The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist

"Benjamin Lay was, in sum, a class-conscious, race-conscious, environmentally-conscious vegetarian ultraradical. Most readers of this book would think this combination of beliefs possible only since the 1960s" (p. 149) -- unless one is a student of the history of anarchism, a word that seems almost conspicuously absent from this book.

As it was taught to me, the roots of what we now call "anarchism" are planted most firmly around 1800, with William Godwin and company. Benjamin Lay's life pulls that foundation back a hundred years or so; his roots in the radical beginnings of Quakerism, along with the Levellers, Diggers, and so on take us back at least another half century, if not all the way to the large-scale land enclosure and loss of show more the commons in England under the Tudor monarchs.

Instead of "anarchism," Rediker uses the term "antinomian." The translation given of that Greek term is "against all authority" (p. 6). (Against All Authority also happens to be the name of a punk band formed in 1992.) Perhaps closer to Rediker's word are the mid-20th century Italian "autonomia" and the West German "Autonomen" of the 1970s & '80s. These tendencies struggled, via direct action, much like Lay, against the capitalism of their supposedly democratic states and for, as the words suggest, autonomy.

In contrast to "antinomian," "autonomia" and "Autonomen" mean *self* authority -- but, for the most part, the two amount to the same thing. After all, Lay's guiding principle was that no human outside of himself had authority over him when his own morals indicated otherwise. Where the two differ, perhaps, is religious authority; Lay and other Quakers like him obviously recognized that authority, and drew their opposition to other authorities from it. Anarchists, on the other hand, from Godwin (though nominally a Calvinist) on down position themselves against a religious authority. Notable is the slogan "no gods, no masters" which has been in use by anarchists since at least 1880.

So then: we can easily follow an intellectual and political line of descent from the time of the Tudors (around 1500) through to the current day, without jumping between the mere two points of Lay and the social movements of the 1960s. Anti-enclosure fights lead into Quakers and other religious social groups; which in turn lead to the massive upheavals of national revolutions in England, France, the US, and elsewhere; which is turn move into labor movements under industrialized capitalism, Marxism and additional national revolutions; followed by anarchist, socialist, and communist experiments; the two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, and the orgiins of anti-fascism; and only then getting to the social justice movements of the 1960s and '70s. And since those movements we can mark waves of additional anti-fascism and resurgent anarchist and socialist politics. As I write this, anarchism, labor, antifa, anti-racist, queer, and so on politics are on everyone's lips, whether in support or derision.

That is all to say, we haven't won yet, but it sure isn't for lack of trying. And perhaps authors of otherwise wonderful books should do their homework.

By the way, The Dollop podcast has done an episode on Benjamin Lay, no doubt influence by the publication of this book. show less

Review of: The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became
the First Revolutionary Abolitionist, by Marcus Rediker
by Stan Prager (9-9-18)

Imagine this: a hunchbacked dwarf living in early Enlightenment-era England, variously a farmhand, shepherd and glovemaker, but also a devoted autodidact gifted with great intelligence who despite his station in life becomes not only literate but highly-educated. Passionate and outspoken, he often dominates local meetings of the Society of Friends, flirting with antinomianism and distinguising himself as a Quaker radical, often an outcast, publicly rebuking authority and earning the antipathy of the established order. He then becomes a sailor and, later settling as a merchant in Barbados, is so show more appalled by the human chattel slavery he encounters there that he adopts a fierce life-long antislavery stance that admits no toleration for anything short of abolition. Next, he makes his way to Philadelphia, where his troublesome nature again emerges, underscored by his unrelenting brand of antislavery agitation that alienates fellow Quakers, many of whom are slaveowners, most famously when he punctuates an annual Friends meeting by delivering a bellicose jeremiad against slavery and then plunging a sword into a Bible packed with a bladder of red pokeberry juice—a simulation of blood—that splatters those in attendance nearby! He writes a number of pamphlets denouncing slavery, as well as a rambling but impassioned book that is published by no less a figure than Benjamin Franklin. Ever self-righteous, obnoxious, curmudgeonly, he is also a wealthy eccentric who eschews materialism, and is well-known to his community as a philanthropist, a strict vegetarian, and a man utterly intolerant of slavery. He marries, but after his wife’s death becomes even more zealous in his adherence to his radical faith, in his pursuit of justice, and in his crusade for abolition, as well as in campaigns against animal cruelty, capital punishment, the prison system, and the hypocrisy of the affluent elite. He closes out his life devoted to absolute self-sustenance, keeping goats, nurturing fruit trees, and growing flax that he spins into his own clothing, making his home in solitude in a cave with his collection of over two hundred books.
Okay, you have imagined it: could you suspend disbelief long enough to read a novel or watch a film based on a fellow like that? Well, this is no flight of fictional fancy but the actual tale of a truly extraordinary figure named Benjamin Lay (1682-1759) who somehow has managed to be remembered as little more than a footnote to history—on the rare occasions when he has been remembered at all. Historian Marcus Rediker—author of The Slave Ship and The Amistad Rebellion—seeks to resurrect this remarkable character from oblivion with his latest book, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist.
In this effort, Rediker largely succeeds, and in the process brings the talent of a skilled historian to bear as he sketches out the ground that the adult Lay walked upon in the early-to-mid-eighteenth century, a milieu largely unfamiliar to many readers, with fascinating glimpses of England, Barbados and colonial Pennsylvania in a transformative era that rarely receives appropriate scrutiny. Because so much of Lay’s identity was wrapped up in his religious fervor, the author treats us to a study of the evolution of Quakerism—including its peculiarities and its many internal revolts—on both sides of the Atlantic. Absent this background, Lay’s outrageous behavior—and it was indeed often outrageous—would seem to defy the boundaries of sanity. In fact, Lay was just the most recent actor to emerge in a tradition of antinominalist dissent—albeit an extreme incarnation—who with his carefully choreographed public protests not only danced at the edges of decorum but stomped upon any vestiges of it. That he cloaked his polemics in theatrics brought wide attention to his message, while provoking loud rebuke from those he routinely offended. Outwardly flamboyant, even crude, Lay’s frequently offensive performance art was a thin disguise upon the true heart of a reformer deeply offended by cruelty, injustice, hypocrisy and the widespread betrayal of what he believed Quaker Christianity should be all about.
Lay’s strict vegetarianism, as well as his opposition to animal cruelty, the prison system, and capital punishment—all of this distinguished him as a truly unusual individual for his time, further underscored by the fact that what had to have been the handicap of dwarfism in that era seems to have placed no brake on his behavior as he publicly campaigned for justice: hardly more than four feet tall, he ever played an outsize role in his community. But it was, of course, with his uncompromising antislavery agitation and demands for abolition that Lay left his mark on history. A century after his death, while the antislavery movement had gained wider traction, true abolitionists were still in a very tiny minority in the United States. In Lay’s own time, his voice must have been a very lonely echo indeed. At the close of the eighteenth century, near the end of his long life, Benjamin Franklin and fellow Quakers took a public stand against slavery, but—as Rediker makes pains to point out—Franklin’s own position on slavery was often manifested in ambivalence. That certainly could not be said of Lay, who never wavered in his insistence that chattel slavery was a great evil that represented a sin against man and God. Benjamin Franklin has been much-celebrated, but it was not he who penned one of the very earliest antislavery tracts in colonial America, but rather his friend Benjamin Lay, although the young Franklin can be credited for publishing Lay’s opus, All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates in 1737.
If there is a flaw in The Fearless Benjamin Lay it is that while extremely well-written it is clearly directed at a scholarly audience, with all of the strengths and weaknesses that implies. Lay lived such a colorful life that with virtually no embellishment his story should read like a James Michener novel. Alas, the typical limitations for academic writing in structure and prose means that the narrative frequently succumbs to dull passages even as it never falls short in fleshing out the man that Benjamin Lay was and adroitly recreating the age he inhabited. On the flip side, there are copious notes and little doubt that Rediker’s finished work is firmly rooted in both best practices and the appropriate historiography. In the final analysis, I recommend this book for restoring from anonymity an intriguing figure who is especially deserving of recognition for taking a radical stand against slavery long before more than a handful of others would join in. And since the versatile Rediker also works in film, I would like to advocate that he next produce a documentary for general release that will bring the fascinating life and times of Benjamin Lay to a much wider audience.

[Note: A digital edition of Lay’s book All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates can be accessed online at no charge at https://antislavery.eserver.org/religious/allslavekeepersfinal/allslavekeepersfi...

Review of: The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist, by Marcus Rediker https://regarp.com/2018/09/09/review-of-the-fearless-benjamin-lay-the-quaker-dwa... show less

Benjamin Lay was a man out of time. An unswerving rights advocate and abolitionist in 18th century England and America. He was a man of small stature but many parts - a shepherd, glove maker, bookseller and sailor; a vegetarian Quaker who would not accept, to any degree, the keeping of slaves and the trading in human chattel.

His story is told with passion and clarity in Marcus Rediker's new biography, The Fearless Benjamin Lay. Lay's tireless campaigning for racial equality, his unstoppable guerrilla theater tactics and survival from vicious attacks and character assassination as told in Rediker's book, convincingly make the case that Benjamin Lay should have a much more prominent place in the pantheon of American heroes.

For many show more years Lay provoked his local community in England. He spoke out against the holding of slaves and the accumulation of wealth which depended on it. Not until Lay arrived in Philadelphia in 1732, did he find a like-minded Quaker who also published abolitionist tracts and refused to be silenced by the ruling Quaker board. Ralph Sandiford had published a fierce indictment against slavery several years earlier and was in poor health, being hounded by the ruling class, when Lay met and befriended him. After Sandiford's death, Lay continued his cause with unyielding commitment and passion.

Lay took on the Quaker establishment with radical zeal and an untiring voice that would not suffer any compromise for the abolition of all slavery and the equal partnership of all sentient life on earth. His story is inspiring and uplifting and yet, sadly, is as relevant today, in the condemnation of greed and the ruling class, as it ever was then. Inequality is still smothering the earth and the richest one percent still abuse the rights of the poor and helpless. Slavery is out of fashion but the resulting suffering is the same.

Lay's great work, All Slave-Keepers That Keep The Innocent In Bondage, Apostates, was printed (and probably edited) by Ben Franklin in 1738. It is a scathing indictment of slavery within the Quaker movement and does not hesitate to name names and damn the guilty.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay is a welcome addition to the library of abolitionist history and an important document about one of the most zealous enemies of slaveholders. show less

Just finished this worthy biography of an extraordinary prophet. Like many prophets, Lay was a difficult person who'd probably be diagnosed with a personality disorder today. Yet he disregarded the social handicap of his short stature and extraordinary ways to challenge Quaker leaders who owned slaves and their enablers while showing empathy for human suffering. Lay led a lifestyle of non-violence, simplicity, vegetarianism and egalitarianism. Rediker's biography is thorough, making sympathetic use of available sources to tell Benjamin's story while being academically credible. This window onto the early eighteenth century was welcome.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2017)

Today (3 February 2018) marks the 259th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Lay. A month ago, that fact would have meant nothing to me; now, having read Marcus Rediker's intriguing biography of the man, history and justice can rejoice in the life he lived.
Shepherd, glove maker, sailor, merchant, Benjamin Lay was born in England to Quaker parents of "modest but growing means" (p. 11) in 1682. Though Lay had little formal education, he read voraciously, enjoying philosophy, theology, history, and poetry. Lay's self-learning affirmed the Quaker "Protestant radicalism" teachings into a bedrock moral principle of how he would live his days, a steadfast and unyielding belief that "no one had the right or power to control the human show more conscience" (p. 15). Living this creed, it need not be said, could not have been, is not today, and never will be, easy. Lay's outspokenness often unsettled his fellow congregants and, more importantly, Quaker leaderships, to the point that he was expelled (dubiously, to be charitable) from numerous Quaker meeting-houses.
Having made several Atlantic crossings while working as a sailor, Lay and his wife eventually settled in Barbados for a time. While he was familiar with slavery from his seagoing experiences, it was there where Lay saw the evil up close and personal. From Barbados the Lays settled in Philadelphia, the couple perhaps lured in part because of the reputation of Quaker William Penn, founder of the colony; a colony and city grounded in the faith of Friends, how could it not be the proverbial shining city on a hill? Alas, reality soon revealed itself. And thus did Benjamin Lay, the man whom many in his community regarded as overfull "of strife and contention" (ch. 2) up his game.
Guerrilla street theatre, public discourse, and other acts that we might label today as civil disobedience, it all cam together in Lay's authoring rambling book denouncing slavery and slave holders with equal acidity. Lays' friend, another Benjamin (Franklin), edited and published the manuscript. (Perhaps apprehensive over public reaction, Franklin did not cite himself as the publisher. In fairness, however, it should be noted that, decades after Lay's death, Franklin became the first president of the Pennsylvania abolitionist association.)
Benjamin's faith was deep and sincere. He did not ride a horse, as he considered such to be exploitation of the animal. He was a vegetarian (peaches and acorns his favorite foods) for the same reason. His clothes were colorless, drab and plain, as dyes were created by slave labor. Both he and his wife (who predeceased him) were buried in unmarked graves, as a headstone would be self In other words, he practiced what he preached.
Benjamin Lay was also a little person, a dwarf; undoubtedly, the prejudice he faced (on what was likely a daily basis) influenced peoples' attitudes to his exhortations. Rediker states that the biography should be considered a contribution to a new disability genre in writing and literature. One wonders what Benjamin Lay would think of all this; I'd like to think that whatever terminology one wished to use, if it helped end slavery, then fine. Marcus Rediker is not the first to rescue Benjamin Lay from the fog of history's forgetfulness; at least two persons wrote about him in the mid- and late-19th century. Here and now, in the early 21st century, we can appreciate and learn from Rediker's efforts, a biography well worth reading. show less

"Benjamin Lay was, in sum," author Rediker writes, "a class-conscious, gender-conscious, race-conscious, environmentally conscious vegetarian ultraradical." In other words, Benjamin Lay (1681-1759) was a man ahead of his time. He was also a Quaker who preached abolition to the generation of Quakers before the one which would take up the cause as holy and righteous. As Rediker points out in his gracefully written biography, Lay's abrasive personality and confrontational style placed him in direct conflict with his contemporaries -- be they in England, in Barbados, or in Philadelphia (where he and his beloved wife Sarah settled in 1731). This, the author suggests, accounts, in part, for Lay's relative obscurity -- which this book, show more hopefully, will do much to remove. In addition, Lay was a hunchbacked dwarf, which served to further marginalize him in 18th Century Pennsylvania. But Rediker posits Benjamin Lay as a suitable hero for our time, one fully the equal of his younger contemporary Thomas Jefferson (for all his brilliance) and, in the end, an altogether worthier one. show less

Marcus Rediker has written an important correction to the history of abolitionism with his biography The Fearless Benjamin Lay. Lay was born in 1682, a commoner who worked as a shepherd, a glove-maker, a sailor, and a merchant and lived in Essex, Barbados, and Pennsylvania. He was a Quaker, perhaps more authentically devout than the many Quakers with whom he shared fellowship.

Lay was a child of the Glorious Revolution. influenced by the democratic idealism that animated that victory for the rights of Englishmen. It was a time of religious radicalism and while many of the sects faded away, the Quakers emerged as one of the strongest nonconformist faiths in England…and of course, there was Pennsylvania, their refuge. The Quakers were show more important in the abolitionist movement, but during the lifetime of Benjamin Lay, they not only approved slavery, but the most powerful and influential Quakers in America were slaveholders. Lay, after witnessing the heinous treatment of slaves in Barbados was a confirmed abolitionist and fought with all his might to change the church.

In denouncing greed, avarice, inequality, and slavery, Lay was never temperate. In fact, he was an avowed activist who employed direct action guerrilla theater. One time he stood in the snow without shoes and socks on one foot. When people expressed concern, he asked them why they were not concerned for the slaves who had even less clothing than he. He was all activism, not organizing, constantly ostracized from his community. It pained him, but not as much as silence in the face of injustice would have pained him. In the 1730s, then he was told to be quiet, to keep the peace, he said a phrase that is dear and familiar to all who seek justice, “No justice, no peace.”

It is interesting to learn about Lay since his influence has been minimized and ignored in most histories of abolition. This reflects past and current biases for the educated, privileged reformer over the working class agitator. Lay is not the first nor will he be the last activist to disappear from history for not conforming to the ideal gentleman reformer. Look at the erasure of Bayard Rustin from civil rights history until society became more accepting of gay rights.

Rediker correctly identifies class prejudice as one reason that Lay’s contribution was unmentioned. I think there is another, though, that is perhaps more potent. Rediker explained how Lay came to his opposition to slavery, through his belief in the Golden Rule, the brotherhood of man, and opposition to violence. Lay’s abolitionism was about the equality of all, it was not rooted in pity for a lesser race. Many abolitionists opposed slavery with racial bias and animus, eager to ship slaves back to Africa and indifferent to their fate after manumission. They did not believe Blacks were equal, just that slavery was pernicious. Lay had none of that condescension. He was a radical believer in the equality of all. That is even more radical than his class politics.

It would be interesting to see how Benjamin Lay would do in Portland. He was an antinomian environmentalist like many of the local anarchists of Black Bloc and Antifa. A vegetarian, who boycotted products that exploited and oppressed slaves, an environmentalist who imagined living sustainably in peace with the earth and the animals, a supporter of human rights, opposed to the death penalty and, of course, slavery. He was feminist before the word existedHe thought capitalism was violence and was anti-capitalist. He opposed all authority. He was 300 years before his time.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay is an interesting book of a fascinating man. It suffers from some repetition and some over-explication. For example, the author reprints two chapters of Revelations with Lay’s interpretation, though the interpretation alone would have been adequate. His short biography of jobs and places is repeated often. It is also easy to get lost in the amazingly petty bureaucratic persecution of Benjamin Lay by one of the Quaker churches back in England, but that kind of pettiness does express how deeply his righteous anger offended those in the church.

To be honest, that pettiness struck me as familiar. My great-great grandfather was a Quaker abolitionist who violated their peace testimony by joining the Union Army. He was disowned by his church and to make their point complete, there is a line drawn through his marriage and birth record. They really went to that much effort to make their point. That’s why when I was reading the extraordinary lengths the church in England went to in order to inflict unhappiness on Lay and his wife, I was not surprised.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay will be released September 5th. I received an advance e-galley from the publisher through Edelweiss.

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