|
T |
he original opponents of slavery were deeply religious women and men
who believed that slavery was sinful. Most of the earliest critics of slavery
were Quakers. The Society of Friends, as the group was formally known, was a
religious denomination that had arisen during England's civil war of the
mid-1600s. They wanted to live free of sin, and condemned war, and refused to
bear arms, take oaths, or bow or take off their hats to social superiors. Rejecting an ordained ministry, the Quakers
believed that the Holy Spirit was present in every human heart.
Compared to other religious sects of the time, the Quakers were
extraordinarily egalitarian. Quaker women assumed ministerial role and Quakers
rejected the notion that infants were born sinful.
Widespread Quaker opposition to slavery arose during the Seven Years'
War (1756-1763), when many Friends were persecuted for refusing to fight or pay
taxes. Many members of the group responded to persecution by asserting the duty
of individual Quakers to confront evil. As a result, a growing number of
Quakers began to take active steps against poverty, the drinking of hard
liquor, unjust Indian policies, and, above all, slavery. During the 1750s,
1760s, and 1770s, the Quakers became the first organization in history to
prohibit slaveholding.
· The very
first antislavery petition in the New World was drafted in 1688 by
Dutch-speaking Quakers who lived in Germantown, Penn. Their ancestors had been
tortured and persecuted for their religious beliefs, and they saw a striking
similarity between their ancestors' sufferings an the sufferings of slaves.
They charged that Africans had been seized illegally from their homelands,
shipped across the Atlantic against their will, and sold away from their
families.
· In 1688,
the Germantown Quakers stood alone in their protests against slavery. They
passed their petition on to other Quakers in Pennsylvania, only to see their
protest against slavery ignored.
Read the following excerpt from the Germantown Quaker Petition of 1688 and identify the reasons why they opposed slavery:
"There is a saying, that we should do to all
men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation,
descent, or colour they are.... To bring men hither [to America], or to rob and
sell them against their will, we stand against. In Europe there are many
oppressed for conscience-sake; and here there are those oppressed which are of
a black colour....Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse towards us,
than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange
countries; separating husbands from their wives and children."