1996 Gest Fellow
Maurice Jackson

Abstract for "'Ethiopia Shall Soon Stretch Her Hands Unto God': Anthony Benezet and the Atlantic Antislavery Revolution"

Anthony Benezet (1713-1784) was one of the most enlightened men of the 18th century. Born to French Huguenot parents who fled France due to religious persecution, his family settled in Philadelphia in 1731. Rejecting his father's desire to join the family business, Benezet became a schoolteacher. He taught Quaker girls and founded the African School for Blacks. HIs students included James Forten, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, who greatly appreciated his work as teacher and abolitionist. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who were against the slave trade, Benezet fought actively to end slavery and proclaimed the complete equality for the African. He wrote many pamphlets against slavery and corresponded with benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, the Englishmen Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson and the French patriots like Mirabeau and Raynal and Brissot. Because he did not leave a journal, his influence has been overlooked, yet his actions are unmatched.

In preparing An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African, (1786), Clarkson wrote that in Benezet's Some HIstorical Account of Guinea,"... I found almost all I wanted. I obtained by mean of it a knowledge of and gained access, to the great authorities of Adanson, Moore, Barbot, Smith, Bosman and others." In Benezet's A Short Account of that part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes, he exhibits a complete familiarity with the journals of early travelers. Benezet was the first to note them in an anti-slavery tract and was followed by Clarkson, Olaudah Equiano and Ottah Cugoano. In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, (1789), Equiano advised his readers to "See Benezet's Account of Africa throughout" and Cugoano wrote in Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Practice of Slavery (1787), that "the worthy and judicious author of the Historical account of Guinea, and others, have given some very striking estimates of the exceeding evil occasioned by that wicked diabolical traffic of the African slave-trade."

We know about Benezet's influence on the Quakers and leaders and of his close collaboration with John Woolman. We know that leaders like Benjamin Franklin credited Benezet's peamplets and anti-slavery petition efforts with the decision of the Vrginia House of Burgesses to petition the King for an end to the slave trade in 1772. We know of his influence on Dr. Benjamin Rush. We know that thousands of his pamphlets were distributed to Abolition Societies and members of British Parliament. We know of his work with the Amis des Noirs in France. However much less is known about his contacts with Blacks and their influence on him. Carter G. Woodson wrote that "he obtained many of his facts about the sufferings of slaves from Negroes themselves, moving among them in their homes, at the places where they worked or on the wharves where they stopped when traveling." These visits and talks with Blacks as well as his careful and critical readings of the Travelers Journals and the writings of Frances Hutcheson and Baron Montesquieu were I believe key sources of Benezet's anti-slavery thought and activity.

Benezet observed the initiates of Blacks throughout the British colonies including slave uprisings in Antigua and the maroons in Jamaica. Benezet's influence on Blacks as well as their influence on him must be further explored. When kidnapped Blacks were transported through Philadelphia on their way south, Benezet intervened to obtain their freedom and became the first President of the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held. The Free Negroes Petitions were modeled in part on Benezet's earlier ones and Forten's opposition to colonialization schemes was similar to Benezet's. In voicing his opposition to colonialization, Benezet was an early advocate of giving land to free Blacks. At the Black State and National Conventions held from 1840-1870 Black leaders paid tribute to Benezet in their oratory.

This dissertation explores the sources of Benezet's ideas and their circulation. It links the high cultured debates in London, Paris and the colonies with those actions and words of enslaved Blacks. It links print culture with oral and folk customs in the spread of radical ideas. It investigates how Black dockworkers and slaves, as well as white religious leaders and statesmen were all influenced by the radical ideas of perhaps the leading anti-slavery advocate of the times.

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