![]() ![]() He started connecting and sharing ideas with other local anti-slavery Quaker advocates like Ralph Sandiford. He felt that slavery was a ‘hellish practice’ that should be abolished (Rediker 34). During a brief stay in Barbados, he witnessed the horrors of slavery on sugar plantations. In Philadelphia, Lay turned his attention to slavery. He wasn’t afraid to tell people what he thought, even if it caused his own public ostracism and shame. ![]() His actions were sourced directly from his internal compass of right and wrong. A person of devout faith, Lay believed in the ideals of democracy and freedom that underpinned the Quaker faith and publicly rebuked Quaker ministers whose faith he deemed feigned or artificial. ![]() Picture of Benjamin Lay discovered within the folds of The Rosenbach’s copy of The Lives of Eminent Philadelphia’s Now Deceased, 1859 Henry Simpsonīenjamin Lay arrived in Philadelphia 1731, fresh from stirring up troubles in the Quaker communities of England. A few of these early anti-slavery advocates are here at The Rosenbach. But since the beginning of slavery in the United States, there were people whose lives were devoted to ceasing and ending it. We often think of the abolition movement beginning in the early 1820s with people like Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth and Charlotte Grimke. ![]()
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