Recently at Brighton Meeting, a Friend spoke of his shock at learning about the Quakers in Barbados who employed enslaved people on their plantations. It now seems appropriate to share with Friends some of the research undertaken by the Information and Out Reach group at Brighton Meeting.
Britain Yearly Meeting has asked Quaker Meetings to consider the history of the enslavement of African people and possible Quaker involvement in that history. We have been asked to reflect on what form of reparation might be appropriate; to consider how this past might be recognised and what, if anything would be acceptable and helpful for our local African-descent communities. To this end the I&OR committee has begun to research Brighton Quakers’ involvement, if any with the trading of enslaved people, and the wider picture across the Society during the 17th and 18th centuries.
It is worth mentioning at this point, two Papal Bulls published in the 15th century, 1403 and 1493. These decrees identified indigenous people as “infidels” who, as non-Christian could therefore be enslaved, thus giving slavery a spiritual endorsement.
And so to Barbados. The island was first settled in 1627, with plantations growing tobacco and sugar crops. By the 1650s enslaved Africans were working the plantations, many of which were owned by Quaker immigrants... George Rofe called the island the “nursery of (Quaker) truth”. Quakers and other Christian missionaries believed using enslaved people to be economically prudent and justified this, quoting precedents from the Bible and claiming that Christian slaves would be more docile and hard-working than their non-Christian contemporaries.
With thousands of Quakers in Barbados by the 1670s, George Fox considered the island an important place to visit. Mostly concerned with the spiritual welfare of the Africans, Fox encouraged Quaker plantation owners to worship with their enslaved workers, introducing them to Quakerism and thus Christianity.
In 1675, following a foiled slave rebellion, the island authorities (English settlers) banned Quakers from worshipping with enslaved people. Quakers were then considered to be radical and dangerous when they defied this ban.
Colonists at this time termed themselves ‘Christian’ settlers; Christian slaves, with the implication of potential eventual freedom became a perceived danger, so the Quaker colonists threatened the status quo. To protect themselves from this threat, the Christian settlers began to pass legislation that referred to freeholders as Christian and white; legislation which also began to limit the rights of citizenship open to Black Christians.
Pennsylvania had been settled in America by Quaker, William Penn by 1682. Settlers there used the Barbados-Quaker connection to purchase resources and ‘import’ enslaved people to work their new plantations. Many Quakers moved to Pennsylvania; others died or left the Society of Friends so that, by 1750 the number of Quakers in Barbados had declined to almost nothing.
After little more than a century on the island, the Quakers (and other European sects) had introduced Christianity to the enslaved Africans which, in turn led to legislation which made race a political category for the first time.
Further articles will explore the involvement of Brighton and other British Quakers in the enslavement of African people and indeed its abolition.