Quakers and slavery in britain. Our meetings offer a welcoming opportunity for spiritual exploration. These quaker businessmen faced the opprobrium of the powerful anti slavery groundswell within the quaker movement in the mid 18th century and gradually had to withdraw either from the trade or from quakerism. Quakers are much involved in modern anti slavery movements.
Fox spent much of the 1660s behind bars and by the 1680s thousands of quakers across the british isles had suffered decades of whippings torture and imprisonment. The abolition campaign in britain was started by the society of friends known as the quakers. At the timei was surprised to learnslavery was accepted and common among the english quakers who were in political control of pennsylvania.
Quakers were also involved in the slave trade. Quakers believe that all people are created equal in the eyes of god. The religious society of friends began as a movement in england in the mid 17th century in lancashiremembers are informally known as quakers as they were said to tremble in the way of the lordthe movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution but it continued to expand across the british isles and then in the americas and africa.
The british foreign anti slavery society was founded in 1839 and continues to this day as anti slavery international asi. The organisation britain yearly meeting of the religious society of friends quakers includes the quiet company which is the sole trading arm of britain yearly meeting and is an operator of retail residential conference meeting and event venues in the uk. And that was not all.
Quakers are a faith group committed to working for equality and peace. It is in quaker records that we have some of the earliest manifestations of anti slavery sentiment dating from the 1600s. Welcome the religious society of friends quakers was the first corporate body in britain and north america to fully condemn slavery as both ethically and religiously wrong in all circumstances.
Slavery in the quaker world i began to dig deeper into the seventeenth century quaker world. We try to live in truth peace simplicity and equality finding god in ourselves and those around us. Quakers were involved in the lucrative slave trade as ship owners captains iron masters merchants and investors in ports such as london and bristol.