Early Abolitionists

I briefly mentioned the 18th century Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lay on here once in the past, but I recently saw a post about him on BlueSky that reminded me I should say more, and in that thread there was information about other early abolitionists who also deserve call outs.

Lay was born into a Quaker family in England in the late 17th century. At first he was a glovemaker, and then a sailor. By age 36, he left England for Barbados, where he saw its brutal slaveocracy in action. He soon moved near Philadelphia and became an abolitionist. Four feet tall, and with a hunchback and protuding chest (as described on his Wikipedia page), he operated a farm despite his physical nature.

He disrupted Quaker meetings to confront the members about their slave-owning. He published more than 200 pamphlets and a 1737 book that was one of the first abolitionist titles in the colonies.

The portrait of Lay, above, was created as gift to Benjamin Franklin from his wife Deborah Read, commissioned from William Williams. The portrait was lost after the 18th century until it was sold in an auction in 1977 for just $4.00. It's now in the National Portrait Gallery.

The second abolitionist mentioned in the thread was the Public Universal Friend (1752–1819), a genderless preacher who dressed in a combination of men’s and women’s clothing. Born Jemima Wilkinson, after a dire illness and near death the reawakened Friend changed from Quakerism to a new religious vision. Sermon topics included not only abolitionism but the rights of indigenous people and the equality of the sexes. 

A Society of Universal Friends formed, inspired by the Friend, and together they formed a town in the Finger Lakes region of central New York, near Penn Yan on Keuka Lake. The Society died out in about 1860. 

The third abolitionist was not as clearly religious figure, but a colonial Virginia plantation owner, Robert Carter III. Just after the U.S. Constitution was approved, he began manumitting hundreds of the enslaved people on his plantation. He had had a religious conversion to Baptism, which clearly appears to have affected his actions.

He faced strong opposition from his peers, and eventually had to flee the area for Baltimore, where he died in 1804.