Quaker erasure

 

William Penn statue in 1894, prior to being placed on the pinnacle of City Hall, Philadelphia

"Don't erase William Penn," the cry goes up. "Don't cancel him."

I don't think he's being cancelled. He's still there in the history books, in Quaker Faith and Practice, on hundreds of websites, in legal textbooks, and in many statues, including the gigantic one that was for years the highest point in the city of Philadelphia.

More gently, we're asked to sympathise with him, which is fair enough - if we also offer our sympathy to Sam, Sue, Yaff, Jack, Peter, Chevalier, Susannah and Virgil Warder and to others whose names we don't know. These were the recorded enslaved people on William Penn's estate in Pennsylvania and we can't tell from those names where their lives began or whether they had other names that were stolen from them like their liberty.

We can't know what gifts, qualities and spiritual insights the enslaved people "owned" by William Penn had to offer. We can't tell how they were prevented from sharing them. We can know, if we choose, that in 1700 the legal code of Pennsylvania prevented Black people (it's unclear whether or not free Black people were included) from gathering together in groups of more than four. Breaking this rule was punishable by 39 lashes. The people who have been most fully cancelled and erased from history are those who were enslaved; in the words of Ecclesiasticus: "some there be which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them."

We can guess that the descendants of the enslaved people on William Penn's estate are among us in the world even though we may not know who they are. Very few of the enslaved people "owned" by Quakers make it into the history books, although Olaudah Equiano is a notable exception. But it seems to me that they deserve to be acknowledged with a degree of humility. We aren't the people who chose to enslave our fellow humans, despite numerous warnings that this was theft and violence. But if we cherish the good deeds and writings of the enslavers, we don't just need to acknowledge their wrong actions. We also need to be aware that the enslaved human beings had equal worth.

There's still a tendency to say that there was no opposition to slavery in the 17th century. This simply isn't true. There isn't just the evidence of the Germantown protest of 1688, which must have emerged from prior, unrecorded discussion and prayer. In 1693 George Keith, then in a dispute with fellow Quakers that led to his disownment the following year, wrote with others An Exhortation and Caution to Friends against buying or owning enslaved humans. This picks up many of the points made in the Germantown Protest and suggests a widespread attempt to find the right course of action. This document tends to be forgotten in view of Keith's support of a more conventional and biblically-based practice - he and his followers later introduced versions of adult baptism and communion - but it makes me wonder whether Keith and his followers saw shortcomings in reliance on the Inward Light in part because those who endorse it seemed happy to tolerate the abhorrent practice of slavery.

So far as I can see, none of the 17th century Quaker opponents of slavery are mentioned in Britain's Quaker Faith and Practice. Their words aren't quoted. Those enslaved and "owned" by Quakers are not named and their views and insights aren't reported. There's a lot of emphasis on later Quakers who spoke about slavery (though not yet the embarrassing Benjamin Lay). There's little acknowledgement of such groups as the Sons of Africa who worked with them on their campaigns.

This does still matter. It's partly a matter of being honest about the history of Quakers instead of serving up a sentimentalised and dishonest version. But it's also because, if we really believed in equality, we wouldn't just be looking for ways to defend William Penn and other early Quaker enslavers. We'd be giving weight to the experiences of those who Penn and other Quakers enslaved, who suffered terribly and who were just as fully human as their Quaker "owners." 

If we can't acknowledge the equality of all in the past, what chance do we have of seeing all as equal or of working for equality today?

Which side are you on?

 

image of the barrister Edward Carson

This 1909 editorial in The Friend really shocked me when I read it a couple of years ago. It began:

       "We are sincerely thankful that the good name of our friends, Cadbury Brothers, has been vindicated at the Birmingham Assizes after a trial extending throughout seven days. To Friends to whom the family are known, either personally or by reputation, the charges of dishonour and hypocrisy brought against them in regard to their dealings respecting cocoa from San Thomé and Principe were incredible." 

The editorial continued by praising the judge, who pretty well directed the jury to find for the Cadburys and by sympathising with William A Cadbury for the ordeal of being cross-examined in open court.

The case was a libel action brought by Cadbury's against a newspaper which accused the company of hypocrisy in continuing to buy cocoa beans from Sao Tomé and Principe long after it was evident to the company, and to any dispassionate observer, that the beans were grown and harvested under what was, in practice, a brutal form of chattel slavery masquerading as indentured labour. The Cadbury family, in collaboration with the Rowntrees and the Frys, were not only slow to act; they had also done their best to conceal the facts while searching for an alternative source of cocoa beans. In 1901, William A Cadbury wrote to fellow Quaker and anti-slavery campaigner Joseph Sturge acknowledging that one "looks at these matters in a different light when it affects one's own interests".

It took the Quaker chocolate manufacturers several years to decide on action. The 1904-5 reports of Henry W Nevinson, who had approached Cadbury with an offer of assistance, might have spurred them into action but Nevinson was a difficult character - a radical, far from quiet who didn't speak Portuguese, the language of the slave-plantation owners. It didn't occur to Cadbury that it might be helpful for anyone to learn the languages spoken by the enslaved families. The Quakers acted very slowly indeed and in accordance with their own interests.

Meanwhile enslaved people died. In 1902 William A Cadbury had heard from a missionary that the life expectancy of a newly-enslaved worker on the plantations was three and half to four years. One model plantation had a lower annual death rate of between 10 and 12% which it ascribed to anaemia caused by unhappiness. The death rate for children was around 25% per year. As information reached Britain and by 1907 William A Cadbury reported, when he attended a Quaker gathering in London, that many considered "we were acting hypocritically, although nobody quite said that word." It was in the following year that the Standard published an editorial condemning the "strange tranquillity" with which the "virtuous" owners of the chocolate companies had received reports of slavery - and that was the editorial which Cadbury, rather than demanding a retraction, chose to make the grounds of his case for libel.

The case was heard in Birmingham and the jury followed the judge's direction in deciding that Cadburys had been libelled. They then had to assess what damages to award Cadburys. The jury had heard the case and learned all about the brutal practices of enslavement and the high death-rate. They had watched William A Cadbury as he was cross-examined by Carson. The judge suggested that substantial damages should be paid to Cadburys but the jury did not agree. They awarded the lowest damages possible - a single farthing (a quarter of an old penny).

The editorial in The Friend doesn't mention the derisory damages. Instead it quotes the judge and insists that Quakers as a whole must support the Cadburys because they are known personally by some and have a good reputation in the Society.

But this isn't how we should decide matters. It doesn't matter that we might see and understand the difficulty that the Cadburys and the Rowntrees and the Frys faced in sourcing good quality cocoa beans. If we always take the side of those we know and respect - as though they could never make a mistake let alone do something wrong - we will quickly find that we are doing our best not to hear or even to silence other voices. The voices of the enslaved people on Sao Tomé and Principe deserved to be heard. They deserved to be acted upon. Enslaved workers in Sao Tomé sang a chantey: "In Sao Tomé there's a door for entrance, but none for getting out."

For eight years after first hearing of slavery on the islands of Sao Tomé and Principe, the Quaker chocolate firms continued to buy cocoa beans from the plantations there. They meant well. Towards the end of his cross-examination of William A Cadbury, Edward Carson asked, "Have you formed any estimate of the number of slaves who lost their lives in preparing your cocoa during those eight years?" Cadbury couldn't answer. A low estimate would suggest 4,000-5,000. The number may well have been much higher.

Where are the poor Quakers?

 Why are Quakers so wealthy?

Not all Quakers are wealthy. Some are poor, subsisting on benefits or working for low wages in the gig economy. Some struggle to make ends meet. But the overwhelming impression given by Quakers in Britain as a whole is of people who are, for the most part, comfortably off and who don't suffer from the day-to day money struggles that affect a large proportion of the British population. So what went wrong?

Quakers are, as our Advices and Queries make plain, a faith group with Christian roots. And the Bible, which Quakers are still advised to read, is not a book that sides with the rich. Jesus' teachings are quite clear: he brings good news to the poor and warns his followers not to lay up for themselves treasures on earth. Yet Quakers often seem quite proud of the wealth that Quaker businesses - the breweries, the banks, the chocolate factories - have created. By the mid-19th century, according to Elizabeth Isichei's research, the average Quaker was three times as wealthy as the average British citizen. I don't find that a cause for pride.

Once any group starts becoming rich it's also liable to start being defensive about its wealth. In religious groups this can be labelled the reward of providence of the gift of God. Surely we don't think like that any more. Surely we know that wealth - including Quaker wealth - was achieved in some dodgy ways. Even Quakers who didn't "own" enslaved people or take part in colonial wars reaped the benefits of a system of empire-building, war and slavery.

Wealth has other corrupting influences. It's not just that, as the Sermon on the Mount says, moth and rust will corrupt, and thieves break through and steal. It teaches people to protect themselves from any association with poor people and poverty - unless that association is one in which the rich can congratulate themselves on doing good to and instructing the poor. Separation between rich and poor becomes central to a way of life.

In the 1860s many Quaker missions had been set up. These were not based on the equality of all that we attempt today in Quaker Meetings, where anyone can minister (unless and until eldered). They included Bible readings, singing and preaching to the poor. By the end of the 1860s there were roughly as many people regularly attending Quaker missions as there were attending Quaker Meetings for Worship. The suggestion was made that Quaker Mission members should be admitted to membership of the Religious Society of Friends - though perhaps there should be a second-class, inferior kind of membership especially for them.

The proposal to admit Mission members to Quaker membership created much discussion among Friends. In 1869 Quaker Robert Barclay, in a widely-published speech, asked:

 "Do you wish to invite chimney-sweepers, costermongers, or even blacksmiths, to dinner on First Day? Do you intend to give their sons and daughters a boarding-school education? Do you intend to save the country the expense of supporting them when out of work, and give them a sort of prescriptive right to a maintenance – a right apart from the simple personal, individual act of Christian charity?"

The speech went on to explain that it would be wrong to ask labouring men to take time away from their labours so that they could attend the business Meetings in which the direction of the Society was determined. (He didn't mention labouring women because women were, at that time, excluded from such Meetings.) And he went on and on and on:

"There is the crossing-sweeper! He is a Christian; will you reject him from Christ’s visible church? He has the same Lord, the same baptism, the same faith, the same God. He will go to the same heaven as you. He will sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb. Nay, he may occupy a higher place in heaven than you. No, you cannot, as professing Christians, refuse to welcome him as one who Christ is not ashamed to call his brother and if you are ashamed  to do so, be very sure he will at the last day be ashamed of you before the angels of God.

           "You cannot refuse him that Christian communion, that  loving Christian sympathy and religious instruction which you desire your own child should enjoy. But is that any reason you should introduce him to what is religiously valueless, and invite him to dinner, and encourage your daughter to associate with him in her civil or social capacity? Is it any reason why you should give him a boarding-school education, which will help him to become one of the queen’s ministers? Are not these things beyond the functions of a Christian church? Must they not necessarily limit the mission of a church of Christ?"

That distinction, between wealthy Quakers and the faithful poor, was the view that prevailed. There is an absence of poor and working-class people among Quakers today because Quakers decided - perhaps by default rather than active decision - to exclude them from the Society. So today we have wealth  but are impoverished in diversity. There is important ministry that we may therefore fail to hear.

Why not talk about Germantown?

 Ah yes, the Quakers! They're good people. Didn't they play a big part in getting rid of slavery? Weren't they among the first to see that it was wrong?

Well no, actually. Quite a number of early Quakers were slave-owners - and that included William Penn, the man whose gigantic statue looms over Pennsylvania. He did think of freeing his slaves at one time - before one of his journeys he left a will setting them free if he died on the voyage - but he didn't actually do it and in the end he treated them as property and they passed to his heirs.

But didn't everyone believe in slavery then? No. They didn't. People who had been enslaved definitely thought it was a bad idea. That's why they rebelled so often. That's why some of them ran away when they had the chance - though that must have been a terrifying prospect in a land they didn't know. Pennsylvania enacted some pretty brutal laws to prevent enslaved people from talking to one another - and a state wouldn't pass laws like that unless the people in charge were pretty scared that the people they oppressed might conspire and rise up against them.

There were also Quakers who didn't believe in slavery - way back in William Penn's time and in Pennsylvania. Slavery was, after all, a pretty new enterprise on the scale adopted in the mid-17th century. It was taken up by the English government at just about the time Quakers were getting going. And some people found it appalling. Back in 1688 a protest was presented to the Quakers in Philadelphia signed by four Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania. It began: "These are the reasons why we are against the traffik of mens-body." The authors were Dutch and their English is clumsy but those words - "traffik of mens-body" - get right to the point of what slavery is. And the document goes on to point out all the reasons why it is wrong. It even points out the violence of slavery: that these people "have as much right to fight for their freedom, as you have to keep them slaves."

Quakers in Britain today don't hear much about the authors of the Germantown protest, even though one, Francis Pastorius, was a friend of William Penn, the subject of a poem by Whittier and is sometimes considered the first American poet. They're a bit of an embarrassment - a reminder that early Quakers not only got some things wrong but also that the wrong they did caused devastating damage to the lives of those they oppressed. 

But isn't it time we learned at least as much about the bad bits of Quaker history as we're prepared to face when looking at the wrongs of the British Empire or our country's conduct in war? There can't be one rule for the British Empire and another rule for us. And while we're at it, perhaps we should find a way to acknowledge that the resistance of enslaved people helped Quakers understand that slavery was wrong and that when Quaker anti-slavery activities finally got going in the late 18th century, they weren't just drawing on Quaker thought but also on the activities of non-Quakers like Olaudah Equiano, who had once been the property of Quaker Robert King, and Ottobah Cugoano. These were men whose position in British society was far less easy than that of members of the Religious Society of Friends.

Thinking about the enslaved people and the Germantown protest isn't just a matter of being truthful about long-dead history. The past has formed who we are and where we are as a Society today. Who we choose to celebrate - whose words we include in Quaker Faith and Practice - tells us something of where we are now, and whose unhappiness we might prefer to ignore.

Estates, degrees and Mary Fisher

 

I was troubled when, in Meeting for Worship, a Friend read this passage from Isaac Pennington:

"Are there not different states, different degrees, different growths, different places? … Therefore, watch every one to feel and know his own place and service in the body, and to be sensible of the gifts, places, and services of others, that the Lord may be honoured in all, and every one owned and honoured in the Lord, and no otherwise."

It was written in 1667 but it's still listed as one of the "well-loved phrases" in Britain Yearly Meeting's current edition of Quaker Faith and Practice. I don't love it at all.

It's possible that Friends today aren't familiar with the way some of those words were used in the 17th century. But the word "degrees" following the word "states" go back to some arguments about class that were common enough in Shakespeare's day to surface in his plays. "Degree" and "state" or "estate" in this context mean something close to social and economic class. Knowing your "place and service" among Friends suggest the existence of a hierarchy that's not much different from the hierarchy in the rest of the world.

Warnings that individual Quakers should know their place and stay there aren't that uncommon, even among early Friends. An epistle from George Fox, quoted in Geoffrey Durham's The Spirit of the Quakers, includes the warning to Friends "of what trade or calling so ever" to:

"Go not beyond your estates, lest ye bring yourselves to trouble, and cumber, and a snare; keep low and down in all things ye act. ... "dwell every one of you under your own vine ... and seek not to be great ..."

Fox's epistle is concerned with many things, from avoiding debt, envy and lavish spending to the need to "dwell in the truth, justice, righteousness, and holiness." The word "estates" as used here seems concerned with both possessions and place in the world, since these were closely linked in the understanding of the time. This his words, like Pennington's, have an underlying tone of "Know your place and stay there."

These injunctions, still quoted and loved, have a chilling effect on my own wish to challenge existing hierarchies. I want to wave the banner of Quakers' testimony to Equality but are Quakers really that equal - and do they want to be? I don't know the answer. An enthusiasm to speak truth to power is rarely matched by a desire to hear truth spoken by the powerless - or even by a recognition that those with less power also have a truth to speak.

I'm cheered, however, by parts of the story of Mary Fisher. She was one of the group called the "Valiant Sixty" - the men and women who were also known as "publishers of truth." In the 1650s she as an illiterate housemaid she was convinced of the truth of Quakerism, as were all in the household where she was employed. When she told her employers that she felt a calling to preach, they released her from her employment and she went out with another woman, Elizabeth Williams, to preach in the streets of England. They were flogged as vagabonds. But Quakers taught Mary Fisher to read and write, They supported her ministry - and her ministry took her to Barbados, to America and to Turkey where she spoke with the Sultan and felt a special kinship with the Muslims she met, describing them as "more near truth than many nations" and speaking of her great love towards them.

Later Mary Fisher married twice and died in 1698 in South Carolina. There the story becomes less happy. At the time of her death she was a slave-owner and a human being was listed as part of her property. So I wonder how Mary Fisher was seen by other Quakers at the time. Was she seen as an exception, with special gifts and a calling that allowed her, uniquely, to be freed from the usual restriction of estate, degree and place? And was that, in the end, how she saw herself? Or was there a moment in the early history of Quakers when equality of people of all estates and degrees seemed possible and a harbinger of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth?