Latest / Ridiculous History / Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Who Called Out the Hypocrisy of Slavery, Part 2

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Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Who Called Out the Hypocrisy of Slavery, Part 2 · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. I kind of want to do a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: lost voice like previously Ridiculous History. Wait a minute, was
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: that you doing the lost voice, Bend oh Man. That's
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegram And this is part two
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of our series on the heroic innovative and I would
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: say extraordinary abolitionist Benjamin Lay. Yeah. When we last left
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: our hero Um, he was starting off in his kind
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of radical protest career um doing things like, uh, beating
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: people with tobacco pipes around the ankles I imagine um,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: getting thrown out into the mud, uh and then just
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: laying there so people had to step over his muddied
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: body and he would not be ignored what he been.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: He was pushing and preaching for the rights of enslaved
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: people at a time where that was absolutely not a
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  Speaker 1: popular thing to do, and it got him blacklisted within
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: his own community of the Quakers. And as we're going
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to see, that really escalated and we have multiple stories
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of his protest. One Sunday, people living in a town
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: near Philadelphia, Abington, Pennsylvania, were met with a bizarre site
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: outside of their morning Quaker gathering. The snow was thick
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: on the ground, and Benjamin Lay, who was a member
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of that congregation, was there in the snow, not very
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: well dressed. Yeah, this is a weird went to man.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: This guy was very creative in this protests. You have
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to give him that for sure, theatricality to it. He
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: was in something of like an ass less chaps kind
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: of situation, like a share or a prince might wear,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: only you know, it was more like a one legged
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: trouser kind of thing. And he had a leg and
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a foot exposed and uh as the as the congregants
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: um entered into into their place of worship, they would say, hey, Bud,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: you know you're gonna freeze the death out here. You're
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: gonna get real sick. Better cover that leg. And he
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: would turn to them and say, ah, you pretend compassion
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: for me, but you do not feel for the poor
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  Speaker 1: slaves in your fields who go all winter half clad.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So he's calling these people out and not letting them
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: be comfortable in there. You know, again, I've I've used
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the word too often in this episode, but their rank hypocrisy.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: He also protested slave owners, giving them no peace. As
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: soon as somebody in the Quaker community who owned slaves
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: stood up to talk at the meeting at the at
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the religious gathering, he would jump to his feet and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: he would cry out, you know, there's another slave master.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing because not comfortable with the language. Now he's
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: using some strong language there, but it's I think it's
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: more meant to just be I think it was just
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: more of a term that was generally you know, used
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: in those days, for sure. But he is calling them
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: out and saying, there you are, I see you. You
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: don't get to talk because you have no compassion for
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: for your fellow man. It all comes back to that.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: And yeah, he he kept getting oustad. He was not
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a popular figure after, you know, causing all this ruckets
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: at these meetings, and the elders, the church elders and
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the ministers as well, um started to get pretty peeved.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I mean actually appointed like a like a cop a
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: constable to a constable constable constable area, Yeah, to keep
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: an eye out for him. I mean he you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: he was really making a making a splash. They had
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to hire a position just to keep him out of
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the meeting and they toss him out into the cold
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: night or afternoon or morning, whatever it may have been.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Whatever he showed up, who am I to say? Um?
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And yeah he was. They would bar the door and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: he was not allowed to return. And one time when
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: he was thrown out of a meeting house and it
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: was raining, he went right back to the door of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the meeting house and laid down in the mud, so
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: everybody who left the meeting had to step over his
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: body while he stared at them. He's like something of
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: like a combination performance artists and and uh and abolitionist protester.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I really liked this guy his performance art for a
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: good cause as opposed to just like naval gazing kind
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of Okay, Sorry, there's any performance art fans out there,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I just don't get it. I'm a fan of it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I like the weird stuff, you know, also a fan
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of improv everywhere he would have I think he would
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: have enjoyed that too. More of a flash mob guy myself.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Get I'm kidding. I do like Matthew Barney. That's performance
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: art some of it kind of right, what does he
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: do again? And I did the whole cream Masters cycle
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: where he kind of like dressed up and that's a weird.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Like you know, we'd kind of like guy in a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: pink kilt and climbed all over the Googgenheim. But it's
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: it's made. It's done for film. I guess it's the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: only performance already if it's done, like I r L
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: like with real people. Yeah, Okay, he's a performance artist.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I like Matthew Barney. Something really weird that I got
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: into that has nothing to do with this episode. I'm
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: just gonna show this to you please. Okay. This is
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a kind of dancing called bouteau or bu t o
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: h that is uh creepy and from Japan. Okay, I'm
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: gonna try to describe it as best I can with
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the listeners. Okay, there's a gentleman looks that he like
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: he has some sort of wedgy situation going on. He's
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: wearing a cod piece. Uh, he's painted gray. He's hairless
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and bald and staggering around. Oh oh, he's kind of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: creatively falling. I love this. It looks like a tool video,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: um really does. Oh now he's rolling down the stairs.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: The underwear he's appears to be something of a thong.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I was correct about the wedge, none of them seeing
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the back and now he's he's he's getting up slowly
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and then falling down again like an angry, awkward, evil baby.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I dig this, ben Yeah, Okay, I take back everything
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I said about not liking performance. Well, maybe maybe we
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: just have to find the right performance. This stuff is creepy,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a whole thing with it. Maybe, uh huh,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: maybe suitable for a different show. But yes, Benjamin, a
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: performance are alright really quickly? Is there a history to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: this or is this like a new thing? There's a history.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: We gotta do a show about this. Okay, let's do
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a show about performance art throughout history. That feels like
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: it could be its own podcast. Maybe good, let's give
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: it a shot. Let's give it this bike some like
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: really pivotal moment, and maybe we'll like spin it off.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: We'll spin off and do a whole another show. Yeah, Casey,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: are you cool with that? You've got plenty of time right,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: all the time in the world. Oh man, thanks, will
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you help us do this performance art show? Yeah? I'm
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a fan of Matthew Barney as well, so that's a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: good starting point. Good stuff. Yeah, when one last thing, casey,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: if you've got time while we're while we're rolling, if
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: you to get kind of creeped out, check out this
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Bouteau dancing while we're recording. B U t O H cool.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it all right. What do you hear?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: What you think about? At the end there there will
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: not be a quiz because I don't know enough about it,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: but performance art. Back to Benjamin Leigh. He uh, he
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: keeps going right, man, he has his shining moment coming
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: up in seventeen thirty eight. Oh dude, he keeps doubling
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: down something referred to as the berry Juice Massacre of
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: seventeen thirty eight. I love that it's so visual. Uh.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: September seventeen thirty eight, to be precise, it was six
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  Speaker 1: years after um he had come to America for the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: first time. He just waltzed his way into one of
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  Speaker 1: these Quaker meetings in New Jersey in a town called Burlington,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: which was a big meeting. It was one of the
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: biggest events of the year, which is kind of weird
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: because it was it was the Philadelphia yearly Meeting of Quakers,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: but it was in New Jersey for some reason. I
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: mean a lot of stuff happens in New Jersey's true,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and it stays in New Jersey hopefully. Um. Yeah. He
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  Speaker 1: wore a big coat with like a military kind of
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: style decor um, and he had a sword, and underneath
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: it he had a book with a secret compartment in
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  Speaker 1: which he had uh, an animal bladder that was filled
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: with with the red juice of something called a poke berry.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: You ever had a pokeberry, ben I don't believe. Is
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: it like a razzleberry, pomegranate perhaps? Uh? You know, I
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: don't know what a pokeberry is, grapish, raspberry ish? If
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you've had a pokeberry right in, let us know, actually
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: send us some recipes to well. The most important thing
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: for our purposes and Benjamin Lay's purposes, is that it
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: produced a bright, uh staining juice that he had stored
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: secreted away inside this animal bladder, hidden in this cut
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: out like sort of like you think of, you know,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: prison contraband being hidden inside like a holidaut bible or
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: something like that. Right, yeah, exactly. I guess he wasn't
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: banned from this particular meeting yet, that he hadn't gotten
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to Burlington yet, because he would have been you know,
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  Speaker 1: pretty noticeable people would have recognized him despite being disguised
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: as a soldier and silly at least, Yeah, because of
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: his unique posture too. So the way the Quaker meetings
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: work is that there's no formal minister church ceremony. People
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: speak as the spirit moves them, and so Lay waits
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: his turn to speak. And when he finally rises to
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  Speaker 1: address this gathering of influential moving and shaking Quakers shaking, Yeah,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: that works out. He freaks them out because he announces.
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  Speaker 1: He yells at the crowd. He said, God Almighty respects
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: all people, equally, rich, poor men, women, white, black alike.
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  Speaker 1: Slave Keeping is the greatest sin in the world. How
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: can you profess the Golden rule? How can people who
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: say treat others the way you wish to be treated?
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: How can you, of all people, keep slaves? He then
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: throws off his coat. This is like a Quentin Tarantino nude.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: He's got a military guard. Yeah, that's right. Uh, And
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: he does have he's got this sword with him, and
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: he's got this book. And then people are starting to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: think something might be weird. And he has this he
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: has this, uh, he has this speech. Right. Uh, could
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you could you give us a reading of at least
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: that line or that titular moment. Oh boy, whatever, this
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: is like a yeah, you're right, this is like a
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Tarantino asked, like, you know, bust a cap kind of moment.
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  Speaker 1: Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: enslave their fellow creatures. And with that he uh raised
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the book aloft and stabbed it, ran it through with
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: his sword, um and the the oozy pokeberry fluids dripped
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: down his arm. People thought that he had stabbed himself.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I assume, I guess, so yeah. And then he threw
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: this poke berry blood on the slave keepers, and he said,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: all Quakers who failed to heed the prophets call will
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: expect physical, moral, and spiritual death. People go bananas, man,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: this is not what they were This is not what
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: they signed up for, you know what I mean? And
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: now they don't know if the guys actually bleeding, they're
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: covered in blood. This is very much you know, there's
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: a protest. It's a little theatrical. It works, though it's
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: no secret all that. I don't know about you, but
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's very apparent to you in case
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you both that a lot of times when I come
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: into recording episode. I'm hungry and I always want to
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: just sort of relate whatever we're talking about to food. Yeah,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: it's true. I always you always look a little peaking,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: you know, like I feel like you're you're picturing me
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: as though I were a delicious roasted chicken, which, to
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: be fair, is is the shape that I resemble. Ah,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: that's that's uh, that's unfair, but a delicious idea. And
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: while we're talking about delicious, let's talk about Hello Fresh.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: You and I recently tried some Hello Fresh. We did,
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  Speaker 1: the vine ripe tomatoes, and I believe there was a
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  Speaker 1: com slash ridiculous nine. After he's done this, after he
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: yells at the crowd and has that uh that that
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: climactic moment, he just sort of shuts down and he
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: stands there. He doesn't say anything, goes. People surround him
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: and they haul him off from the building. He doesn't resist.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: He feels like what's done is done. He did what
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: he came to do, and his life. Uh that's the thing.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: You know, if this were a biopic or if this
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: were a fictionalized tale based on true events, we could
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: say that that climactic moment led to happily ever after.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately we're not quite there yet, because during this
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: age of his protest, and before his titular protests, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: after he encountered a lot of hardship in his life, right,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: there was not a real happily ever after moment, you know,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and it may well have spurred him on to you know,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: really double down on these protests and try to get
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: his plant across. His beloved wife, Sarah passed away in
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: five and the causes were unknown, and they had been
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: together for seventeen years at that point, and you know,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you could argue that that this gave him time, uh
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to really reflect and to really consider you know, the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: legacy um that he wanted to leave behind would have
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: also been a carrying on of his wife's wishes, you know,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: because they were kind of a team on this stuff.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And uh, he spent several years working on a manuscript
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: of what would become the treatise called All Slave Keepers
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: That Keep the Innocent in Bondage apost dates. Uh. And
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit strange, like in terms of structure,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: in terms of the type, is hard to pegs as
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: what type of book it is exactly because it's some
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: combinations of like almost like biblical ranting, kind of polemic prophecies,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: you know. Uh, It had curated pieces by other writers.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: It had some kind of firsthand accounts of what he
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: witnessed in Barbados, though done with kind of almost a
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: stylized dreamlike quality, I guess you could say. And then
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: a part of it was also his autobiography, but really
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: forward thinking even in literature, like the way you know,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: he would have been very out there to to to
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: stray away from a traditional a memoir or like treatise
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: in that way, right, Yeah, fragmentary differences in format internally
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and so on. He knew that the Quakers would never
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: approve of this book, the Board of Overseers rather, and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: he went directly to his friends. Uh, you know him,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you love him, if you'll listen to ridiculous history. The
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Benjamin bond runs deep because he went to Benjamin Franklin,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: who at the time was um, I don't know, not
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: ignoring the resurrection men in his abode in England. He
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: was in the US, and he said, yeah, sure, I'll
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: publish this. This becomes one of the founding key text
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: of the antislavery movement in the Atlantic, and it's seen
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: as an important groundbreaking step in abolitionist thought. It is
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the most militant stand against slavery published up to that point.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Because I don't want to, like, you know, overstate the obvious,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: but I think it can't be overstated really how important
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: printed word was in like changing hearts and minds. Like
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: you can throw you know, sticky fake blood on people
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: all day long and you're probably ultimately just gonna piss
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: them off. But when you really start laying your ideas
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: out in a way that lots of people can understand
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and get their hands on, that's when ideas really start
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to spread. So he he really did put his money
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: where his mouth was and take it to the next level, uh,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: in terms of you know, getting this idea out there.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: And he was absolutely revolutionary in that way because no
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: one else was kind of thinking quite like he was,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: or at the very least not going public correct opinions.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: So what's fascinating about this is that he comes along.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: He's a magnificent individual who comes along at the perfect
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: time because there's a generational struggle between Quakers over the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: specific issue of owning slaves and then still saying you
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: obey the dictates or the teachings of the Quaker belief system.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: So by the seven teen thirties, Quaker attitudes toward what
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: has been called at times the peculiar institution towards the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: owning of human beings has begun to change, and lay
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: says repeatedly he's not saying abolish the Quaker religion or anything.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He's fighting against these hypocrites. And his most determined enemies
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: are elders of the organization who are also very wealthy,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: by the way, and others are ministers. He had fighting
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: words for them, such as time for such old, rusty
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: candlesticks to be moved out of their place. Wait a minute,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: old people being stuck in their ways and not wanting
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: to move into the future. Rights. It's a crazy talk.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: It was a weird time, and so it's a weird
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: time now, it really is. But yeah, I mean, just
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: like they didn't like it when he was, you know,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: disrupting their meetings. They didn't like it when he took
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that talk to the streets and to the people. They
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: really didn't like it because they considered him just a
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: real uh troublemaker and uh did not like what he
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: was putting down with the help of of our boy
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin. So they disowned him. They essentially, I mean,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I guess it's not called that in Quicker religion, but
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, excommunicated him from his faith,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: which he which he loved. And you know, again, if
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: you read more about Quakerism, all of these things make sense,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: like in terms of that they would be anti slavery.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: So it's just a lot of the tenants and the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: belief systems within Quakerism. It's all about being interconnected and
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: being as one within the universe and you know, loving
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: your your neighbor as yourself, like you said, been the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: golden rule. That to me is always the biggest sticking
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: point when you're like, how can you say that, that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: you believe that and still hate people? You know, yeah, yeah,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And that's that's the thing. He was right the whole time.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But people didn't want to hear the unpleasant truth. Despite
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: being disowned, he would still go to worship services and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: argue against the evils of slavery. But he became increasingly
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: hermited away, and he started to live of a life
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: that might sound a little bit hippie to some of
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: us and a little bit idyllic to others. He built
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: his own home in Abington, that town we mentioned near Philadelphia,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: near us water Spring. He made a cottage in a cave.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: He lied the entrance with stone. He had a library
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: inside his his cave home. He planted apple, peach, and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: walnut orchards. He tended a b colony. He grew, you know,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: he had a garden with potatoes, squash, radishes, melons. He
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: almost became a vegan, except for the honey. I think
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that's even to this day a contentious subject within veganism.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Do I remember? Am I wrong? Is it is exclusively
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: no no go for vegans? Well, uh, none of the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: three of us are vegans. But we've done I've heard
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: it as I've heard it generate great debate too, because
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: they're saying, well, are you still vegan if you eat
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: any animal product under any circumstances, you know what I mean.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: But then again, I think there's some B twelve supplements
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that some people have to take when they are practicing veganism,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and those supplements may contain insect parts. That's a good yeah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that's a good question, um, But it's true. So essentially,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: he was let's just say he was a vegan intens
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and purposes, uh, two hundred years before anyone even thought
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of that as being a thing, let alone like a
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: fashionable thing. He says that he sees the presence of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: God and all living things, so he can't eat flesh
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: because animals are God's creatures just as he is. He
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: makes his own clothes to avoid the exploitation of the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: labor of others, and he boycott's everything produced by slave labor.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: He lives pretty well until about seventeen fifty seven. He's
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: elderly at this point, he's seventy five, right, Yeah, he's
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: sort of in his twilight years. He's just you know,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: spends his days tending his garden and making his own
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: fabric and just kind of keeping himself busy. But then
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: one day a visitor comes in knocking on his his
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: little cave door. Yes, a group of Quaker reformers had
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: recently undertaken a purification campaign. They called for a return
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to simpler ways of living, stricter discipline in the church,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and a gradual end to slavery. All of this meant
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to appease God, they imagined, was quite angry. Ley was
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: told that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, after a lot of
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: back and forth in Hemming and Hoying, had started a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: process to discipline and eventually disown Quakers who traded slaves. Unfortunately,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: slaveholding itself was still going to be around for another
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: eighteen years in the community. But this was the first big, substantive,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: concrete step toward abolition. And how did Late take the news.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: It's a little hard to say. Initially, the reports um
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that we've read in the Smithsonian magazine article about the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Quaker comment indicate that he kind of hush fell over him, um,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and he took some time to really think about it,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: because he was obviously a really thoughtful, kind reflective individual.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: And he's also like, you know, getting up there in
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: years at this point. And then um, he gets up.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: He was sitting in a chair at the time, and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: uh assumes this pose of of devotional reverence, according to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: this piece, and then speaks and says thanksgiving and praise
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: be rendered unto the Lord God. I can now die
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: in peace. And then he instantly died. I'm kidding, that's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: not true. Well, I mean, he definitely took a turn
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: for the worst. Right. This is such a weird moment
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: to the way it's written, because it sounds like he
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: says thanksgiving him praise be rendered unto the Lord God,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and then he just stand there for a while, and
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: then he says, I can now die in peace. We
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: don't know today exactly what led to his demise, but
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: we know he asked to be taken to the home
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of his old friend Joshua Morris and Abington as his
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: health deteriorated, and he passed away there on February three,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: seventeen fifty nine, at the age of seventy seven. History
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: has vindicated Benjamin Lay. Like most Quakers in his day
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and age, he opposed the idea of carrying distinctions of
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: class into the afterlife. So he's buried in an unmarked
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: grave near his wife in the Quaker burial ground in
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the town of Abington. And I don't know then you
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: made the point of history, he kind of vindicated him.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, you know, all it took to
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: vindicate him was just realizing how on the right side
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: of history he was from the start. And I think
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: for him it was meaningful that his people kind vindicated him.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: But like he never faltered and never really questioned his mission. Uh,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: And I think that's pretty pretty inspiring. Um, And especially
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: in this day and age where it seems like people
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: are willing to flip and abandon their morals just you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: on the drop of a hat. Um. So it's pretty
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: pretty cool figure. And uh, not to mention um this
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: idea that he's kind of a bit of a footnote
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: in the history of abolitionism until pretty recently. Yeah, he
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: was re embraced finally by the Quakers after almost three
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: hundred years had passed. The four groups linked to the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: original people who disowned events communicated him from the Society
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of Friends, the Abington Monthly Meeting, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the North London Monthly Meeting, and the Friends of the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Southern East Anglia Meeting released a joint statement recognizing the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: integrity and courage of a man who called slaveholders, including Quakers,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: to account who protested the domination of slavery, upheld the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: equality of the sexes, and lived his life with integrity
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: according to his Quaker beliefs. In this statement, go to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the end and says, we hold that Benjamin Lay was
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a friend of the truth. We are in unity with
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the spirit of Benjamin Lay as apologies go where his
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: acknowledgements go. That's pretty heavy. It's a pretty good one.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, I think, I think, I think
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: it did did the job. And you know, and again
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: even the historical record in terms of his influence on abolition,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: we're starting to see him kind of you know emerge, uh,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you know, at least with people that follow history um
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: as more you know, noted figure. His biographer, Benjamin Rush,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: who was an abolitionist himself and actually one of the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: signers of the Declaration of Independence, was his first biographer,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: by the way, referred to him as a Christian philosopher
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and said that at least in Pennsylvania at the time,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Leigh was a household name. But as time went on
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: he started to appear less and less in these histories,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: in these discussions. Uh. And it was kind of um
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: treated as sort of a kuk you know, and I
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: could see how that could be, you know, kind of
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: shoehorned to the narrative considering some of the stunts that
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: he pulled. Uh. And but but yeah, it started to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: kind of pick up steam or at least um in
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the record, and he was looked at as as having
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: suffered some sort of head injury. Um. And this image
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of him as sort of a unreliable figure and sort
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of more of a crank um really kind of held up. Yeah,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: it's absolutely true, and perhaps we end the story on
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: this note. According to Benjamin Rush, you know, Lay was
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: known to everyone in Pennsylvania. His portrait was in a
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: lot of homes throughout Philadelphia, and he burned incredibly bright.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: And he shows us that one person can make a difference.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And despite the fact that he has been excluded from
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: so many abolitionist narratives, as they say in this Atlas
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Obscure Art goal that we've referenced earlier, that we can
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: finally give the title of as as Natasha Frost says
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: inner article, the eighteenth century Quaker dwarf who challenge slavery,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: meat eating, and racism. He refuses to be extinguished from history. Yeah,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and I maybe uh, mistakenly started to set it up
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: as though he really did get his due historically, and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I think again, within people that really are familiar and
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: want to do the work, Uh, you can find out
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: about this guy. There are some resources you know about him,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: but he still largely isn't seen as like a central figure.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Um although as we know through his book and disseminating
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: his ideas really did seem to turn the tide at
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: least within the Quaker community, by the way, which holds
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: um these tenants as the most important facets of their faith.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: And I think he is a steadfast example of all
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: of these simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and sustainability. Agreed.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: So this concludes our episode, but not our show. No question,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: no quester, no quister. That's what I say to myself.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of like saying no wammy's
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: before what it's a whammy? I don't know. I just
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: was that bankrupts is that when you go bankrupt and
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Wheel of Fortune? It's it's from a game show. It's
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Wheel of Fortune. They say, no wammy's on Wheel of Fortune?
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Do they must be bankrupt? I think it's from a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: thing called press your Luck. You're right, no press your luck. Indeed,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I feel I feel like we just I feel like
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the freeze no Wammy's has become has grown beyond press
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: your luck. I think you're right. Then, well, no Wammy's,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: no quisters. Uh So before we go, Casey he groom,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: want to check in with you real quick. Did you
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: did you get a chance to look at some of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: that bizarre dancing? Yeah? My my YouTube recommendations will never
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: be the same again. But it's great stuff. I was
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: looking at. Yeah, I was looking at a bunch of them,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: and it started to remind me of the seri these
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of films. I'm familiar with this Taiwanese filmmaker Siming Leong
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: who made a film called a Journey to the West
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: where a monk walks as slowly as possible through crowded
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: public spaces. And I googled that along with Bhuto and
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: found a text saying that one influenced the other. So, yeah,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: just the idea of walking very, very slowly, almost so
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: that you know, to the casual observer you appear still,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and then if you look long enough you see that
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: there is movement happening. But yeah, it looks like some
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: really interesting stuff that's so weird. I'm glad you guys
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it and don't think it's incredibly creepy. I'm a
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: fan of the incredibly creepy and weird. Likewise likewise, Uh
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: so this concludes our episode, but not our show. No,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: you know, we like to keep the conversation going after
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the audio has stopped rolling. Where can people find us? Oh,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: they can find us in the usual spots on the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: social media's are a Ridiculous history or is there a
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History Show? And I think we're pridiculous? Is it? Yeah?
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: The website. We have a website called Ridiculous History Show
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: where you can also get some weird T shirt. Is
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: it a dot com, dot biz, dot gov? It's a
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: dot com okay, the old school dot Yeah. You can
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: find our Facebook group, Ridiculous Historians on on the Facebook
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: where you just have to answer a very simple question,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: which is either naming myself or Ben's uh name, and
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: then you are in like Flynn Babies and uh we
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: precipated all kinds of conversations and memory and fun historical
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: musings in that space pretty regularly. And it's it's a
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: good group of folks, So come check out ridiculous Historians
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: on Facebook. If you don't want to do any of that,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and you want to just hit me and Ben up individually,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: because we are our own people, you can do so.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I am on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown exclusively.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I don't really do the Twitter and more of a
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: more of a lurker. I got hypnotized by this weird
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: performance are But you can still find me online on
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Twitter where I'm Ben Bulling h s W. Or you
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: can find me getting into various words of shenanigans on Instagram,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: where I am going by very creative handle at Ben Bowling.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: At least she locked it down, buddy. Is there is
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: there a Noel Brown already? No? I don't know. Maybe
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I just thought you like the name that you got.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I do like the name. Yeah, I went for I
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: went for that immediately. Big thanks to super producer Casey
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Pegram Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Christopher hasciotis here
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: in spirit. Jonathan's Strickland a k a. The Quister not
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: here in spirit. He's more of a demonic cloud that
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: sort of lurks over the proceedings, and big big thanks
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: of course, to Gabe Louisier, to Benjamin Ley, to Eve's
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Jeff Coache and to Matthew Now, the guy who just
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: went on ridiculous historians and amended the score. I believe
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: that we are ten to eight now in favor of Twister. Still,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: we'll see you next time. For more podcasts from my
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,