Blog 11-10-25 – Rediker and Lay

Hello again.

I’ve been away from my weekly Blog – not for earthshaking reasons – but small excuses of medical hassles, of bringing order to neglected files, to clearing ordinary clutter, to heavy-duty computer difficulties, and lastly to daily disorder I’ve let progress until the disorder – together with worry about the state of our world, simply moved beyond my easy solution. My weekly blogs simply ceased.

Now weekly Blogs began again. With two reminders: 1) while Blogs are posted on Facebook – and I read every comment – if you wish a more personal contact you’ll need to use info on weekly signature and 2) many Blogs, as is this one) are possible pages from the current book I’m attempting to finish: A Quaker Solution. Your comments are most helpful!

On September 19, 1738, a man named Benjamin Lay strode into a Quaker meetinghouse in Burlington, New Jersey, for the biggest event of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. He wore a great coat, which hid a military uniform and a sword. Beneath his coat Lay carried a hollowed-out book with a secret compartment, into which he had tucked a tied-off animal bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice. Because Quakers had no formal minister or church ceremony, people spoke as the spirit moved them. Lay, a Quaker himself, waited his turn.

He finally rose to address this gathering of “weighty Quakers.” Many Friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey had grown rich on Atlantic commerce, and many bought human property (slaves). To them Lay announced in a booming voice that God Almighty respects all peoples equally, rich and poor, men and women, white and black alike. He said that slave keeping was the greatest sin in the world and asked, How can a people who profess the golden rule keep slaves? He then threw off his great coat, revealing the military grab, the book and the blade.

A murmur filled the hall as the prophet thundered his judgment: “Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures.” He pulled out the sword, raised the book above his head, and plunged the sword through it. People gasped as the red liquid gushed down his arm; women swooned. To the shock of all, he spattered “blood” on the slave keepers. He prophesied a dark, violent future. Quakers who failed to heed the prophet’s call must expect physical, moral and spiritual death.

The room exploded into chaos but Lay stood quiet and still, “like a statue,” a witness remarked. Several Quakers quickly surrounded the armed soldier of God and carried him from the building. He did not resist. He had made his point.

Marcus Rediker, The Cave-Dwelling Vegan Who Took On Quaker Slavery, And Won! The Nation’s First Radical Abolitionist Was One of the Most Dramatic Outspoken Figures of the 18th Century. Yet Few Historians Have Even Heard of the Amazing Benjamin Lay, Smithsonian.com September 2017, p 36.

Let’s keep reading more of this most remarkable Quaker man.

‘This spectacular performance was one moment of guerrilla theater among many in Lay’s life. For nearly a quarter-century he railed against slavery in one Quaker meeting after another in and around Philadelphia, confronting slave owners and slave traders with a savage, most un-Quaker fury. Hi insisted on the utter depravity and sinfulness of “Man-stealers,” who were, in his view, the literal spawn of Satan. He considered it his Godly duty to expose and drive them out. At a time when slavery seemed to many people around the world as natural and unchangeable as the sun, the moon and the stars, he became one of the very first to call for the abolition of slavery and an avatar of confrontational public protest.

He was notable for his physique. Benjamin Lay was a dwarf, or “little person,” standing just over four feet tall. He was called a hunchback because of an extreme curvature of his spine, a medical condition called kyphosis. According to a fellow Quaker, “His head was large in proportion to his body; the features of his face were remarkable, and boldly delineated, and is countenance was grave and benignant. . . . His legs were so slender, as to appear almost unequal to the purpose of supporting him, diminutive as his frame.” Yet I have found no evidence that Lay thought himself in any way diminished, or that his body kept him from doing anything he wanted to do. His called himself “little Benjamin,” but he also likened himself to “little David” who slew Goliath. He did not lack confidence in himself or his ideas,” p 36.

This article also includes more about four early abolitionists.

[My apologies: Reading, Writing currently consumes most of my dwindling energy.]
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