FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY (24) - QUAKERS, THE YEARLY MEETING (2026), 'QUAKERS, ENSLAVEMENT AND REPARATION'

 Geoff Watson, our clerk, handed me a copy of this important publication last Sunday and here below is my introduction to the book by way of summary and with some personal responses. This is a work of Quaker scholarship which provides groundbreaking and cutting-edge insights into the issue of racism within the history of Quakers and in our lives today. It is clear that George Fox and other early Quakers, despite their spiritual insights, remained blind to their own racial sin. 

Quakers, enslavement and reparation - a very important read

The cover imagery is important and an explanation appears in the book straightaway: 

In the 18th and 19th century, a single trunk giving rise to subordinate lines was used in European genealogy to naturalise racial hierarchy. The authors of this volume want to make the tree a theological image; they have chosen roots as their primary visual anchor to reclaim the image of the tree from its colonial misuse and instead allow it to 'hold a truth of interconnection, unearthing, and continuity.' 

The collage acts as a meditative piece, enabling the focus on what they call the "gap" - 'the profound sense of absence and broken history'. There is so little in the archives that represents black voices and

thoughts. 

In the first pages there is also a very important Statement on Terminology. There has been a decision to reject some of the phrases and terms traditionally used in Quaker historiography on the grounds they perpetuate harmful narratives. So, no longer 'slaves'; instead - people enslaved, enslaved people, people held in bondage. No longer 'slave traders', 'masters', 'owners of slaves'; instead - enslavers. No longer ''transported', 'sold, 'shipped'; instead - trafficked. No longer 'transatlantic slave trade'; instead - transatlantic chattel enslavement. It is important and worthwhile to spend some time reflecting on this new vocabulary and the reasons why it has been adopted.   

Enslavement in a sugar plantation - BBC image

The book is the fruit of four years work under the auspices of the Reparations Working Group (RWG) set up by Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) in 2022 under the auspices of a Woodbrooke team. Research was needed to help modern British Quakers understand the ways in which Quakers have theologically justified oppression and enslavement. Three strands of theology have been identified and written up by Benjamin Wood:

• Theology used to justify and support systems of enslavement and oppression
• Theology of abolition
• Theology of reparation and liberation 

Lack of space and time prevents me from dealing with these strands of theology in full detail in this post but I will make a number of points:

• The theology section occupies 124 pages; the history section that precedes it has 63 pages. I found the history section more readable and packed with vital detail that I did not know. 
• The theology section does contain excellent historical detail that helps us understand why Fox and Penn wrote about black enslaved people as they did and acted (and failed to act) accordingly - but the overall impact of the over-long theology section seems to me to be blunted by too much detail.  
• It may be that since the notion of a Quaker theology is itself problematic, the decision to organise this Quaker research project along these lines was not well-judged. I would have preferred a treatment that can take an ordinary reader (not someone with an assumed academic background) through the historical periods that have been identified, much as Lily Chadwick does (see below) - with the consideration of theological issues developed within that writing. 
•  In short, I think one section of around 100 pages - an exploration of how good and inspired people can still have their blind spots, teasing out the range of reasons and linking it to their thoughts about God - would have made for better communication of the crucial Quaker insights that are in this book.   

Enslaved people on a sugar plantation - Wikimedia image

   

The three strands of historical research, written up by Lily Chadwick, comprise the periods 1650s - 1727; 1728 -1787; and 1788- present.

The first strand - 1650s-1727 - is titled: Quakers and Enslavement as a 'Christianising' Enterprise. Here, Chadwick establishes that the emergence of the early Quaker movement in mid- and late-seventeenth century Britain came at a time of accelerating imperialism across Europe, leading to the seizure of land for new colonies and the enslaving of people to perform forced labour and exploit resources in Africa, the Caribbean and North America. British Quakers were present in this colonial context, primarily in the Caribbean and North America. 

For example, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher began their Quaker missionary work in Barbados in 1655, preaching and converting Europeans who had already established the sugar plantation system of chattel enslavement. It is estimated that by 1680 nearly 1200 Quakers lived on Barbados (6% of the European population of the island) - and at least eighty per cent of these held at least one person in bondage. Quaker chattel enslavement became the norm as Quaker communities developed in other colonies such as Pennsylvania and Maryland and elsewhere. 

Chadwick draws attention to the 'explicit silences of the archive'. There are no enslaved voices - the Black identities have been erased. 150 enslaved African people were trafficked to Philadelphia as labour to build the Quaker 'holy experiment' - they have been wiped off the historical record except as a number. 

George Fox first addressed the issue in a 1657 epistle and did not condemn enslavement. Instead he urged Friends to be merciful towards those they held in bondage. Fox and other Quakers 'justified' enslavement by attempting to reconcile it with Quaker beliefs and practice. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Quakers feared for their survival and became intent on showing they could coexist peacefully alongside mainstream society. As a consequence, Quakers became increasingly integrated into the emerging capitalist economies - and also deeply intertwined in exploitation. It was not until 1727 that London Yearly Meeting condemned the "importation of negroes from their native country and relations by Friends".

In the second strand - 1728-1787 - titled: Quakers and Abolition, Chadwick sees British Friends deliberating the place of chattel enslavement within Quaker communities. The Religious Society of Friends was slow 'to formally implement a faith-wide antislavery ethos'. Quaker communities in the Caribbean and North America remained largely entangled in transatlantic chattel enslavement throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Quakers were not the first to express antislavery sentiment - one reason why Quakers made this turn was because of acts of resistance from the people Quakers held in bondage. A few Quaker voices were important in the early eighteenth century antislavery movement - Benjamin Lay, Anthony Benezet and John Woolman - but these were men at the margins; there were powerful Quaker voices who sought to silence Lay. Chadwick concludes that anti-slavery rhetoric did not lead to support for 'egalitarianism nor inclusion within the Society of Friends'. 'Racialised hierarchies of power and marginalisation' still prevailed'. One positive breakthrough came in 1787 with the formation of the 'Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade' by some Quakers and Anglicans working together. 

Check it out - this seems to be GB News

In the third strand - 1788- to the present - titled: Quakers and Reparations, Chadwick argues that 'people of colour connected to the Religious Society of Friends continued to experience marginalisation, discrimination and even exclusion from Quaker meetings. The histories of American and British Quakerism in regard to race and racism are separate but interconnected - they share 'a legacy of practices and culture shaped by Anglocentrism and whiteness'. It is often difficult for white Friends 'to recognise that contemporary structures and practices within Quakerism do not serve Friends from all lived experiences and racialised identities... so many Friends believe they have escaped the sin of racism. Pride and a self-righteousness often blind Quakers to the reality of it'.  

We are living through a time when the issues of an Apology and reparations are centre-stage nationally, at least for the moment. These are matters that we all need to care about and reach a discernment.