06/26/2017
Rediker (Outlaws of the Atlantic), professor of Atlantic history at the University of Pittsburgh, successfully rescues Lay from obscurity, arguing that the adventurous, single-minded Quaker was one of the abolition movement’s forebears. Living in a pre–Revolutionary War era during which Quakers owned slaves, England-born Lay used his impressive oratorical command of Scripture and a penchant for big gestures to shock and berate Christians of multiple denominations into opposing slavery. Quaker records express their leaders’ befuddlement regarding their “wayward” member; Lay’s own controversial and unconventional book—which Benjamin Franklin quietly published—shows Lay’s undiminished devotion to his cause. Rediker adroitly describes nuances of the Quaker faith’s evolution, with Lay’s anti-materialist beliefs and refusal to adhere to church hierarchy evocative of the sect’s early years. While the emphasis is on abolition and Lay’s difficulties with fellow Quakers, Rediker also describes how Lay’s marriage to a fellow minister, Sarah, strengthened his resolve. Lay’s significant experience as a sailor and traveler added greater insight into the horrific conditions of slaves in Barbados and the Colonies, which he described in his frequent verbal barrages. Though the Quaker Comet was known for his impatience and stridency, his revolutionary beliefs regarding abolition, vegetarianism, gender equality, and simplicity prove that Lay’s farsightedness and extensive advocacy deserve to be remembered. Illus. (Sept.)

Rediker provides a valuable addition to abolitionist historiography. . . . A concise, solid biography of ‘the first revolutionary abolitionist,’ a diminutive man who was decades ahead of his time.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Rediker adroitly describes nuances of the Quaker faith’s evolution. . . . Lay’s farsightedness and extensive advocacy deserves to be remembered.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Highly recommended, especially for public and college library biography collections.”
—Midwest Book Review

“Lay, a lover of books, would have appreciated this one, less for the praise lavished on him than the attention given his message. As Mr. Rediker says, ‘Benjamin’s prophecy speaks to our time.’”
—The Pittsburgh Post–Gazette

“Admirers of Marcus Rediker’s splendid The Slave Ship will be delighted by this historian’s new book. Sailor, pioneer of guerilla theater, and a man who would stop at nothing to make his fellow human beings share his passionate outrage against slavery, Benjamin Lay has long needed a modern biographer worthy of him, and now he has one.”
—Adam Hochschild

“A modern biography of the radical abolitionist Benjamin Lay has long been overdue. With the sure hand of an eminent historian of the disfranchised, Marcus Rediker has brought to life the wide-ranging activism of this extraordinary Quaker, vegetarian dwarf in a richly crafted book. In fully recovering Lay’s revolutionary abolitionist vision, Rediker reveals its ongoing significance for our world.”
—Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition

“The unswerving eighteenth-century abolitionist Benjamin Lay, maligned when not ignored for many generations, has at last found his sympathetic biographer. In this captivating, must-read book, Marcus Rediker shows that Lay’s disfigured body contained a mind of steel and a heart overflowing with compassion for victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Lay’s place in the annals of American reform is now secure. If you’re ready to have your mind changed about received wisdom on the eccentric, lonely early abolitionist who blazed the way for later antislavery stalwarts, read this brilliantly researched and passionately written book.”
—Gary Nash, author of Warner Mifflin, Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist

2017-05-28
A biography of a nearly forgotten Quaker whose life still resonates.In his youth, Benjamin Lay (1681-1759), born in Colchester, England, was an unschooled shepherd and glover. Though a hunchback and not much taller than 4 feet, he became a common sailor. The Caribbean island of Barbados, where he became a merchant, was a major center of the world slave trade. As Rediker (Atlantic History/Univ. of Pittsburgh; Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates, and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail, 2014, etc.) notes, this was where Lay viewed firsthand the manifold evils of the traffic in human beings, leading to his career as a fervent and intractable abolitionist. With his wife, Sarah, who matched his mighty spirit, Lay moved to Pennsylvania to join the Society of Friends. There, he quickly made himself unwelcome through his fervent preaching against slavery, especially targeting fellow Friends who kept slaves. In a form of guerrilla theater, at one meeting, clad in a military tunic, he stabbed a concealed bladder with a sword, spattering nearby Quakers with blood-red juice. Lay was formally disowned by various groups as he persisted in his demands for piety, humility, and reverence for all life. Through it all, he practiced what he preached, living in a cave, making his own clothes, and growing his own food (he was a staunch vegetarian). Ascetic and religious and also an autodidact, Lay compiled a significant text, which was largely a commonplace book with lessons from the Old Testament and the book of Revelation as well as classical philosophy. Titled, clearly enough, All Slave-Keepers that Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates, it was edited and published by his good friend Benjamin Franklin. Relying on Lay's book and pamphlets, Quaker records, and contemporaneous accounts, Rediker provides a valuable addition to abolitionist historiography. A concise, solid biography of "the first revolutionary abolitionist," a diminutive man who was decades ahead of his time.