BIO: John Woolman, Quaker voice of conscience (7 Oct 1772)


A list of related biographies follows:
  MARY DYER, QUAKER MARTYR (1 JUN 1660)
  ROBERT BARCLAY, QUAKER THEOLOGIAN (3 OCT 1690)
  GEORGE FOX, FOUNDER OF THE QUAKERS (13 JAN 1691)
  WILLIAM PENN, QUAKER STATESMAN (30 JUL 1718)
  JOHN WOOLMAN, QUAKER VOICE OF CONSCIENCE (7 OCT 1772)
  ELIZABETH GURNEY FRY, QUAKER HELPER OF PRISONERS (12 OCT 1845)
  JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY, EVANGELICAL QUAKER (4 JAN 1847)
  STEPHEN GRELLET, QUAKER ARISTOCRAT (16 NOV 1855)
  RUFUS JONES, QUAKER MYSTIC AND SOCIAL ACTIVIST (16 JUN 1948)
  KENNETH BOULDING, QUAKER ECONOMIST FOR PEACE (19 MAY 1993)
  (Many of the biographies have appended sections on aspects of the
  Quaker mvement.)

$$$ JOHN WOOLMAN AND SLAVERY

     Once no Quaker, not even George Fox, saw slavery as a deep and
terrible sin. When Fox was on the Island of Barbados, he admonished
owners of slaves to "cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently
with their negroes, and not use cruelty toward them, as the manner
of some hath been and is; and that after certain years of servitude
they would make them free."
     However, a gradual change in Quaker attitude was soon apparent.
In 1688 a Quaker meeting in Germantown (district in Philadelphia <40
N 75:10 W>) resolved, "There is a liberty of conscience which is
right and reasonable, and there ought to be likewise liberty of the
body."  In 1696 the Philadelphia <40 N 75:10 W> Yearly Meeting was
advising Quakers to take no part in the slave trade. In 1711, the
Quaker-dominated legislature of Pennsylvania levied a huge tax on
the importation of slaves (which the Parliament of England
annulled).
     The final triumph of anti-slavery principles among Quakers was
largely the work of one man, John Woolman.

     John Woolman was born in 1720 in New Jersey <@ 40 N 72:30 W>,
of Quaker parents.  When he was twenty-one, he hired out to a
shop-keeper. One day, his employer directed him to draw up a bill of
sale for a slave.  Woolman, taken off guard, did so, but later
decided that he had acted wrongly, and determined never to
co-operate with the system of slavery again. Later, he owned his own
shop, and also worked as a tailor. He felt that the ownership of the
shop drew his attention too much to the amassing of wealth, and so
he closed the shop and made his living as a tailor and orchardman.

Woolman's JOURNAL:
   The increase of business became my burden; for though my
   natural inclination was toward merchandise, yet I believed
   Truth required me to live more free from outward cumbers; and
   there was now a strife in my mind between the two. In this
   exercise my prayers were put up to the Lord, who graciously
   heard me, and gave me a heart resigned to his holy will. Then I
   lessened my outward business, and, as I had opportunity, told
   my customers of my intentions, that they might consider what
   shop to turn to; and in a while I wholly laid down merchandise,
   and followed my trade as a tailor by myself, having no
   apprentice. I also had a nursery of apple-trees, in which I
   employed some of my time in hoeing, grafting, trimming, and
   innoculating.

When he was twenty-six, he felt moved to visit Quaker settlements in
Virginia <@ 38 N 78 W> and North Carolina <@ 37 N 80 W>. Here he
often lodged as a guest, in comfort, in homes where the comfort was
provided by slave labor. He felt increasingly uncomfortable with
this, and on returning home he wrote a small book called SOME
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE KEEPING OF NEGROES.

     Thereafter, Woolman, when on his journeys he lodged with Quaker
hosts who were slave-holders, would speak to them about the duty of
freeing their slaves. If they would not do so, he insisted on paying
for his lodging, so as not to profit personally from the forced
labor of slaves. He gave up sugar, since the sugar plantations were
worked by slaves, and eventually gave up dyed clothing, since he was
told that indigo and other dyes were produced by slave labor. He
also avoided dyed clothing because it was showy and thus
incompatible wth the "plainness" of life that became a Quaker; and
because it was harder to see dirt on dyed cloth than on plain cloth,
and he suspected that many persons wore dyed garments to avoid the
trouble of washing them so often. (In an age when many even of the
upper classes used a great deal of powder and perfume as a
substitute for the daily bath, this was not an altogether fanciful
argument.)
     In 1758, in London Grove <???>, a small town south of
Philadelphia, Woolman preached a sermon against slavery, and was
then taken to the home of one Thomas Woodward for dinner. On
arriving, he saw some black attendants, and upon inquiring he was
told that they were slaves. Without saying anything more, he left
the house. His hosts assumed that he would return shortly, but he
did not. Thomas Woodward was badly shaken. The next morning, he told
his wife that he was determined to free all his slaves. Woolman had
not convinced him by his sermon, but by his silent testimony.
Woodward was not willing to keep a house that men whom he admired
were not willing to stay in. That year, the Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting took a stand against slavery, chiefly in response to
Woolman's testimony. It appointed a committee to "labor with" any
Quakers who still owned slaves.

In 1770, while ill, Woolman had a vision:
   I was then carried in Spirit to the mines, where poor oppressed
   people were digging rich treasures for those called Christians,
   and I heard them blaspheme the name of Christ, at which I was
   grieved for his Name to me was precious. Then I was informed
   that these heathen were told that those who oppressed them were
   the followers of Christ; and they said among themselves, If
   Christ directed them to use us in this sort then Christ is a
   cruel tyrant.

Slavery was abolished by law in Pennsylvania in 1780, and in New
Jersey in 1803. Woolman's testimony was also heard as he traveled in
the South, where it was easier for those who had grown up with
slavery to regard it as both normal and necessary. By 1787, no
Quaker in North America owned slaves. The Quaker Stephen Hopkins,
governor of Rhode Island for nine consecutive terms, refused to free
his one slave, and was disowned for it.

We may here remark that Quakers had always given women and men equal
status in their worship and organization, and that they were leaders
in the movement for women suffrage. Two of the earliest pioneers of
the movement were the Quakers Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) and Susan B
Anthony (1820-1906).

     Woolman also concerned himself with the question of fair
treatment of the Indians, and here his concern was perhaps more
daring; for by speaking on behalf of Negro slaves, he risked
offending chiefly the minority who were prosperous enough to own
slaves, but by speaking for cheated and dispossessed Indians, he
risked offending all who had profited by dishonest dealings with
them, and this implicated rich and poor alike. He was perceptive
enough to see and direct his attention to the roots of the problem,
and not just to the final act.
     It often happened that Europeans simply robbed or cheated the
Indians. However, the presence even of honest whites would have
brught trouble to the Indians.  Whenever Indians and whites made
contact, the Indians rapidly came to see the value of the trade
goods the whites had to offer.  They preferred firearms to bows and
arrows. They preferred cloth textiles to garments of deerskin. They
preferred iron kettles to their own clay vessels, which could not be
placed over a fire, but could be used for cooking stews by heating
stones in the fire and then dropping them into the stew, ladling out
the stones that had cooled and reheating them. They preferred steel
needles and knives to bone and stone implements. But they never
learned to make any of these new devices for themselves, and
eventually through disuse forgot their former crafts, so that they
were absolutely dependent on trade with the white man. And the only
things they had to offer in return were furs and lands.
     A similar situation was found in trade between Europe and China
in the early 1800's. The Europeans passionately desired silk and
porcelain, available only from China. However they had nothing to
offer in return that the Chinese were disposed to accept, except
gold. The treasuries of Europe were being steadily depleted of their
gold reserves, until the Europeans (led by the British) discovered
that the Chinese would be happy to buy opium from the West, and to
trade silk and porcelain for it. The problem was that the Chinese
government objected to having its citizens turned into addicts. The
result was the Opium Wars, by which the Chinese were compelled to
permit the drug trade.

Back to Woolman on the subject of the Indians. He wrote:

   I perceived that many white people often sell rum to the
   Indians, which I believe is a great evil. In the first place,
   they are thereby deprived of the use of reason, and their
   spirits being violently agitated, quarrels often arise which
   end in mischief, and the bitterness and resentment occasioned
   thereby are frequently of long continuance. Again their skins
   and furs, gotten through much fatigue and hard travels, with
   which they intended to buy clothing, they often sell at a low
   rate for more rum when they become intoxicated; and
   afterwards, when they suffer for want of the necessities of
   life, are angry with those who, for the sake of gain, took
   advantage of their weakness. Their chiefs have often complained
   of this in their treaties with the English.

   I also remembered the [white] people on the frontiers, among
   whom this evil is too common, are often poor; and that they
   venture to the outside of a colony in order to live more
   independently of the wealthy, who often set high rents on their
   land. I was renewedly confirmed in a belief, that if all our
   inhabitants lived according to sound wisdom, laboring to
   promote universal love and righteousness, and ceased from every
   inordinate desire after wealth, and from all customs which are
   tinctured with luxury, the way would be easy for our
   inhabitants, though they might be much more numerous than at
   present, to live comfortably on honest employments, without the
   temptation they are so often under of being drawn into schemes
   to make settlements on lands which have not been purchased of
   the Indians, or of applying to that wicked practice of selling
   rum to them.

   The rising up of a desire to obtain wealth is the beginning;
   this desire being cherished, moves to action; and riches thus
   gotten please self; and while self has a life in them it
   desires to have them defended. Wealth is attended with Power,
   by which bargains and proceedings contrary to Universal
   Righteousness are supported.... O that we who declare against
   wars, and acknowledge our trust to be in God only, may walk in
   the light, and therein examine our foundation and motives in
   holding great estates! May we look upon our treasures, the
   furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the
   seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.

     In 1772, Woolman made a journey to England to preach there. He
could have sailed as a first class passenger, but chose to go by
steerage, partly because he disapproved of social distinction, and
partly because the upper part of the ship was decorated with
elaborate woodcarvings, which he took to be part of the perquisites
purchased with a first-class ticket, and which he regarded as
"frills," and therefore something that a Quaker should not be
buying.
     On arriving in England, he presented his credentials to the
London Quakers, who at first looked askance at this stranger with
his undyed clothing, rumpled from five weeks in steerage. However,
after they had heard him preach, their doubts were gone. Woolman
soon started north, wishing to visit the area where Fox had begun
his ministry. The normal mode of travel would have been stagecoach,
but Woolman inquired and learned that, in order to make the journey
swiftly, the coachmen drove the horses unreasonably hard, and that
the horseboys were overworked and badly treated. He accordingly
would not ride the stage, nor would he while in England mail a
letter (since the mails were carried by stage). Instead, he walked
north, covering more than 400 miles in 6 weeks, a little over ten
miles a day, not counting Sundays--not a record, but then he was
preaching as he went. Soon after arriving in York, he was stricken
with smallpox, and died 7 October 1772. His JOURNAL survives and is
widely regarded as a spiritual classic.

$$$ FOR FURTHER READING

 @@@ WOOLMAN, JOHN
     THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMAN and A PLEA FOR THE POOR $8pb
0-8065-0294-0 Citadel Press
     SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE KEEPING OF NEGROES (1978) $15
0-405-00670-5 Ayer
     WORKS OF JOHN WOOLMAN $223 0-8369-8694-6 Ayer
     WORSHIP (1950) $3p PH -051-0
     Edwin H Cady, JOHN WOOLMAN: THE MIND OF THE QUAKER SAINT,
(Great American Thinkers Series) 1966, Washington Square Press, NY,
182pp
     Paul Rosenblatt, JOHN WOOLMAN (Great American Thinkers Series)
$18 0-89197-813-5 Irvington
     Henry Joel Cadbury, JOHN WOOLMAN IN ENGLAND, L=2 pb, Friends
HIstorical Society, 0-900469-06-4.
     Reginald Roberts, JOHN WOOLMAN AND THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (1958)
$3p PH -096-0