Heeeeeeeyyyyy! I just had a good meal and some good wine. I've been thinking about Juneteenth and early modern Quaker stuff and how this might intersect then I was like, "HOLY SHIrT I FEEL A THREAD COMING ON."

So here we go. Let's all time travel to Feb. 18, 1688!

Let me preface this that I am an early modern English lady lit expert, so this is a bit tangential to what I normally do, but there is a connection. This story stars Francis Pastorius who was friends with William Penn (as in THE William Penn as in PENNSYLFUCKINGVANIA) who was...

...BFFs with Margaret Askew Fell Fox, the Mother of Quakerism. So while she was up to radical badass lady stuff in England, this story is about what the friend of her friend (Her Friend friend's Friend friend! Hahaha...okay...bad Quaker joke) was up to in America.

In the 17th century, slavery was alive & well in several parts of the world. It was a thriving industry, of course, in America. The oldest known English land deed in America, the Flowerdew Hundred plantation, had slaves working it. Slavery is how white enterprise flourished here.

Francis Daniel Pastorius had settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania with a bunch of German-Dutch immigrants. The Quakers were a pretty radical group back in the day. They believed in women's equality which was hella crazy at the time. They protested wars and women openly preached.

They caused a lot of white folks to clutch their pearls in the 17th century. One of the core beliefs was that the Light of Christ was accessible to everyone equally (to overly simplify it) so the rich & poor, titled & untitled, men & women, etc.all had this equalizing quality.

So it would stand to reason that Quakers would be for race equality, at least in the sense of people having equal value, worth, & potential to be an instrument of Christ. Ok...like, only a small handful wrote about it, but yes, there were abolishionist voices in the 17th century.

Francis Daniel Pastorius was one such lad. He was witnessing slavery first hand in the colonies, and it didn't sit well with him. Well, duh. Slavery is awful. But remember where this dude was. Just about everyone who could in the area, including Quakers, owned slaves.

Debates going on at the time discussed how it was more ethical to own fewer slaves, to treat them well, to consider them Christian, etc. It doesn't make it any better. I'm just establishing dialogical context here. A lot of this was based on racist biblical exegesis bullshit.

Francis Pastorius got together in 1688 with Garret Hendericks, Derick op den Graeff, and Abraham op den Graeff (William Penn's cousin) to write a brief statement about why slavery was bad. Writing strong statements about controversial subject was a common Quaker practice.

Pamphlets, broadsides, etc. were all the rage, and Quakers took advantage of popular print. Quakers were also big on writing letters to other "meetings" (i.e. congregations). This petition to end slavery was intended to be circulated and possibly published.

(Pics below)

So what were the central arguments of this petition? I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

Unlike everything I have read by emod Quakers, there really isn't much religion in this petition. Even when Margaret Fell wrote petitions to the King, Christ-mentions were all over the place.

It basically says that:

1. Slavery breaks up families, which is bad.
2. Slavery breaks the Holden Rule.
3. Slavery incites fear.
4. Robbing and stealing is bad, and you are robbing and stealing people.
5. Europe is totes jelly of Quakers and are looking at us as role models.

6. Slaves are gonna revolt.
7. Now you are in a slave-master war. See how that goes for ya.

And of course:

8. Turks keep slaves*, and we so don't want to be like the Turks.

There's a long historical backstory to the Turk dig in that petition, but this is a lesson for another day.

So...how much of an impact this petition have on shifting Quaker opinion on slavery?

Honestly, not much from what we can tell.

BUT this 1688 petition is considered by some to be the first antislavery petition in America! So that's worth noting.

I can't help but think, however, that there were more before this in America. Whitewashed history ignores Black voices & keeps them out of the narrative.

I guess the moral of the story is that white people really have to let go of this idea that slavery was a thing our ancestors did but back then people didn't know any better. But they so did, and we continue to benefit from generational & public wealth built by slave labor.

The story of the 1688 petition also shows that while historically there have been white allies in this fight against slavery and racism, but not all allies know how to be good at it. There are a lot of well-meaning but ineffective attempts to fight for Black lives.

If we white people want to be better allies, we must shut up and listen more to Black voices. We need to let go of ego and support them in ways that are effective. Black lives matter. Black voices matter. We need to drop the White Savior complex and get to work.