Gest Fellow Ben Wright is a Ph.D. Candidate in the History at Rice University. His research is on “American Clergy and the Problem of Slavery, 1750-1830: Form the Politics of Conversion to the Conversion to Politics.”

Ben Wright 2012 Gest Fellow

My research explores the connections between religious conversion and antislavery activism in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  Cutting off at 1830, when antislavery hardened into immediate abolitionism, I argue that the Americans and Britons who attacked slavery in this early period, did so primarily out of broader motives than simply a hatred of human bondage.  The push to convert the colonies, the new American republic, and eventually the world trumped nearly every other ambition for the growing population of evangelical Protestants in the Anglo-Atlantic world.  Quakers, however, offer a powerful counter-example.  My study argues that Quakers demonstrated an unrivaled commitment to antislavery because of their inward quest for communal purity.  It is no coincidence that the Quaker antislavery crusade coincided with what Jack Marietta has called the Quaker Reformation, a mid-eighteenth century renewal movement among Friends to refocus religious life around the principles of modesty, anti-materialism, and communal discipline.

While working in the Quaker Collection, I have investigated the letters, diaries, and other private writings of dozens of Quaker reformers, the minutes of numerous monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings, and the antislavery publications of numerous Quaker societies.  My research has confirmed many of my suspicions, while also revealing several surprising new insights.  The writings of early to mid-eighteenth century Quakers like John Fothergill, George Churchman, John Pemberton and others illustrate my arguments regarding Quaker anxieties by revealing a great preoccupation with internal purity and a fear that moral failures among Friends will lead a winnowing of the faithful.  I was surprised, however, to find seeds of dissention among mid-to-late eighteenth-century Quakers that would later sprout into the antebellum schisms.  I found that reformers were very much aware of these dissentions and used antislavery as a tool to maintain unity.  The private letters of several Quaker reformers reveal their relief at the refreshing unity among Friends in the antislavery cause.  Another surprise came from a close reading of Quaker conversion narratives.  Conversion in the early eighteenth century was a deeply fraught process that often took months if not years, whereas by the end of the century, conversion was a quicker process.  In the early nineteenth century, the language of conversion almost completely drops out of Quaker memorials.

It will take more time to integrate these findings within my larger analysis, yet I am grateful to say that the remarkably helpful staff and impressive holdings of the Quaker Collection have given me a treasure trove of evidence to inform my project.

On June 29, 2012, the National Museum of American Jewish History on Independence Mall in Philadelphia opened an exhibition called “To Bigotry No Sanction: George Washington & Religious Freedom.” Included in the exhibition are letters from 1789 between George Washington and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which are part of PYM records here at Haverford.  The exhibit will run through September 30, 2012.

Federal Hall in New York is likely where the meeting took place (image from The New York Public Library)

The letter to President Washington was composed on October 2, 1789 by a group of nineteen Quakers led by George Churchman and approved the next day during the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The meeting then selected a group of six Friends who “proceeded to New York” and, joined by a delegation from the New York Meeting for Sufferings, the path was cleared “for their personal attendance on the President” during which time “the address was read by one of the number, and [...] they were respectfully received.” Meeting records indicate that the delegation presented a copy of Robert Barclay’s Apology, the famous scholarly defence of Quaker practices, to Washington during the visit. Washington’s response, while critical of Quaker practice in some regards, was generally positive. News of the meeting spread quickly and on November 4, 1789, one Susanna Dillwyn reported in a letter to her father that Washington read his reply himself instead of leaving the task to his secretaries so that “he gains the esteem of everybody—those who agree in few other things all unite in admiring General Washington”(Dillwyn and Emlen family correspondence, Library Company of Philadelphia).

Washington from around the time the meeting occurred (image from Bryn Mawr College Collections).

The meeting with Washington followed the English Quaker tradition of making similar presentations upon the coronation of a new monarch. However, this letter had particular significance given Washington’s rocky history with the Friends. Washington’s first encounter with Quakers occurred as a young officer in Virginia when he faced the problem of what to do with six Friends who were among his conscripted men but refused to fight, work, or do anything to support the army. Though he treated them leniently, Washington resented the Quakers’ refusal to help with common defense. Washington’s distrust continued during the Revolution, as he believed the Quakers’ refusal to fight with the colonists stemmed from political sympathy for the British, and consequently he refused Quaker relief parties passage through colonist lines on a number of occasions. Still, Washington treated Friends with respect including entertaining a group of Quaker ladies, who had come to petition for the release of seventeen Quaker leaders, over dinner.

Washington became more friendly to the Quakers after coming to understand that the Friends’ pacifism stemmed from religious feelings not political leanings. Indeed one of his most trusted generals was the former Quaker Nathanael Greene. Given this history, the most explosive statement in the Friends’ letter is “As we desire to be filled with fervent charity for those who differ from us in faith and practice [...] we can take no part in carrying on war on any occasion, or under any power.” The duality of Washington’s feelings on this issue and for the Quakers in general comes through in his response, as he says of the Quakers that “except their declining to share with others the burthen of the common defence, there is no denomination among us, who are more exemplary and useful citizens.”  Washington believed that religion was valuable because it supported good citizenship, so, while Washington respected their freedom of belief, he rebuked Quaker practice for making for less useful citizens. Still, given their history of persecution, receiving Washington’s respect for their beliefs and the freedom of conscience must have been a remarkable moment for Quakers.

Anyone curious about these materials can contact Thomas Littrell (tlittrel@haverford.edu) for more information.