Carey, Brycchan (2008) A quiet rhetoric? Uncovering the origins of the Quaker Antislavery International. In: Queens' Arts Seminar; 29 Oct 2008, Cambridge, U.K.. (Unpublished)

Abstract

Everyone knows that Quakers were at the heart of the antislavery movements that sprung up throughout the Atlantic World in the late eighteenth century, and which played prominent roles in the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery throughout the world. What is less well known is the circuitous route members of the Society of Friends themselves took to reach a consensus on slavery. In this paper, I will chart the beginnings of Quaker thought on slavery, from their first tentative debates in seventeenth-century Barbados to their broad acceptance of antislavery principles in pre-revolutionary Philadelphia, to show that, far from being the fruit of plain speaking and quiet reflection, early Quaker antislavery was in reality the product of sophisticated rhetoric and vigorous debate.

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