The Complete Antislavery Writings of Anthony Benezet, 1754-1783

An Annotated Critical Edition

David L. Crosby

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780807154779
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

Pennsylvanian Quaker Anthony Benezet was one of the most important and prolific abolitionists of the eighteenth century. The first to combine religious and philosophical arguments with extensive documentation of the slave trade based on eyewitness reports from Africa and the colonies, Benezet's antislavery writings served as foundational texts for activists on both sides of the Atlantic. In England, those who incorporated his work into their own writings included Granville Sharp, John Wesley, Thomas Clarkson, and William Dillwyn, while Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, David Cooper, James Forten, Absalom Jones, and Richard Allen drew inspiration from his essays in America. Despite Benezet's pervasive influence during his lifetime, David L. Crosby's annotated edition represents the first time Benezet's antislavery works are available in one book.
In addition to assembling Benezet's canon, Crosby chronicles the development of Benezet's antislavery philosophy and places the aboli-tionist's writing in historical context. Each work is preceded by an editor's note that describes the circumstances surrounding its original publication and the significance of the selection.
Benezet's writings included in this edition:
An Epistle of Caution and Advice Concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves (1754)Observations on the Enslaving, Importing, and Purchasing of Negroes (1759--1760)A Short Account of that Part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes (1762)A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and Her Colonies (1766--1767)Some Historical Account of Guinea (1771)Benezet's Notes to John Wesley's Thoughts upon Slavery (1774)Observations on Slavery (1778)Short Observations on Slavery (1783)
A valuable tool for scholars and students of African American history, slavery studies, and the Revolutionary era, The Complete Antislavery Writings of Anthony Benezet, 1754--1783 demonstrates the prevailing impact of the foremost pioneer in American abolitionism.

1

AN EPISTLE OF CAUTION AND ADVICE CONCERNING THE BUYING AND KEEPING OF SLAVES (1754)

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

In 1752 Anthony Benezet became a member of the Overseers of the Press for the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends. This eight-member group reviewed all publications by church members for their faithfulness to the Quaker spirit and mission and had been dominated for years by older Friends who were sympathetic to the interests of merchants who profited from the slave trade. As an overseer in 1754, Benezet facilitated publication of John Woolman’s antislavery tract, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, written in 1746 but withheld from publication for fear it was too controversial.

Also in 1754, Benezet brought to his local Monthly Meeting a proposal for an epistle making public the Quaker position against importing or purchasing Negro slaves and giving reasons “to discourage that practice.”¹ This effort led to Benezet’s drafting his first treatise against the slave trade, An Epistle of Caution and Advice concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves, approved and published by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. It also began his thirty-year career of writing and publishing increasingly influential antislavery arguments.

This tract was specifically addressed to the Overseers of the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings, urging them to comply with the Yearly Meeting’s warnings against “promoting the bondage” of captured Africans. In it Benezet emphasized the violence and cruelty masters employed to place and keep other men in their power to toil for them and warned that the practice led to hardening the heart and rendering the soul incapable of responding to God’s “spirit of love, meekness and charity.” For Quakers, who reject war and preach the gospel of peace, it was especially heinous that they would purchase those who were prisoners of war or who had been stolen from their families by violence. The golden rule demanded that Christians put themselves in the place of these unfortunates or else suffer the death the Mosaic law promises to “man-stealers.” Benezet urged those who did not buy slaves, but who already had them, to treat them in the spirit of God’s love—the God who “died for all men without respect of persons.” They must think of the future welfare of the slaves, including their place as heirs of God, and not tempt them to adultery by separating wives and husbands. Instead, they must prepare their slaves for the exercise of liberty against the day when the masters may feel it their duty to set them free, as some Friends had already done.

This appeal to the religious feeling of the Quakers, a people who had come to think of themselves as especially set apart in the Lord’s service, may seem mild and limited in hindsight, but it contains a radical assumption that most men were not ready to accept: that enslaved Africans could live in freedom and that masters had a duty to prepare them for that freedom and eventually set them free. This may seem like an acceptance of the inferior condition of slaves, and in a way it is—but it reflects the reality that confronted Benezet within his own congregation of believers. He would go forward to attack that acceptance with every argument he could muster. While other reformers talked of stopping the importation of enslaved Africans, Benezet was already talking about emancipation.

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AN EPISTLE OF CAUTION AND ADVICE, ETC. FROM OUR YEARLY MEETING FOR THE PROVINCES OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEYS, HELD AT BURLINGTON BY ADJOURNMENTS FROM THE 14TH DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH, 1754, TO THE 19TH OF THE SAME INCLUSIVE

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Dear Friends,
It hath frequently been the concern of our Yearly Meeting to testify their uneasiness and disunity with the importation and purchasing of Negroes and other slaves, and to direct the Overseers of the several Meetings to advise and deal with such as engage therein. And it hath likewise been the continued care of many weighty Friends to press those that bear our name to guard as much as possible against being, in any respect, concerned in promoting the bondage of such unhappy people. Yet, as we have with sorrow to observe that their number is of late increased among us, we have thought proper to make our advice and judgment more public, that none may plead ignorance of our principles therein; and also again earnestly to exhort all to avoid, in any manner, encouraging that practice of making slaves of our fellow creatures.

Now, dear Friends, if we continually bear in mind the royal law of doing to others as we would be done by, we shall never think of bereaving our fellow creatures of that valuable blessing, liberty, nor endure to grow rich by their bondage. To live in ease and plenty by the toil of those whom violence and cruelty have put in our power is neither consistent with Christianity nor common justice, and we have good reason to believe draws down the displeasure of heaven; it being a melancholy but true reflection that, where slave keeping prevails, pure religion and sobriety decline, as it evidently tends to harden the heart and render the soul less susceptible of that holy spirit of love, meekness, and charity which is the peculiar character of a true Christian.

How then can we, who have been concerned to publish the gospel of universal love and peace among mankind, be so inconsistent with ourselves as to purchase such who are prisoners of war, and thereby encourage this antichristian practice? And more especially as many of these poor creatures are stolen away, parents from children and children from parents, and others who were in good circumstances in their native country, inhumanly torn from what they esteemed a happy situation and compelled to toil in a state of slavery, too often extremely cruel! What dreadful scenes of murder and cruelty those barbarous ravages must occasion in these unhappy people’s country are too obvious to mention. Let us make their case our own, and consider what we should think and how we should feel were we in their circumstances. Remember our blessed Redeemer’s positive command to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and that with what measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again [Matt. 7:2]. And we entreat you to examine whether the purchasing of a Negro, either born here or imported, doth not contribute to a further importation; and, consequently, to the upholding all the evils above mentioned and promoting man-stealing, the only theft which, by the Mosaic Law was punished with death: He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death [Exod. 21:16].

The characteristic and badge of a true Christian is love and good works. Our Savior’s whole life on earth was one continual exercise of them: Love one another, says he, as I have loved you [John 15:12]. How can we be said to love our brethren, who bring or for selfish ends keep them in bondage? Do we act consistent with this noble principle, who lay such heavy burdens on our fellow creatures? Do we consider that they are called, and sincerely desire that they may become heirs with us in glory and rejoice in the liberty of the sons of God, while we are withholding from them the common liberties of mankind? Or can the spirit of God, by which we have always professed to be led, be the author of those oppressive and unrighteous measures? Or do we not thereby manifest that temporal interest hath more influence on our conduct herein than the dictates of that merciful, holy, and unerring guide?

And we likewise earnestly recommend to all who have slaves to be careful to come up in the performance of their duty towards them, and to be particularly watchful over their own hearts; it being by sorrowful experience remarkable that custom and a familiarity with evil of any kind hath a tendency to bias the judgment and deprave the mind. And it’s obvious that the future welfare of those poor slaves, who are now in bondage, is generally too much disregarded by those who keep them. If their daily task of labor be but fulfilled, little else perhaps is thought of. Nay, even that which in others would be looked upon with horror and detestation is little regarded in them by their masters: such as the frequent separation of husbands from wives and wives from husbands, whereby they are temped to break their marriage covenants and live in adultery in direct opposition to the laws both of God and men, although we believe that Christ died for all men without respect of persons. How fearful then ought we to be of engaging in what hath so natural a tendency to lessen our humanity, and of suffering ourselves to be inured to the exercise of hard and cruel measures, lest thereby we, in any degree, lose our tender and feeling sense of the miseries of our fellow creatures and become worse than those who have not believed?

And dear Friends, you who by inheritance have slaves born in your families, we beseech you to consider them as souls committed to your trust, whom the Lord will require at your hand, and who as well as you are made partakers of the spirit of grace and called to be heirs of salvation, and let it be your constant care to watch over them for good, instructing them in the fear of God and the knowledge of the gospel of Christ, that they may answer the end of their creation and God be glorified and honored by them as well as by us; and so train them up that, if you should come to behold their unhappy situation in the same light that many worthy men who are at rest have done and many of your brethren now do, and should think it your duty to set them free, they may be the more capable to make a proper use of their liberty.

Finally, brethren, we entreat you in the bowels [i.e., compassionate feelings] of gospel love, seriously to weigh the cause of detaining them in bondage. If it be for your own private gain or any other motive than their good, it’s much to be feared that the love of God and the influence of the Holy Spirit is not the prevailing principle in you and that your hearts are not sufficiently redeemed from the world; which that you, with ourselves, may more and more come to witness through the cleansing virtue of the holy spirit of Jesus Christ, is our earnest desire.

With the salutation of our love we are your Friends and Brethren. Signed, by appointment, on behalf of the Yearly Meeting, by John Evans, John Smith, Thomas Carleton, William Trimble, John Scarbrough. Joseph Hamton, Abraham Farrington, Joseph Noble, James Daniel, Joseph Gibson, John Shotwell, Joseph Parker.

NOTES

1. The Society of Friends expresses itself most characteristically in meetings for worship and meetings for business. Local worship meetings are usually held weekly on First Day (Sunday); monthly and quarterly meetings may involve communities from several local meetings; annual meetings have a regional or national scope and seek to provide guidance for Quakers around the world. Each Yearly Meeting publishes an epistle that summarizes the decisions made at the meeting.

2

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ENSLAVING, IMPORTING AND PURCHASING OF NEGROES (1759–1760)

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

The years following 1754 in Pennsylvania saw the outbreak of the French and Indian War, a time of great grief and trouble in the colonies, especially for the Quakers and their gospel of peace. Many Friends served in the Pennsylvania House of Assembly, which was being asked to pay for the troops sent to fight in America by King George. Two immediate political results ensued: public opinion turned against the Quakers for seeking peace with the Indians even while the colony was being attacked in raids and settlers were being killed and captured; and inside the Quaker community dissension broke out between those who felt a responsibility to continue to serve publicly in war as well as peace and those who felt the only response to the demands of war was to remove themselves from the legislature and all other government offices so they could serve God and their fellow men in purity of heart. Benezet and other peace-minded Quakers organized the shipment and distribution of private relief to towns and settlements that were under attack.

Benezet did not allow himself to be distracted from his concern for “the oppressed Africans” by war and the relief effort. Instead, he saw the war and its evil effects as a direct result of the colonists’ participation in the slave trade, a fulfillment of the implied threat voiced in his Epistle of 1754, “with what measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again” (Matt. 7:2). When the London Yearly Meeting issued an epistle in 1758 warning Friends to shun the “unrighteous profit” arising from the slave trade, Benezet sought and received permission and a subsidy from the Overseers to reprint it in Philadelphia.¹ And he seized the occasion to write an introduction to the epistle so he could explore a new and revolutionary approach to antislavery writing. He urged his fellow colonists to consider the calamities they were experiencing in the present war and “how many of our poor countrymen are dragged to bondage and sold for slaves.” Having established the horror of these present calamities, he challenged his fellow colonists to think of what was happening in Africa, where Christian nations were committing the same atrocities against Negroes, and to see the connection between those crimes and the present danger.

In the 1754 Epistle Benezet had shied away from depicting scenes of devastation and cruelty occasioned by the slave trade, calling them “too obvious to mention.” In this new essay, however, he deliberately introduced eyewitness accounts drawn from persons intimately involved in the trade, whose firsthand experience could not be questioned. He set before his readers accounts from Dutch factor Willem Bosman and French agents Jean Barbot and André Brüe bearing witness to the ways European factors corrupt African traders. These accounts describe how some Africans stole their own countrymen, resorting to ruses such as hiring them to work as porters of goods to the coast and then selling them as slaves, and how others kidnapped children from roads, woods, and fields, where they could not be protected by their families.

To these accounts Benezet added the testimony of a Philadelphian described as a “person of candor and undoubted credit,”² relating his recent experience on a trading ship off the coast of Africa: how the captain, “according to custom,” bribed a native king to make war on two towns and fight a bloody battle just to provide the American ship with slaves to sell in America. Benezet used the account to comment on the cruelty of both the king who committed the atrocity and “those who for the sake of gain instigated him to it.”

Benezet offered these testimonies to counter the prevailing arguments that purchasers were benevolent patrons saving Africans from death in local wars and providing them with homes and an occupation in a Christian country. By demonstrating that the slave trade was carried on by collusion between corrupted African leaders and rapacious European traders, Benezet expressed the hope that these facts would convince considerate Christians to avoid being “defiled with a gain so full of horrors.”

Observations must have received an encouraging reception in the Philadelphia Quaker community, for within a few months of its publication Benezet began to plan a second edition, apparently to be bound with a number of religious tracts and distributed up the East Coast as far as Connecticut and down into the backcountry of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In February 1760 he asked his friend John Smith for a contribution to help get the collection bound, and by August he sent Smith copies of the collection.³ The second edition of Observations was slightly revised by the addition of a two-paragraph introduction, adapted from John Woolman’s Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754), urging the readers not to follow the dictates of custom and received opinion but to test these by the “pure spirit of grace.”

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OBSERVATIONS ON THE ENSLAVING, IMPORTING AND PURCHASING OF NEGROES

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Introduction

Customs generally approved and opinions received by youth from their superiors become like the natural produce of a soil, especially when they are suited to favorite inclinations.⁴ But as the judgments of God are without partiality, by which the state of the soul must be tried, it would be the highest wisdom to forego customs and popular opinions and try our deeds by the infallible standard of truth,⁵ even the pure spirit of grace which leads all those who in sincerity obey its dictates into a conduct consistent with their Christian profession.

That important injunction of our blessed savior, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you,”⁶ contains a short but comprehensive view of our duty and happiness. If then the business of mankind in this life is to first seek another; if this cannot be done but by attending to the means; if a summary of the means be, “to love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbor as our self, so as never to do to another that which in like circumstances we would not have done to us,” then these are points of moment and worthy of our most serious consideration.

In ancient times it was the practice of many nations when at war with each other to sell the prisoners they made in battle in order to defray the expenses of the war. This unchristian or rather inhuman practice, after many ages continuance, is at length generally abolished by the Christian powers of Europe, but still continues among some of the nations of Asia and Africa, and to our sad experience we find it also practiced by the natives of America.

In the present war,⁷ how many of our poor countrymen are dragged to bondage and sold for slaves? How many mourn a husband, a wife, a child, a parent or some near relation taken from them? And were we to follow t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• General Introduction
• 1. An Epistle of Caution and Advice Concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves (1754)
• 2. Observations on the Enslaving, Importing and Purchasing of Negroes (1759–1760)
• 3. A Short Account of That Part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes (1762)
• 4. A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and Her Colonies (1766–1767)
• 5. Some Historical Account of Guinea (1771)
• 6. Benezet’s Notes to John Wesley’s, Thoughts upon Slavery (1774)
• 7. Observations on Slavery (1778)
• 8. Short Observations on Slavery (1783)
• Textual Appendix
• Biographical Appendix
• Geographical Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index