Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Brycchan Carey is currently reader in English literature, Kingston University, London. He is the author of British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility: Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 1760-1807.

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From Peace to Freedom

Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................ixIntroduction..........................................................................................................1ONE "The power that giveth liberty and freedom" BARBADOS, 1657–76...............................................40TWO "We are against the traffik of men-body" PENNSYLVANIA, 1688–1700............................................70THREE "The grief of divers friends" PENNSYLVANIA–LONDON–NEW JERSEY, 1711–19...........................105FOUR "O unrighteous gain!" FROM RHETORIC TO RITUAL, 1727–43.....................................................143FIVE "A practice so repugnant to our Christian profession" PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON, 1753–61.....................177Notes.................................................................................................................221Bibliography of Works Cited...........................................................................................237Index.................................................................................................................249

Chapter One

QUAKER WRITING ON SLAVERY BEGAN in 1657 with a letter from England addressed to "Friends beyond sea." The letter's author was George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, and the ideas he tentatively expressed were challenged, revised, and finally reasserted by Fox himself in the light of his own personal experience on the plantation island of Barbados. As the words of the founder, Fox's writings on slavery would later assume an importance to Quakers that perhaps outweighed what their actual length or content merited. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that they would influence the thinking of the many Quakers who would question the morality and legitimacy of slavery over the coming centuries. More immediately, Fox stirred up a controversy in Barbados that remained in the Quaker collective memory for years at a time when many of the island's Friends were relocating to the colonies of the Delaware Valley. To understand the development of antislavery in the Quaker communities within the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting we must thus understand the events that shaped Fox's response to slavery. Accordingly, the first section of this chapter examines Fox's 1657 letter in detail, while the following two sections chart Fox's later writings on slavery during and after his visit to Barbados, paying attention both to their content and to their form and style. The final sections of this chapter examine the attitudes toward slavery of Fox's contemporaries William Edmundson and Alice Curwen, both Quakers and both active on Barbados in the mid-1670s.

George Fox Writes to Friends Beyond Sea

George Fox's career can be viewed against the backdrop of the English Civil War and its aftermath. By the time he arrived in Barbados in 1671, he had spent years traveling, first as he grappled with his faith, next to disseminate his views, and later to develop the organization of the newly formed Society of Friends. In that time he had suffered persecution and had been imprisoned on several occasions. He was once released at the request of Parliament, and once at the request of Oliver Cromwell, who, admittedly, had ordered him to be arrested in the first place. Whether or not his personal experience of imprisonment influenced his attitude toward slavery is impossible to say. It was nevertheless during this period that he first turned his attention to slavery in the short letter of 1657 titled "To Friends beyond sea, that have Blacks and Indian Slaves." This letter, one of the first meaningful ameliorative texts in the English language, is also an important document of the new international phase into which the Society of Friends entered in the 1650s. The first Quakers to settle in the Americas reached the continent in 1656, part of a rapid migration of Quakers to take place over the coming few years. Given the length of time it took news to cross the Atlantic, the letter's date demonstrates both that Quakers were buying slaves from the outset of their settlement in America and that Fox must have come to a rapid view of the practice once it had come to his attention. Fox wrote:

Dear Friends, I was moved to write these things to you in all those Plantations. God, that made the World, and all things therein, and giveth Life and Breath to all, and they all have their Life and Moving, and their Being in him, he is the God of the Spirits of all Flesh, and is no Respecter of Persons; but Whosoever feareth him, and worketh Righteousness, is accepted of him. And he hath made all Nations of one Blood to dwell upon the Face of the Earth, and his Eyes are over all the Works of his Hands, and seeth every thing that is done under the whole Heavens; and the Earth is the Lord's and the Fullness thereof. And he causeth the Rain to fall upon the Just and upon the Unjust, and also he causeth the Sun to shine upon the Just and the Unjust; and he commands to love all Men, for Christ loved all, so that he died for Sinners. And this is God's Love to the World, in giving his Son into the World; that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish: And he doth Enlighten every Man, that cometh into the World, that they might believe in the Son. And the Gospel is preached to every creature under Heaven; which is the Power, that giveth Liberty and Freedom, and is Glad Tidings to every Captivated Creature under the whole Heavens. And the Word of God is in the Heart and Mouth, to obey and do it, and not for them to ascend or descend for it; and this is the Word of Faith, which was and is preached. For Christ is given for a Covenant to the People, and a Light to the Gentiles, and to enlighten them; who is the Glory of Israel, and God's Salvation to the Ends of the Earth. And so, ye are to have the Mind of Christ, and to be Merciful, as your Heavenly Father is merciful.

Beyond the title and the first line, there is little indication that Fox has slavery in mind. Many of his arguments are relevant to other situations, and could have been applied to Friends' relationships with a range of other groups and individuals. Nevertheless, the title and opening lines are rhetorically effective. They offer the reader an ostensibly narrow and contingent set of circumstances, but then provide evidence to show that the topic is universal in scope. This universalizing is an important part of the message. Drawing on Acts 17:26, Fox argues that God, who "hath made all Nations of one Blood," has created only one human family, all members of which are equal both before God and within his creation—that is, both in Heaven and on Earth. This inclusiveness is strengthened by repetition. The word "all" occurs nine times in the first four sentences, and the words "every" and "whole" appear frequently in the rest of...