Nice detec­tive work in this arti­cle by Jim Fussell. In recent years, we’ve flipped the tra­di­tion­al script of Friends as unal­loyed sav­iors for their work on man­u­mis­sions and the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. We now affirm that many held slaves begin­ning in 1655, when Quak­er mis­sion­ar­ies Ann Austin and Mary Fish­er land­ed on the heav­i­ly enslaved island of Bar­ba­dos and con­vinced a num­ber of the White enslavers to become Friends. A few years lat­er Mary Fish­er then went on trav­el to Turkey to try to con­vince the sul­tan of the Ottoman Empire. Despite her amaz­ing brav­ery, in her will Fish­er named a “Indi­an girle Slave, named Reigner.” .

We now talk about the era in which Quak­ers were slave­hold­ers but Jim goes a step fur­ther to talk about the enslaved Africans’ resis­tance to Quak­er enslavers. In an era in which we’re once more appar­ent­ly debat­ing if vio­lence against prop­er­ty is okay, the sto­ry of two enslaved women, Grace and Jane, burn­ing a plan­ta­tion tobac­co barn seems almost quaint­ly direct action.

Black Resis­tance to Quak­er Enslavement 

Explore how Black resis­tance, through brave con­fronta­tion, escape, and advo­ca­cy helped pro­pel the path toward abo­li­tion in Quaker…

Friends Journal