By Lynn Burnett
This piece is primarily based on the remarkable book by Marcus Rediker:The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist.
Born in England in 1682, as a sailor Benjamin Lay witnessed the brutality of the slave trade first hand. The experience guided him towards an early embrace of abolitionism, especially after witnessing a slave commit suicide to escape abuse. Benjamin eventually settled in the British colony of Pennsylvania, where he scandalized his fellow Quakers with intense public protests and acts of “guerilla theatre” against slavery.
Barely four feet tall, with dwarfism and a spinal condition known as hyperkyphosis, “Little Benjamin” (as he called himself) once stood outside a Quaker meeting in the snow… barefoot and with no coat. He positioned himself in the gateway leading to the meetinghouse, ensuring that each congregant would pass by him. When they expressed concern for his health, he responded that enslaved people had little protection against the elements, and that the congregants should show the same concern for them. Such actions were not uncommon for Benjamin: he put his body on the line again and again… but in his case, to challenge his own community. His various actions led him to be physically removed – and even permanently expelled – from Quaker meetings on numerous occasions. This didn’t stop him from returning, and continuing to pressure those communities to live up to their professed ideals.
Benjamin Lay saved his most creative and dramatic act of guerilla theatre for a potentially high-impact moment: a regional Quaker gathering that took place only once a year. After traveling 30 miles on foot, Benjamin took full advantage of the Quaker tradition of rising to speak when the spirit moved you: in his case, he rose to deliver a fiery anti-slavery speech grounded in Biblical verse. He ended by holding the Bible high above his head… and then plunging a sword into it. The Bible had been hollowed out, and Benjamin had placed an animal bladder filled with blood-red juice inside. Blood appeared to spray out of the Bible. Benjamin then splattered the slave-owning Quakers at the meeting with the Bible’s “blood.” The message was clear: supporting slavery was akin to murdering the Word of God.
During his life, “Little Benjamin” wrote over 200 pamphlets, condemning animal cruelty, imprisonment, and capital punishment. He singled out slavery, however, not merely as a cruel practice… but a demonic one. Benjamin Lay’s language was uncompromising: those who practiced slavery bore the “Mark of the Beast,” and were responsible for creating Hell on earth. He urged Quakers to take a stand, and expel church members who owned or traded in slaves. Benjamin Lay also boycotted the slave-labor industry by making his own clothes. In 1738, a printer he had befriended published his book “All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates.” It was the most militant anti-slavery tract to date. The printer was Benjamin Franklin, who kept his own involvement anonymous.
In his later years, Benjamin Lay embraced a self-sufficient and hermetic lifestyle, living in a cave out in the Pennsylvania countryside with a constructed entryway to protect from the elements. He filled the cave with books of poetry, theology, and history; spun his own flax clothing; kept goats for milk; gardened; harvested from fruit trees he had planted; and made his own honey by tending to an enormous beehive.
In 1758, when the Pennsylvania Quakers passed a resolution disciplining any slave owners and traders, Benjamin exclaimed “I can now die in peace.” He did so the following year. Decades after his death, Quakers would rise to the forefront of the abolitionist movement: many of them kept images of Benjamin Lay in their homes as a source of inspiration.
Additional Resources
Books
David Lester (author), with Paul Buhle & Marcus Rediker (editors): Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel.
Marcus Rediker: The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist.
Articles
Abington Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends: Info on Benjamin Lay.
Susan Hogan: ‘In the belly of hell’: The Quaker abolitionist disowned by his faith for condemning slave owners.
Marcus Rediker:
- The “Quaker Comet” Was the Greatest Abolitionist You’ve Never Heard Of.
- Image of Benjamin Lay’s cave.
- Diorama of Benjamin Lay with his vegetables, bee’s nest, and sheep.
Nic Rigby: Benjamin Lay: The Quaker dwarf who fought slavery.
Wikipedia entry.
