Background
Benjamin Lay was born in Colchester, Essex, England.
(BENJAMIN LAY 1677 – 1759 A PIONEER QUAKER ANTISLAVERY ADV...)
BENJAMIN LAY 1677 – 1759 A PIONEER QUAKER ANTISLAVERY ADVOCATE AND ACTIVIST
https://www.amazon.com/Benjamin-Lay-Antislavery-Advocate-Activist/dp/1515034828?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1515034828
( The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration...)
The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. Delve into what it was like to live during the eighteenth century by reading the first-hand accounts of everyday people, including city dwellers and farmers, businessmen and bankers, artisans and merchants, artists and their patrons, politicians and their constituents. Original texts make the American, French, and Industrial revolutions vividly contemporary. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ Library of Congress W009836 Dated on p. 253: Abington, the 29th of the 3d mo. 1738. Ascribed to the press of Benjamin Franklin by Miller. Errata statement, p. 278. "An address to the Elders of the Church" (on slave-keeping), by William Burling, p.6-10. Philadelphia : Printed by Benjamin Franklin for the author, 1737 i.e., 1738. 271, 9 p. ; 8°.
https://www.amazon.com/slave-keepers-apostates-pretending-congregation-especially/dp/1171475705?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1171475705
Benjamin Lay was born in Colchester, Essex, England.
Lay was deformed, and when full grown was hump-backed and only four feet seven inches in height, with a large head and slender legs that seemed almost unequal to bearing the weight of his body. Along with his physical deficiencies went mental peculiarities which had a determining influence upon the course of his later life. As a youth, after engaging in various occupations ashore, he went to sea, and on one voyage visited Syria, but about 1710 returned to Colchester, and remained there for several years. His assertiveness made him so troublesome in the affairs of the Quaker meeting that about 1717 he was removed from membership. He did not, however, either then or later, regard himself as cut off from the Society, and throughout his later life continued to be associated with the Friends.
In 1718 he migrated to Barbados and engaged in business. The large black-slave population at once attracted his interest and stirred him to humanitarian efforts. He gathered the slaves about him on Sundays, feeding them and talking to them about religion. Suspicion and animosity aroused by his concern for the blacks and his constant readiness to argue on slavery caused him to leave the island in 1731 and go to Pennsylvania, where he settled near Philadelphia.
In this colony he was able to bear his testimony against slavery without hindrance and it is from this period that most records of his eccentricities have come. He once attempted to imitate Christ by fasting for forty days. This act brought him near death, and only great care by friends restored his health. He feigned suicide in a Quaker meeting house, appearing to stab himself and causing a quantity of red fluid resembling blood to stream forth. Those present were greatly alarmed. He understood the value of a dramatic protest, and on one occasion stationed himself at the gateway to a meeting house with one leg bared and half buried in deep snow. To those who remonstrated he answered: "Ah, you pretend compassion for me, but you do not feel for the poor slaves in your fields, who go all winter half clad".
His eccentricities attracted much public attention and he was once visited by Governor Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and other gentlemen, before whom he set a plain meal of fruits and vegetables, since the use of animal products for either food or clothing was another matter upon which he bore testimony against prevailing practice. Franklin printed one of his numerous pamphlets against slavery, All Slave-keepers that Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates Pretending to Lay Claim to the Pure & Holy Christian Religion, etc. (1737). From time to time Lay made public condemnation of the use of liquors, tobacco, and tea, and also advocated a more humane criminal code.
After 1740 he lived with John Phipps near Abington Friends' meeting house, and there he died in February 1759, being buried in the Friends' burial ground.
Lay exercised considerable influence upon the Quaker attitude towards slavery and shortly before his death had the satisfaction of learning that the Society had resolved to disown slave-holding members. He published over 200 pamphlets, most of which were impassioned polemics against various social institutions of the time, particularly slavery, capital punishment, the prison system, the moneyed Pennsylvania Quaker elite, etc.
( The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration...)
(BENJAMIN LAY 1677 – 1759 A PIONEER QUAKER ANTISLAVERY ADV...)
Lay was married to Sarah Smith. His wife was small of stature, and deformed. She is described as an intelligent and pious woman, an approved minister in the Society of Friends, who supported her husband at all times in his anti-slavery activities.
