During the 1700s, when many Pennsylvania Quakers owned slaves, Benjamin Lay wrote one of the first treatises against slavery in Colonial America, writes Mike Rosenwald for The Washington Post.
A Quaker himself, Lay died in 1759. His story was rediscovered in the 1990s when Abington Friends Meeting member Dave Wermeling discovered a drawn image with Lay’s name and his description as a zealous abolitionist. Wermeling found out more in 2014, when historian Marcus Rediker was in Jenkintown for his book on Lay.
Born in England, Lay was a shepherd before learning glove making, something he hated. He escaped to become a sailor at the age of 21 and later settled in Barbados with his wife Sarah. There, he witnessed the horrors of slave trade.
At 50, Lay settled in Philadelphia, seeking a place where Quakers would not be persecuted, but soon discovered that some local Quakers owned slaves.
He fiercely protested against slavery in Philadelphia, often using street theatrics. On one occasion in 1738, he was carried out of a meeting by other Quakers, then banished.
He spent the remainder of his life fighting against this injustice.
Learn more about Benjamin Lay in The Washington post by clicking here.
