SECTION IX, Chapter 4--
Friends of Society--the Quakers

   "These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter,
   though they are written in the letter, but I saw them in the light
   of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate Spirit and powers, as
   did the holy men of God, by whom the Holy Scriptures were written.

                     --George Fox, JOURNAL

   The founder of Quakerism George Fox (1624-1691) described his early
years as a "seeker" after spiritual truths.   He was about to give
up hope that this could not be found within conventional churches.  Then,
in 1646, in northern England, he experienced an inner voice.

  "When all my hopes in [churches and churchmen] were gone...then I
   heard a voice which said, 'There is one, even Christ Jesus, that
   can speak to thy condition.'"

George Fox believed this "Inner Voice" to have scriptural basis in
John 1:19--"the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world."  Fox interpreted this to mean that every individual contained
within him a spark of God's original light-- which can be tapped into
(without the assistence of rituals, dogma, or priests) to discover "divine"
truths.  To the Quakers, every man and woman is a walking church--and
every heart is a shrine before God.

  Thus instead of being born in "sin", some Quakers even believed themselves
pure or "sinless"--the direct oppostite of St. Augustine's paradigm of man
being mired in Original Sin, and needing the assistence of sacrements and
priests as intermediaries between him and God.

  Fox traveled throughout England, preaching that there was no need for
ministers, liturgy, sacraments, or even sanctuary--as the emphasis was on
mankind's Spirit communing directly with God.  Fox and his followers
not only refused to attend church AND to pay tithes--but also insisted on
freedom of assembly, speech, and worship.  They did not respect the social
status between king, aristocrate, and commoner--instead insisting that ALL
men and women--were equals.  They frequently refused to fight in wars--claiming
a "higher calling". They condemned as "evil", institutions within society such
as slavery, and the harsh treatment of prisoners and the insane.

  The official Church of England declared the Society of Friends to be
heretical, and had them imprisoned where possible.  Followers were not only
jailed--but whipped, mutilated, tortured, and executed. Fox himself was
imprisoned eight times during the years 1649 to 1673.  Others spent decades
in jail, some even dying there.  From 1650 to 1689, some fifteen thousand
Quakers had died for their faith.

  George Fox and his followers originally called themselves--"Children of
Truth", "Children of Light", "Friends of Truth", and then "Society of
Friends".  Then one day, after George Fox was hauled into court, he told the
judge that he should "tremble at the Word of the Lord".  The judge (in jest)
called Fox a "quaker".  The name stuck, and Fox's followers later applied
the term "Quaker" to themselves.

  When Oliver Cromwell took control of English government from 1654 to
1658, he permitted tolerance to all Christian sects--including Quakers--
as long as they did not engage in sedition. (Indeed Cromwell, had several
friendly religious discussions with George Fox.) After the restoration of
the monarchy in 1660, special legislation was again enacted AGAINST the
Quakers.

  Despite the harsh persecutions, Quakers gained new converts-- in England,
Ireland, Holland and the American colonies.  Quakers were very active
in missionary work to gain new converts.  These missions also resulted in
a list of new martyrs for the faith-- not only in England and mainland Europe,
but in the colonial American colonies as well.

  By 1665, stories of Quaker martyrdom had created public sympathy towards
them. In 1689, England passed the Toleration Act. (This was passed just
shortly before Fox's death.)


   Early Quaker missionary history may be broken down into two periods: (1)
The martyrdom period (1656-1670) and (2) the expansion period (1670-1740)

Early Missionary Martyrdom Period (1656-1670)

  Although some missions (such as those sent to Holland), were very successful,
others clearly were not.  On one mission, for example, a party of six Quakers--
three men and three women--set out in 1657 for Turkey and Jerusalem to convert
the Sultan and (ultimately) the Jews. Through an interesting set of
circumstances, some of these Quakers actually gained an audience with the
Sultan.  Although the Sultan listened to them, he was NOT moved by their
emotional appeals towards conversion-- and the Quaker missionaries returned
from the area without success.

   Some missions ended in outright tragedy.  Two Quaker missionaries, John
Perrot and John Love travelled to Rome, to witness to the pope regarding
the error of his ways.  After securing a meeting with then Pope Alexander VII,
John Love denounced the pope to his face. He was subsequently arrested, and
hanged for his crime.

  Some of the strongest persecutions against Quakers took place in colonial
America--in the colony of Massachusetts.  Massachusetts' authorities had
proclaimed Quakers to be a dangerous sect from the beginning. When the first
two Quaker missionaries--two women named Mary Fisher and Ann Austin--arrived
in Boston in 1656, they were pronounced witches, imprisoned for several
weeks, and then deported.  Eight more Quaker missionaries shortly arrived--
and they were also imprisoned (eleven weeks), and then forcibly deported
back to England. The Massachusetts General Court quickly followed with the
passage of a law against Quakers, ordering fines against anyone who transported
Quakers into the colony.

  After Rhode Island granted tolerance to ALL religious sects, Quakers began 
to make converts in the area--much to the alarm and consternation of the rest 
of the New England colonies--especially the colony of Massachusetts. In 1657, 
the Commissioners of the United Colonies formally protested to the governor of 
Rhode Island, that by allowing his colony to be a free haven to the Quakers, 
that he was allowing them to spread their contagion of a religion into 
surrounding colonies. The governor of Rhode Island defended his colony's 
practice of free religion, arguing that the "cure" was worse than the disease:

  "And as to the dammage that may in likelyhood accrue to that neighbor
   collonys by there being here entertained, we conceive it will not
   prove so dangerous as the course taken by you to send them away out of
   the country as they come among you."

  The next Rhode Island General Assembly Meeting (1657) defended its policy
of religious toleration for Quakers. The General Assembly drew up a resolution
stating that Rhode Island was founded upon the principle of "freedom of
different consciences", which "we still prize as the greatest happiness that
men can possess in this world."

   The Massachusetts authorities were more successful in convincing other
American colonies to outlaw the Quakers.  Governor Stuyvesant of the Dutch
colony of New Amersterdam (New York) soon passed a law which provided fines
for harboring or transporting Quakers into the colony. The southern colonies,
(with the exception of a few cases of rough treatment in Maryland and
Virginia), did not join in with the persecution against the Quakers.

   The Massachusetts authorities, working themselves into a rabid hatred
against Quakers, passed a new anti-Quaker law in 1657.  Now, anyone found guilty
of transporting a Quaker into the colony was to be fined a 100 pound fine,
while any person found guilty of harboring a Quaker was to be fined 40
shillings per hour.  As for the Quakers themselves--anyone who had been
banished from the colony of Massachusetts--who subsequently returned-- was
to be severly punished! If a male offender, he would have one ear cropped
for the first offense, and the other ear cropped if he returned back a
second time.  For a third offense, his tongue was to be bored out with a
hot iron. A woman would only be whipped for the first two offenses, but on
the third, she would be punished on an equal footing with the men--ie
her tongue would also be bored out with a hot iron.

  Because these penalties did not succeed in keeping Quaker missionaries
out of Massachusetts, in 1658, the death penalty was instituted for any
Quaker who returned after banishment.

  A number of Quakers were punished through these laws.  In 1658, fifteen
Quaker missionaries were apprehended in a meeting near Salem, and tried
in Boston. After a quick trial, they were sentenced to be beaten.  One of
the missionaries, an elderly man named William Brend, received 117 blows
with a tarred rope on his bare back. His beating was so severe, that he was
thought to be dead after he was first picked up.  There were other Quakers
who were punished under these laws--either by being whipped on whipping
posts, or by having their ears cropped.

   In 1659, three Quakers were apprehended and sentenced to the death penalty.  
William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Mary Dyer had all deliberately 
returned to Boston--after being earlier banished from Massachusetts Colony.  
Brought before the General Court, they were declared heretics and condemned 
to be hanged.  The Massachusetts court saw a parallel along biblical lines, 
in sentencing them to death:

  "...in this story of Solomon and Shimei, it is recorded (1 Kings 2) how
  Solomon confined Shimei to Jerusalem, charging him upon pain of death not
  to be out thence, and telling him, if he did he should die for it; which
  confinement when Shimei had broken, ... Solomon would not spare him, but
  put him to death; and if execution of death be lawful for breach of
  confinement, may not the same be said for breach of banishment?"
  (Longacre, "Puritan Justification for Persecution of Quakers", LIBERTY
  (Washington, D.C.), XXVI, No. 4, 102)

All three of the condemned Quakers ascended the gallows together, hand-in-hand.
At the last minute, Mary Dyer was placed on a horse and forced out of the
colony.  The two men were hanged.

   Mary Dyers, however, refused to stay away.  Next year she returned to
Boston, determined to set herself up as an example so as to compel the
repeal of "that wicked law against God's people."  Captured again, and
standing before the gallows, she was offered her life if she would leave
Massachusetts.  She replied, "Nay, I cannot".  Massachusetts authorities
believed that her Quaker belief that she was "without sin", "tends to
overthrow the whole gospel"--and that her refusal to leave the state was
a violation of the biblical command to obey magistrates. As a consequence,
this time Mary Dyers was hanged! (LIBERTY (Washington D.C.) XXVI, No. 4, 102, 
115 (1931) as quoted by Frank Swancara, THOMAS JEFFERSON VERSUS RELIGIOUS 
OPPRESSION, (University Books, New York, 1969, p 50).

  One year later, a fourth Quaker martyr, William Leddra, was also hanged.
He had already faced a long imprisonment chained to a log, during the winter
without any heat.  Included among the charges against him were: sympathy
for Quakers who had been executed, refusal to remove his hat, and his
insistence on using the words "thee" and "thou".  In other words, he
was arrested and executed for being a Quaker.

England's King Charles II Outlaws the Persecution of Quakers in the Americas

  The Quakers in England were greatly alarmed at the persecutions against
their fellow brethern in New England.  A number of Quakers who were
banished from New England, sent a petition to King Charles II, outlining the
injustices that had been committed against them.

   After listening to Edward Burroughs describe the sufferings of the Quakers, 
Charles II was personally moved, saying how "There is a vein of innocent blood
opened in thy dominions which will run over all if it is not stopped."  The
King determined afterwards to issue a mandate which ordered all condemned
and imprisoned Quakers in Massachusetts to be sent to England for trial.
The King granted Burroughs the privilege of choosing a messanger to personally
deliver his new law to Massachusetts.

  Burroughs chose a fellow Quaker (who had been banished from Massachussetts
on pain of death) to hand deliver the message.  Thus, it was a bitter pill to
swallow, when Massachuset's governor Endicott, received the King's order--at
the hands of a hated Quaker.  Still, although Quakers were now assured of a
trial in England, some persecutions occurred under the "Cart and Whip Act".
After the Massachusetts governor Endicott died in 1665, a law was subsequently
passed, which allowed Quakers to conduct secular business without being arrested.
By 1677, Quaker persecution in New England was for the most part, over.

Roger Williams vs the Quakers

  Beginning in June of 1671 and lasting until October 1672, the founder of
Quakerism, Geroge Fox, traveled from England to the English colonies. His
travels took him through Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Virginia, and
the Carolinas.

  While in Rhode Island, Fox and his followers came into contact with Roger 
Williams, the latter by now an old man in his seventies. Although tolerant of 
all religious minorities, Roger Williams personally detested Quakers.--  He 
hated their long hair, their formal usage of "thees and thous", their lack of 
respect for orthodox authority, and how they allowed women to become preachers.  
Their uncontrolled and passionate outbursts of feelings were taken by Williams 
to be from Satan himself. ("Which extraordinary motions I judged to come upon 
them, not from the holy Spirit an power of God, but from the spirit and power 
of Satan.")

  Still, Williams refrained from persecuting them, believing them to be
just one, among many groups, of "sinful" humans.  Therefore, Williams
eloquently protested the whippings of Quakers in Massachussetts.  (However,
when some Quaker women were arrested for parading naked down the street to
demonstrate their religious fervor, Williams believed that the State had
acted within its jurisdiction.)

Expansion Period (1670-1740)

  George Fox never returned to the American colonies, and died in England
in 1691.  Still, his visit had boosted the missionary work in the colonies.
More Quaker missionaries came over to the American colonies from England and
Ireland, to continue the work of making new converts in the area.

  William Penn (who converted to Quakerism while a student at Oxford)
used his inherited fortune, to purchase the province of Pennsylvania in
1681.  Penn believed in the importance of fairly purchasing all land from
the Indians, writing at one point,

  "...Friends [Quakers] should not purchase or remove to settle on such
    lands as have not been fairly and openly first purchased of the
    Indians..."

  William Penn sat under an elm at Shackamaxon, where it is often said that
he made the only treaty with Indians "never sworn to and never broken."
Some historians have commented how if the rest of the American colonists
had acted in such good faith with the Indians, as had Penn--that possibly
whites and Indians might have lived together in peace.

  Although established as a Quaker colony, the laws of the colony of
Pennsylvania stressed liberty of worship, and toleration for all individuals
who believed in God.  As a result, many other persecuted religious groups
immigrated to Pennsylvania--in addition to the Quakers.

Quakers Following their Toleration.

  The period 1691-1835 represents a period when Quakers began to be tolerated
in society.  Because Quakers extolled hard work and an honest living (as with
the Puritans), this gained them a reputation for integrity in business dealings.
As a consequence, Quakers generally lived in thriving, prosperous communities.

  However their own success led to excesses from within their ranks.--  No 
longer persecuted from the outside, the next generation of Quakers began 
turning their own zeal inwards towards their own communities. They began 
forcing strict discipline on every member--expelling them from their community 
for even the smallest infraction. Sobriety, punctuality, and honesty were 
demanded in its strictest form.  Music, art, or any other form of pleasure 
became strictly forbidden. The dress code was plain, and all speech biblical.  
Quakers became known as a serious and "peculiar" people. They gained few new 
converts during this time, and lost many old members.  They also lost thousands 
of members for "marrying out of Meeting."  This "dark" period in Quaker history 
lasted in various degrees from 1691 until 1835.

  On the positive side, during this time, some Quakers led a new drive for
toleration, democracy, temperance, and popular education.  Quakers were
among the first to denounce slavery. In 1688, the Friends of Germantown,
Pennsylvania proclaimed that Negro slavery violated the Golden Rule and
encouraged adultery. They protested against that institution which engages
in the "traffic in the bodies of men" and declared it unlawful.  It was
another hundred years when the ideals from the American Revolution
began talking of the "equality" of all men, when Quakers switched from
disapproving of slavery, to outright forbidding its members to hold slaves.


  When the American colonies declared war against England, most Quakers
remained Pacifists (although there were a few "fighting" Quakers who took
part in the Revolutionary War.) Still, many Quakers were on the side of
the British during the American War of Independence--because they remembered
that it was the King of England who had halted persecutions against them in
Massachusetts.

  Many of the early American Fathers--including George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson--were very respectful of the Quakers. After George Washington
became president, Quakers (along with other religious groups) petitioned
him to protect their hard won religious freedoms. George Washington wrote back the
a letter, assuring them that he was committed towards protecting the religious
rights of ALL minorities. Excerpts are included below:

  "Government being, among other purposes, instituted to protect the persons
   and consciences of men from oppression, it certainly is the duty of rulers,
   not only to abstain from it themselves, but according to their stations,
   to prevent it in others.

  The liberty enjoyed by the people of these States, of worshipping Almighty
  God agreeable to their consciences is not only among the choices of their
  BLESSINGS, but also of their RIGHTS.  While men perform their social
  duties faithfully, they do all that society or the state can with propriety
  demand or respect; and remain responsible only to their Maker for the
  religion, or modes of faith, which they may prefer or profess.

  Your principles and conduct are well known to me; and it is doing the
  people called Quakers no more than justice to say, that (except their
  declining to share with others the burthen of the common defense) there is
  no denomination among us, who are more exemplary and useful citizens.

  I assure you very explicitly, that in my opinion the conscientious
  scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness;
  and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be as extensively
  accomodated to them, as a due regard to the protection and essential
  interest of the nation may justify and permit."

(Reply by George Washington to an Address Sent By the Religious Society
Called Wuakers fro Their Yearly Meeting for Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Delaware, and the Western Parts of Maryland and Virginia, September
28, 1789--Reply Undated.)

  Thomas Jefferson was also an admiror of the Quakers:

      We should all, then like the Quakers, live without an
      order of priests, moralise for ourselves, follow the
      oracle of conscious, and say nothing about what no man
      can understand, nor therefore believe; for I suppose
      belief to be the assent of the mind to an intelligible
      proposition.
      (letter to John Adams, Aug. 22, 1813, L & B, XIII, 350)

    Jefferson once approvingly wrote in a letter to William Canby how
a Quaker preacher had "exclaimed aloud that he did not believe there
was a Quaker, Presbyterian, Methodist or Baptist in heaven."   This
preacher had correctly reasoned (in Jefferson's mind) that "in heaven
God knew no distinctions, but considered all good men as his children,
and brethren of the same family."

                               *  *  *

  The Quakers were ahead of their times in their desire to treat the
Indians fairly. It was also the Quakers who were among the first to pronounce
slavery as morally evil. The Quakers denounced the institution of slavery
even during Revolutionary times--and were among the most fervant supporters
for the abolition of slavery during the Civil War.  Quakers were in the
forefront in pushing for the humane treatment for prisoners and the insane.
Believing men and women to be absolute equals, Quakers were early active
supporters of women's rights and suffrage.

  Thus, modern lovers of liberty and freedom, owe an important debt to early
religious groups such as the Quakers. For some of the basic humanistic
principles that most people today take for granted--such as belief in the
equality and dignity of ALL people-- were championed by such groups as the
Quakers-- during a time when these moral ideals were still unpopular within
society.