You'll Never Be as Radical as This 18th-Century Quaker Dwarf
Oh, I had never heard of this man, but definitely need to learn more about him. I love reading about these great men whose stories have been largely ignored and forgotten by history.
Oh, I had never heard of this man, but definitely need to learn more about him. I love reading about these great men whose stories have been largely ignored and forgotten by history.
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It was September 1738, and Benjamin Lay had walked 20 miles, subsisting on "acorns and peaches," to reach the Quakers' Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Beneath his overcoat he wore a military uniform and a sword both anathema to Quaker teachings. He also carried a hollowed-out book with a secret compartment, into which he had tucked a tied-off animal bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice.
When it was Lay's turn to speak, he rose to address the Quakers, many of whom had grown rich and bought African slaves. He was a dwarf, barely four feet tall, but from his small body came a thunderous voice. God, he intoned, respects all people equally, be they rich or poor, man or woman, white or black.
Throwing his overcoat aside, he spoke his prophecy: "Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures." He raised the book above his head and plunged the sword through it. As the "blood" gushed down his arm, several members of the congregation swooned. He then splattered it on the heads and bodies of the slave keepers. His message was clear: Anyone who failed to heed his call must expect death of body and soul.
Lay did not resist when his fellow Quakers threw him out of the building. He knew he would be disowned by his beloved community for his performance, but he had made his point. As long as Quakers owned slaves, he would use his body and his words to disrupt their hypocritical routines.
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Lay, a hunchback as well as a dwarf, was the world's first revolutionary abolitionist. Against the common sense of the day, when slavery seemed to most people as immutable as the stars in the heavens, Lay imagined a new world in which people would live simply, make their own food and clothes, and respect nature. He lived in a cave in Abington, Pa., ate only fruits and vegetables "the innocent fruits of the earth" and championed animal rights. He refused to consume any commodity produced by slave labor and was known to walk abruptly out of a dinner in protest when he found out that his host owned slaves.
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Disparaged and abandoned by his fellow Quakers, Lay eventually helped win the debate over slavery. He wanted to provoke, to unsettle, even to confound to make people think and act. His greatest power, indeed his genius, lay in his gift as an agitator. In every meeting he attended, public or private, he drew a line over the issue of slavery. He asked everyone he met, Which side are you on?
Slowly, over a quarter-century, his relentless agitation changed hearts and minds. In 1758 a friend arrived at his cave to inform him that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting had finally taken the first big step toward abolition, ruling that those who traded in slaves would henceforth be disciplined and perhaps driven from the community. Lay fell silent for a few reverential moments, then rose from his chair, praised God and announced, "I can now die in peace." He died a year later, an outsider to the Quaker community he loved, but a moral giant of a man.
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