International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

In 1750 a minor revolution took place among the Philadelphia Quakers that eventually eliminated slavery within the community. The most active and visible proponent of this revolution was Anthony Benezet, whose impassioned publications and personal good works put him at the forefront of change in colonial America and Great Britain. Born a French Huguenot, Benezet was educated in London and immigrated to Philadelphia at the age of 18. There he joined the Society of Friends. After a brief and unsuccessful attempt at a trade, Benezet began teaching in 1739 and developed an awareness of the multiple inequities within his society over his lifetime. He sought to address those inequities through education, establishing the first girls' public school in 1755 and the Negro School at Philadelphia in 1770. The primary inequity that captured his imagination was the keeping of African slaves, a practice which was justified by their supposed intellectual inferiority. In 1750 he began tutoring the children of slaves out of his home in the evening and observed first hand both their intellectual capabilities and the injustice of keeping sentient human beings as chattels. He argued that belief in the “inferior capacities” of Africans was a “vulgar prejudice” based on the “pride or ignorance” of slavemasters ( Armistead 1971 : 18). From his interactions with these eager and disenfranchised pupils, ... log in or subscribe to read full text