established his
Speaker 1: relationship with the Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. But soon Benjamin
Speaker 1: was once again speaking out against other Quakers. In September
Speaker 1: seventeen twenty, a complaint was recorded that he had disturbed
Speaker 1: Zachary Routh in his public testimony and also had called
Speaker 1: him a drunkard and a sinner. After some back and forth,
Speaker 1: a man named Joseph Norris brought Benjamin a notice from
Speaker 1: a meeting about his misbehavior, and Benjamin threw that notice
Speaker 1: out the window. He was disowned for a second time,
Speaker 1: and then he and Sarah moved to Colchester, which is
Speaker 1: northeast of London. And Colchester, Benjamin had a long, confusing
Speaker 1: and frankly pretty petty seeming dispute with the Colchester two
Speaker 1: weeks meeting. This dispute went on for years, with Benjamin
Speaker 1: criticizing people and then the meeting demanding that he apologized,
Speaker 1: and then he would double down or refuse to apologize
Speaker 1: or give kind of a non apology. Sometimes it seems
Speaker 1: as though Sarah tried to smooth things over here, especially
Speaker 1: at various times she was preparing to travel without him
Speaker 1: as a minister and to be gone for a long time.
Speaker 1: She was concerned about his being isolated from his religious
Speaker 1: community while she was gone. The Colchester Two Weeks Meeting
Speaker 1: wanted to disown Benjamin, but couldn't because he was still
Speaker 1: disowned from Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. He'd never formally become
Speaker 1: a member of Colchester Two Weeks Meeting. And then Benjamin
Speaker 1: and Sarah started attending a different Colchester meeting, the Colchester
Speaker 1: Monthly Meeting, which added another layer of strife thanks to
Speaker 1: an apparent power struggle between those two different Colchester meetings.
Speaker 1: In the middle of all this dispute, Benjamin and Sarah
Speaker 1: disappear from the record for about three years. It's possible
Speaker 1: that they moved somewhere else and became part of a
Speaker 1: congregation where Benjamin's behavior didn't draw any of this kind
Speaker 1: of notice or he might have gone traveling with her
Speaker 1: while she worked as a minister. Regardless, in seventeen twenty nine,
Speaker 1: they were back in Colchester trying to make arrangements to
Speaker 1: immigrate to Pennsylvania. The Colony of Pennsylvania had been founded
Speaker 1: by William Penn in sixteen eighty one in part to
Speaker 1: be a home for Quakers who were facing violence and
Speaker 1: persecution in Europe. He called it his Holy Experiment, and
Speaker 1: he wanted it to follow Quaker ideals. Penn wanted fair
Speaker 1: treatment of the native people, no military, and a government
Speaker 1: that ran on principles of freedom, including religious liberty, access
Speaker 1: to education, and universal suffrage for men. So this was
Speaker 1: an obvious place for the Lays to want to move.
Speaker 1: But once again, to immigrate to Pennsylvania, they needed a
Speaker 1: certificate from a Quaker meeting in England. Colchester Monthly Meeting
Speaker 1: may be motivated by the idea of Benjamin Lay living
Speaker 1: somewhere else, agreed to provide the certificate if Benjamin made
Speaker 1: amends with Devonshire House, which he did on November third,
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty one. Devonshire House sent a letter to Colchester
Speaker 1: Monthly Meeting clearing Benjamin of wrongdoing Colchester Monthly Meeting received
Speaker 1: Benjamin as a member and issued the certificate for him
Speaker 1: to move to Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the Colchester two weeks Meeting,
Speaker 1: still very mad at him, wrote letters ahead of him,
Speaker 1: warning Quakers in Pennsylvania about what they were in for.
Speaker 1: I'm wildly abused by all of the letters and the like.
Speaker 1: It's very ninth grade drama, and somewhat it is. Do
Speaker 1: you like, Benjamin? Yes? Box, no box. When the Lays
Speaker 1: got to Philadelphia, Benjamin opened a bookshop specializing in books
Speaker 1: by Quakers, as well as psalters, Bibles, and classical works
Speaker 1: of literature. But he and Sarah were dismayed to discover that,
Speaker 1: in spite of everything that they had imagined about Penn's
Speaker 1: Holy Experiment and its dedication to Quaker ideals, slavery was
Speaker 1: still practiced in the colony. About ten percent of the
Speaker 1: population of Philadelphia was enslaved, and about half the membership
Speaker 1: of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting owned slaves. Among the wealthiest
Speaker 1: and most powerful friends in the congregation that number was
Speaker 1: even higher. Rather than advocating the abolition of slavery, the
Speaker 1: religious Society of Friends was more likely to advocate treating
Speaker 1: enslaved people humanly, or freeing people after a certain number
Speaker 1: of years rather than enslaving them and all their descendants
Speaker 1: for life. Benjamin started criticizing slavery and slave owners right away.
Speaker 1: He also met other abolitionists, including fellow Quaker Ralph Sandeford,
Speaker 1: who by that point was in very poor physical and
Speaker 1: mental health, in part due to being harassed by other
Speaker 1: Quakers over his abolitionist beliefs, which had gone on for years.
Speaker 1: Sanderford died in seventeen thirty three, so when Ley met
Speaker 1: him it was toward the end of his life. After
Speaker 1: a couple of years of this, Benjamin and Sarah decided
Speaker 1: to move to Abington, about fifteen miles north of Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and they may have chosen this location because Susannah Morris
Speaker 1: lived there. She and Sarah were friends and they had
Speaker 1: traveled together as ministers, including surviving as shipwreck together. But
Speaker 1: when the Lays tried to get their certificate from Philadelphia
Speaker 1: so they could join a meeting in Abington, Robert Jordan
Speaker 1: Junior objected, arguing that because of all of the content,
Speaker 1: like back in England, Benjamin's membership in Philadelphia was not
Speaker 1: authorized in the first place. Not long after they moved
Speaker 1: to Abington, Sarah Lay died at the age of about
Speaker 1: fifty eight. Her cause of death is unknown, it does
Speaker 1: seem to have been unexpected and pretty sudden. Benjamin also
Speaker 1: seems to have thought that Jordan's treatment of the two
Speaker 1: of them contributed to it, maybe by causing them both
Speaker 1: a lot of stress. A notice from the Abington Monthly
Speaker 1: Meeting mentioned Sarah's quote gift of ministry and her travels
Speaker 1: through England, Scotland and Ireland and some parts of the
Speaker 1: continent as a minister. It's very likely that Sarah had
Speaker 1: been a tempering influence in Benjamin's life, not just smoothing
Speaker 1: things over with the various Quaker meetings that they were
Speaker 1: part of, but also in reigning in his more radical impulses.
Speaker 1: And without her, he dedicated himself to aggressively speaking out
Speaker 1: against slavery. And we're going to get to that after
Speaker 1: we have another sponsor break. Some of the chronology of
Speaker 1: Benjamin Lay's life is a little bit fuzzy, so it's
Speaker 1: possible that some of the things we're about to talk
Speaker 1: about happened before his wife died. Even if that's the case, though,
Speaker 1: after Sarah's death Benjamin became known as an increasingly eccentric figure.
Speaker 1: He was heavily influenced by the Cenic philosophers, particularly Diogenes.
Speaker 1: If you need a refresher on that, we just re
Speaker 1: ran our episode on him as a Saturday classic. But
Speaker 1: in general, the Cynics were in favor of living with nature,
Speaker 1: abandoning social conventions, and living in an acetic, minimal existence.
Speaker 1: Lay started living in a cave in Abington, which was
Speaker 1: spacious enough that he had an extensive library there. It
Speaker 1: was also big enough for a spinning wheel, which he
Speaker 1: used to spin flax. He made all of his own
Speaker 1: clothes from undyed toe linen because he didn't want to
Speaker 1: wear any material that harmed animals or was connected to slavery.
Speaker 1: He would use other from animals that had died naturally,
Speaker 1: but he would not use it from ones that had
Speaker 1: been slaughtered or hunted. Ley had also become a strict vegetarian,
Speaker 1: although he did drink milk and he ate honey that
Speaker 1: was made by bees that he raised himself, taking care
Speaker 1: not to harm any of them when he harvested it.
Speaker 1: He didn't drink tea because of the abuses in the
Speaker 1: tea industry in Asia, and he didn't eat sugar because
Speaker 1: it was grown, harvested, and processed by enslaved Africans. He
Speaker 1: also went everywhere on foot because he didn't want to
Speaker 1: exploit the labor of horses. He started publicly condemning slave owners,
Speaker 1: especially Quaker slave owners, including during meetings, and he became
Speaker 1: increasingly dramatic in his protests. After interrupting someone in a meeting,
Speaker 1: he was forcibly carried out into the rain, and he
Speaker 1: lay in the MUDs so that the whole congregation had
Speaker 1: to step over him as they left. On another occasion,
Speaker 1: he stood outside the meetinghouse in the snow with one
Speaker 1: boot off and the leg of his pants rolled up.
Speaker 1: When people asked what he was doing, or said that
Speaker 1: he should go inside because he might get sick, he answered, quote,
Speaker 1: you pretend compassion for me, but you do not feel
Speaker 1: for the poor slaves in the field who go all
Speaker 1: winter half clad. To protest the use of slave labor
Speaker 1: in the tobacco industry and tobacco's unwholesome effects on health,
Speaker 1: Lay took three pipes to an annual Quaker meeting, and
Speaker 1: he smashed each of them, one among the ministers, one
Speaker 1: among the women, and one among the men, a lot
Speaker 1: of Quaker congregations at that point, separated by gender. He
Speaker 1: did a similar demonstration against the tea industry, protesting the
Speaker 1: conditions in the tea and sugar industries and the luxury
Speaker 1: that was associated with tea, by smashing his late wife's
Speaker 1: tea set with a hammer in a public square. Ley
Speaker 1: also tried to convince some neighbors to free a young
Speaker 1: girl that they were enslaving as a household servant. He
Speaker 1: had also made friends with their child. In some accounts
Speaker 1: this was a son, and others it's a daughter. One
Speaker 1: day he convinced this child to come stay with him
Speaker 1: for the afternoon, and when he saw the parents that evening,
Speaker 1: distraught over their missing child, he said, quote, your child
Speaker 1: is safe in my house, and now you may conceive
Speaker 1: of the sorrow you inflict upon the parents of the
Speaker 1: Negro girl you hold in slavery, for she was torn
Speaker 1: from them by avarice. At one point, Lay traveled to
Speaker 1: Philadelphia to visit another Quaker family. He arrived as they
Speaker 1: were having breakfast, and he asked them whether the person
Speaker 1: who was serving their meal was enslaved. When they answered
Speaker 1: that yes, he was, Ley said quote, then I will
Speaker 1: not share with THEE in the fruits of thy unrighteousness.
Speaker 1: And he left. There's so many points in his story
Speaker 1: where I want to yell right on, yea, Benjamin Lay
Speaker 1: is putting the rest of us to shame completely. Ley's
Speaker 1: most famous anti slavery demonstration took place at the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Yearly Meeting on September nineteenth, seventeen thirty eight. This was
Speaker 1: an annual meeting of all the Philadelphia area Quaker meetings
Speaker 1: held in Burlington, New Jersey. Lay walked about twenty minsles
Speaker 1: to get there, wearing a military uniform with a sword
Speaker 1: belted to his hip under an overcoat. He also carried
Speaker 1: a hollowed out book in which was concealed a bladder
Speaker 1: filled with bright red pokeberry juice. During this meeting, he
Speaker 1: stood up and said, quote, Oh, all you Negro masters
Speaker 1: who are contentedly holding your fellow creatures in a state
Speaker 1: of slavery during life, well knowing the cruel sufferings those
Speaker 1: innocent captives undergo in their state of bondage, both in
Speaker 1: these North American colonies and in the West India Islands,
Speaker 1: you must know they are not made slaves by any
Speaker 1: direct law but are held by an arbitrary and self
Speaker 1: interested custom in which you participate, and especially you, who
Speaker 1: profess to do unto all men as you would they
Speaker 1: should do unto you. And yet, in direct opposition to
Speaker 1: every principle of reason, humanity, and religion, you are forcibly
Speaker 1: retaining your fellow men from one generation to another in
Speaker 1: a state of unconditional servitude. You might as well throw
Speaker 1: off the plain coat as I do. He unbuttoned the
Speaker 1: one button of his coat and let it fall on
Speaker 1: the ground, and then went on quote, it would be
Speaker 1: as justifiable in the sight of the Almighty, who beholds
Speaker 1: and respects all nations and colors of men with an
Speaker 1: equal regard, if you should thrust a sword through their
Speaker 1: hearts as I do through this book. In some accounts
Speaker 1: he also said, thus shall God shed the blood of
Speaker 1: those persons who enslave their fellow creatures. So then he
Speaker 1: drew the sword, stabbed it through the book and the
Speaker 1: bladder that was concealed inside of it, let the fake
Speaker 1: blood drip out of it, and flung drops of it
Speaker 1: all over the slave owners who were around him. He
Speaker 1: was like an early performance artist. I kind of love it.
Speaker 1: These demonstrations unsurprisingly angered these slave owning members of the
Speaker 1: Quaker community. They were personally offended, and his aggressive confrontations
Speaker 1: ran against the Quaker values of peace and unity. In
Speaker 1: that Pokeberry juice demonstration, Lay had also walked into a
Speaker 1: Pacifist congregation wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon.
Speaker 1: On top of all that, in seventeen thirty eight, Lay
Speaker 1: also published a book without the authorization of the church's
Speaker 1: overseers of the press, who were supposed to approve all
Speaker 1: published material by Quakers. This book was called and Just
Speaker 1: Buckle Up, because this is I think the longest title
Speaker 1: we've ever read. All slave keepers that keep the innocent
Speaker 1: in bondage, apostates pretending to lay claim to the pure
Speaker 1: and holy Christian religion of what congregations soever, but especially
Speaker 1: in their ministers, by whose examples the filthy leprosy and
Speaker 1: apostasy is spread far and near. It is a notorious
Speaker 1: sin which many of the true friends of Christ and
Speaker 1: His pure Truth, called Quakers, has been for many years
Speaker 1: and still are concerned to write and bear testimony against,
Speaker 1: as a practice so gross and hurtful to religion and
Speaker 1: destructive to government. Beyond what words can set forth or
Speaker 1: can be declared of by manner aim angels, and yet
Speaker 1: lived by ministers and magistrates in America. The leaders of
Speaker 1: the people caused them to air written for a general
Speaker 1: service by him that truly and sincerely desires the present
Speaker 1: and eternal welfare and happiness of all mankind, all the
Speaker 1: world over, of all colors and nations as his own soul.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Lay. That was the title name of Band Pissy.
Speaker 1: Most historians referencing this work just call it all slave
Speaker 1: keepers that keep the innocent and bondage apostates, or even
Speaker 1: just all slave keepers dot dot apostates. You know you
Speaker 1: can't blame anyone for that abbreviation. No, you really can't.
Speaker 1: This book was really scathing in its discussion of slavery
Speaker 1: and of slave owners, especially those who claim to be
Speaker 1: people of faith. Here's a passage quote, Now, dear friends,
Speaker 1: behold a mystery these ministers that be slave keepers and
Speaker 1: are in such very great repute, Such eminent preachers, given
Speaker 1: to hospitality, charitable to the poor, loving to their neighbors,
Speaker 1: just in their dealings, temperate in their lives, visiting of
Speaker 1: the sick, sympathizing with the afflicted in body or mind,
Speaker 1: very religious, seemingly and extraordinary, devout and demure, and in short,
Speaker 1: strictly exact in all their decorums except slave keeping. These
Speaker 1: these be the men and the women too for the
Speaker 1: devil's purpose, and are the choicest treasure the devil can
Speaker 1: or has to bring out of his lazaretto to establish
Speaker 1: slave keeping. By these satan works wonders many ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so even if you are that great of a person,
Speaker 1: you are owning slaves, You are doing the devil's work.
Speaker 1: Per Benjamin Lay, this book wasn't just about slavery. There
Speaker 1: were also snippets for Malay's own life, kind of little
Speaker 1: autobiographical sketches, including references to that whole dispute with Colchester
Speaker 1: twice weekly meeting. There are also selections from other works
Speaker 1: that he found me meaningful in some way, including a
Speaker 1: couple of chapters of the Book of Revelation along with
Speaker 1: Lay's commentary, and a chunk of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Basically,
Speaker 1: it doesn't read as though Lay sat down intending to
Speaker 1: write a book. It's more like he wrote things from
Speaker 1: time to time as different ideas came into his mind,
Speaker 1: without really a cohesive through line through all of it.
Speaker 1: The writing style you might conclude based on the title
Speaker 1: is also pretty rambling, even when it's not jumping from
Speaker 1: one topic to another. Lay's friend, Benjamin Franklin, published the book.
Speaker 1: Although Franklin left his name off the title page in
Speaker 1: the spot where the publisher's name would normally go. Franklin
Speaker 1: knew that Lay was not approved to have it published,
Speaker 1: and he knew that it was kind of a disjointed mess.
Speaker 1: Franklin had even pointed that out to Lay, who told
Speaker 1: him that it didn't matter and to print it in
Speaker 1: whatever order that he thought best. In the words of
Speaker 1: the third Benjamin in this paragraph, physician and educator Benjamin
Speaker 1: Rush quote, even the address and skill of doctor Franklin
Speaker 1: were not sufficient to connect its different parts together so
Speaker 1: as to render it an agreeable or useful work. As
Speaker 1: a side note, although Benjamin Lay often refused to associate
Speaker 1: with slave owners in any way, he seems to have
Speaker 1: made an exception for Benjamin Franklin. Franklin later did become
Speaker 1: part of the movement for abolition, but when he was
Speaker 1: working on Lay's book, he was also enslaving at least
Speaker 1: two people. Franklin's own views on slavery at the time,
Speaker 1: may have been another reason why he left his name
Speaker 1: off of the book, although he did print other abolitionist tracts.
Speaker 1: Franklin's views may have also influenced the visual representations of
Speaker 1: Benjamin Lay that we have today. Most of them come
Speaker 1: from a portrait that was done by William Williams that
Speaker 1: was commissioned for Benjamin Franklin by his wife Deborah. This
Speaker 1: was probably done like not with Benjamin Lay sitting for
Speaker 1: a portrait that doesn't seem like a thing he ever
Speaker 1: would have done. Was. William Williams was probably familiar with
Speaker 1: Benjamin Lay from having seen him around town, but this
Speaker 1: portrait has no indication of Lay's work as an abolitionist. Instead,
Speaker 1: it shows Lay holding a book labeled Tryon on Happiness,
Speaker 1: which was a reference to the Way to Health, long
Speaker 1: Life and Happiness, or a Discourse on Temperance and the
Speaker 1: Particular Nature of all Things Requisite for the Life of
Speaker 1: Man by Thomas Tryon. We do know that Benjamin Lay
Speaker 1: loved this book and apparently carried it with him a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, but this was not nearly as
Speaker 1: big of a part of his life as his abolitionist work.
Speaker 1: After the poke Bury demonstration and the publication of the book.
Speaker 1: The Philadelphia Monthly Meeting disowned Benjamin Lay on September twenty sixth,
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty seven, saying that the certificate that he had
Speaker 1: presented from Colchester when joining the church had been quote
Speaker 1: irregularly maintained that his conduct was disorderly, and that quote
Speaker 1: we have therefore sought fit to give public notice that
Speaker 1: we do not esteem the said Benjamin Lay to be
Speaker 1: a member of our religious community, but a disorderly and
Speaker 1: obstinate person, one who slights the advice of friends, imposes
Speaker 1: on them in his preaching, that he disregards the peace
Speaker 1: of the church. The Abington Monthly Meeting disowned Lay as well,
Speaker 1: even though he was not actually a member there. It
Speaker 1: was like a just to be safe, prophylactic disowning. I
Speaker 1: guess yeah. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting also took out advertisements
Speaker 1: denouncing Lay's books, saying it quote contains gross abuses not
Speaker 1: only against some of their members in particular, but against
Speaker 1: the whole society. Even after being disowned from these congregations,
Speaker 1: Lay continued to attend services and to speak and write
Speaker 1: against slavery at every opportunity, and he did that for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. He spoke out on other
Speaker 1: issues as well, including denouncing the death penalty. He also
Speaker 1: visited Quaker schools and brought books with him to give
Speaker 1: out his prizes. He also gave money charitably, although while
Speaker 1: he gave money to poor people who needed it, he
Speaker 1: criticized beggars who he thought were able to work. In
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty eight, as Benjamin Lay's health was declining, a
Speaker 1: friend visited him and told him that the Philadelphia Annual
Speaker 1: Meeting had decided to start disowning members who were part
Speaker 1: of the slave trade. Lay answered his friend that he
Speaker 1: could now die at peace. He did die on February third,
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty nine, at the age of seventy seven. Almost
Speaker 1: twenty years later, in seventeen seventy six, the Philadelphia Annual
Speaker 1: Meeting bands slave ownership among its members, and then other
Speaker 1: annual meetings followed from there. Because he had made some
Speaker 1: money during his lifetime but had spent almost nothing in
Speaker 1: his last years, Benjamin Lay left behind in a state
Speaker 1: that was divided up among family members and charitable institutions,
Speaker 1: along with forty pounds to the Society of friends at
Speaker 1: Abington for the care of poor children in the congregation.
Speaker 1: He was buried in an unmarked grave at the Abington
Speaker 1: Burial Ground, although the registry there did not list him
Speaker 1: as a member. He had asked a friend to arrange
Speaker 1: for his body to be cremated and his ashes thrown
Speaker 1: into the sea, but cremation was not really practiced among
Speaker 1: Quakers at that point, and his friend refused. For a
Speaker 1: few decades after his death, Benjamin Lay continued to be
Speaker 1: well known, especially in the area where he lived. In
Speaker 1: the words of Benjamin Rush we mentioned earlier, these were
Speaker 1: written in seventeen ninety quote, there was a time when
Speaker 1: this celebrated Christian philosopher was familiar to every man woman,
Speaker 1: in to nearly every child in Pennsylvania. Lay was particularly
Speaker 1: remembered among abolitionists, but eventually he seemed to just disappear
Speaker 1: from history, and the historians who did mention him often
Speaker 1: dismissed him as kind of an eccentric crank, rather than
Speaker 1: as somebody who paved the way for later abolitionists. The
Speaker 1: erasure was widespread enough that when Dave Wermaling, a caretaker
Speaker 1: at Abington Meetinghouse, found an etching of Lay, in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. He didn't know who it was, neither did
Speaker 1: any of the older members Wrmaling asked about it. It
Speaker 1: remained a mystery until Marcus Rehticker visited the meeting house
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen while researching his book The Fearless Benjamin Lay,
Speaker 1: the Quaker dwarf who became the first revolutionary abolitionist. That
Speaker 1: book was one of the sources for this episode. It
Speaker 1: is very good and also not particularly long if folks
Speaker 1: are interested in picking it up. Rehdticker's work brought new
Speaker 1: attention to Benjamin Lay's life and work, and based on
Speaker 1: his research, Rehticker also encouraged Quaker congregations to revisit those
Speaker 1: past decisions to disown him. Eventually, the four congregations that
Speaker 1: had disowned Lay or their successors issued statements about it,
Speaker 1: and as one example, on November twelfth, twenty seventeen, the
Speaker 1: Abington Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends issued
Speaker 1: a statement that it quote recognizes Benjamin Lay's dedication to
Speaker 1: equality and his willingness to repeatedly speak his messages of
Speaker 1: truth to a society that was in denial about the
Speaker 1: evils of slavery. We acknowledged that Benjamin Lay used radical
Speaker 1: activism and his attempts to teach his peers to recognize
Speaker 1: the equality before God of all people, regardless of race
Speaker 1: or gender. He lived his life with integrity according to
Speaker 1: his Quaker beliefs, and he called others, especially slave owners,
Speaker 1: to accountability. The statement went on to say, quote, we
Speaker 1: now recognize the truth behind Benjamin Lay's abolitionist efforts. Although
Speaker 1: we may not reinstate membership for someone who is deceased,
Speaker 1: we recognized Benjamin Lay as a friend of the truth
Speaker 1: and as being in unity with the spirit of our
Speaker 1: Abington Monthly Meeting. Yeah, the statements from the other congregations
Speaker 1: that had disowned him during his life had very similar
Speaker 1: tones and in some cases issued joint statements about it.
Speaker 1: In addition to all of these statements, a stone commemorating
Speaker 1: Sarah and Benjamin Lay was placed in the Abington Burial
Speaker 1: Ground on April twenty first, twenty eighteen, and a historical
Speaker 1: marker a state historical marker was dedicated on September twenty second,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. So he has become a little more well
Speaker 1: known over the last couple of years. We love it.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
Speaker 1: this episode is out of the archive, if you heard
Speaker 1: an email address or a Facebook RL or something similar
Speaker 1: over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now.
Speaker 1: Our current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find us all over social media at misst Dhistory,
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: Google podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.