Latest / Ridiculous History / Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Who Called Out the Hypocrisy of Slavery, Part 1

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Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Who Called Out the Hypocrisy of Slavery, Part 1 · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: tuning in. If you, like many of us listening, grew
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: up in the United States, then you are probably familiar
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: with the iconic face on the Quaker oats box who.
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  Speaker 1: For a long time, as a kid, I did not
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  Speaker 1: know that the Quakers or the religious Society of Friends
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  Speaker 1: were in fact religion. Yeah. I always thought he was
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: just like a pilgrim. Yeah, I thought it was just
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  Speaker 1: like old timey, vaguely colonial. I'm picturing him in my head,
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  Speaker 1: and I think I'm maybe even picturing him wrong and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: inserting a pilgrim hat and sort of a buckle onto
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  Speaker 1: this figure. But I do not believe that is what
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: he looks like. I think he just has white hair, uh,
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  Speaker 1: and kind of a frock of some sort. Yeah, he
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: does have a hat. Oh, he does have a hat.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Does have a hat, and it's not it's not super
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  Speaker 1: hesitated to use the words that super pilgrimy I guess.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, he's also got that kind of you know,
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  Speaker 1: that neck rough ruffle thing. It's not quite a cravat,
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  Speaker 1: not quite an ascot anyway, I'm ben. Oh hey, I'm no.
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  Speaker 1: Um yeah, sorry, I'm digging up pictures Google images of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the quake Roats guy. We're gonna we're gonna dissect this
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  Speaker 1: for a hot minute. Um. Yeah, it's a good sort
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  Speaker 1: of an ascot. What do you call that, the thing
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  Speaker 1: that's like a ruffle, like a like a that's shirt
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  Speaker 1: puffy shirt kind of situation. Yeah, but I feel like
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  Speaker 1: it's just that it's just a neck piece. Well, someone
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  Speaker 1: will tell us. And also your baby oats from dribbling
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  Speaker 1: onto perhaps, Yeah, he's prepared. Makes him wonder if his
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  Speaker 1: hair is real or if that's also uh you know,
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  Speaker 1: like a it's like a bib for his ears. I
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  Speaker 1: gotta say, looking back on the picture the Quaker guy,
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  Speaker 1: now he's way younger than I thought he was, you
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  Speaker 1: know what I mean, he's got no big lines on
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  Speaker 1: his face. He's got a shiny baby esque uh, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, sheen rosie cheeks. There we go. It's unfair
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  Speaker 1: to him. He's he's he's a what do they call it,
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  Speaker 1: He's a silver fox. He's a real smoke show. He's
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  Speaker 1: he's he's he's a real out show. He's absolute snack. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: He is what the Internet calls a zaddi. Uh. Speaking
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  Speaker 1: of the religious society of friends and friends in general,
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  Speaker 1: we'd like to introduce a very dear friend of ours
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  Speaker 1: the third half of the show, super producer Casey Pegrum.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, the guy on the Quake Roats Box
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  Speaker 1: apparently known as Larry Larry. Yeah, within Quaker roats circles, enthusiasts, uh, insiders.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, within Quaker meals the that's weird. They
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  Speaker 1: must have made that name up. I wonder if it's
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  Speaker 1: short for Lawrence maybe. Well. I guess not to get
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  Speaker 1: too relativistic about it, but all names are made up
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  Speaker 1: at some point. Speaking of names and fantastic segways, we're
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  Speaker 1: not doing an episode today on the Quaker oats Box,
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  Speaker 1: which is a shame because now I want to do one.
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  Speaker 1: It seems so interesting. But we are doing something related
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  Speaker 1: to Quakers, right, It's true, and I just we wanted
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  Speaker 1: to get that out of our system. Uh, the Quaker
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  Speaker 1: outs guy being our only in road into the Quaker faith,
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  Speaker 1: the Quaker tradition. Um. And you know, I I own
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  Speaker 1: that and I'm fine with it. But you know what,
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  Speaker 1: you can always change every day as a shining new
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to learn something different and to broaden your horizons.
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  Speaker 1: And we did that when it comes to Quakerism, because,
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  Speaker 1: as it turns out, the story of the abolition of
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  Speaker 1: slavery in the United States has some unsung heroes that
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  Speaker 1: were members of the Society of Friends, also known as
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  Speaker 1: the Quakers. Right yeah, And we we tend to look
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  Speaker 1: back on the actions of the religious Society of Friends
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  Speaker 1: as being generally benevolent. But we have to be careful
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  Speaker 1: when we look at history, and we want to avoid
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  Speaker 1: painting with too broad a brush, because you see, it
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  Speaker 1: was not always the case that Quakers were abolitionist. Here.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, when the Quakers first came to the North
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  Speaker 1: American continent, members of their society owned slaves, just as
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  Speaker 1: many other colonists did. And they seemed sadly okay with
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  Speaker 1: the hypocrisy, the discrepancy between their stated religious views and
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  Speaker 1: their real life practice of enslaving other human beings. How
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  Speaker 1: did this change? How did the Quakers go from absolutely
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  Speaker 1: hypocritical people to staunch abolitionists. A lot of it goes
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  Speaker 1: down to the actions of a single man, a man
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  Speaker 1: who is often forgotten or you know, not mentioned in
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  Speaker 1: the history books. Yeah, a man by the name of
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  Speaker 1: Benjamin Lay who is remarkable and not remarkable, I guess,
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  Speaker 1: but stands out in history because of in part of
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  Speaker 1: his stature. He was only four ft tall. Yep. He
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  Speaker 1: was born in sixteen eighty two in Essex. This was
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  Speaker 1: a part of England that at the time was known
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  Speaker 1: for uh fabrics, textile production and then also religious radicalism
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  Speaker 1: and protest He was born into the Quaker faith. He
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  Speaker 1: was a third generation Quaker, and as he grew up
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  Speaker 1: into a young man and into an adult, he became
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  Speaker 1: more and more um I would say, committed to the faith,
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  Speaker 1: which is interesting because I believe his father, William, wasn't
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  Speaker 1: particularly devout. No, no, not at all. That's right. William
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  Speaker 1: was a Quaker, but his first wife was from outside
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  Speaker 1: of the religion. The family were pretty well off. They
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  Speaker 1: were landowners, they had some buildings, but they were always
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  Speaker 1: going to be suspect. They were always going to be
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  Speaker 1: sus in some way because they were members of a
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  Speaker 1: Protestant faith that was not the faith of the Church
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  Speaker 1: of England, and the Church of England, of course, is
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  Speaker 1: not going to take kindly to what it sees as
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  Speaker 1: dissident religions, speaking of which really quickly, um, since where
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  Speaker 1: you know, in the in the spirit of broadening our
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  Speaker 1: Quaker horizons, what exactly does the Quaker faith consist of? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's an interesting question. So we know that eventually they
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  Speaker 1: become abolitionists, but they've also been known, at least throughout
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  Speaker 1: u S history for being conscientious objectors pacifists, you know,
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  Speaker 1: during World War One and World War Two alike. And
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  Speaker 1: they had some pretty progressive views, right, they sure did.
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  Speaker 1: Um again, the Religious Society of Friends UM is it
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  Speaker 1: continues to be one of the most radical Christian sects
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  Speaker 1: that came out of the Reformation, and they kind of
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  Speaker 1: eschewed all of these ideas of creeds and iconic iconography
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of the hierarchy of religious authority and
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  Speaker 1: uh quote to quote an article on f GC Quaker
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  Speaker 1: dot org called Quakerism one oh one. Uh. They had
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  Speaker 1: taken out everything except dependent on the Divine Spirit for
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  Speaker 1: guidance and power. And a man by the name of
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  Speaker 1: George Fox Um was considered to be one of the
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  Speaker 1: main kind of um forces driving the Quaker movement. And
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  Speaker 1: they rely on something that they call testimonies, which is
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  Speaker 1: very important. Um. It describes the witness to truth within
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  Speaker 1: the human heart that is acted out in their everyday lives.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, just kind of goodness and being kind
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  Speaker 1: and being good to others. That's not just with their words,
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  Speaker 1: but something that's much more to do with their deeds. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And the idea that God is within us all and
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  Speaker 1: that all of life is interconnected. It kind of sounds
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  Speaker 1: a little a little hippie ish in a way. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they were also there were also prison reformers, controversially in Philadelphia.
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  Speaker 1: That is a story for another day. Today, we're examining
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  Speaker 1: the life of Benjamin lay A k A. The Quaker comment.
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  Speaker 1: He was a sick kid, so as he was growing
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  Speaker 1: up in his early years, his parents understandably thought, maybe
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  Speaker 1: he'll just get over his illness, you know, and and
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  Speaker 1: his the pace of his growth will catch up in
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  Speaker 1: his adolescence. Yet, as he grew older, it became clear
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  Speaker 1: that he had some sort of medical condition and this
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  Speaker 1: was affecting his growth. Right now, it's tough for us
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  Speaker 1: to have a definitive understanding of his condition, but historians
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  Speaker 1: agree the most likely condition he was suffering from was
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  Speaker 1: a form of Dwarfism. That was also associated with a
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  Speaker 1: curved spine, and that's why he stood about four ft
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  Speaker 1: tall and he had a humped back. But he was
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  Speaker 1: not um. He was not a frail person by any means.
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  Speaker 1: Me being a bit of a mass a guest, I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna give this pronunciation a try. Of the scientific name
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  Speaker 1: of the condition it was spawn deil pif seal dysplasia
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  Speaker 1: congenita kay, decent try. And he got work on a
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  Speaker 1: farm right and in the sixteen nineties with his elder
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  Speaker 1: half brother, William. William was not a Quaker. However, Benjamin
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  Speaker 1: got along well with his half brother William, and he
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  Speaker 1: worked as a shepherd. He grew old enough to get
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  Speaker 1: into his own line of work, a trade of his
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  Speaker 1: own business, of his own, and so his father sent
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  Speaker 1: him away to become a glover, which is cool there
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  Speaker 1: It could be someone's job to make gloves, that is,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, So yeah, I would, I would hope. So
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like too far a leap. I wonder
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  Speaker 1: if people have the surname glover worked as glovers in
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  Speaker 1: the past, just like he got a shoemaker. That's a tinker, right,
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  Speaker 1: not one. I mean, I don't know like maybe a
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  Speaker 1: glad well a tinker is a cobbler, would be a
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  Speaker 1: shop tinker. Uh. Sometimes tinkers are people who mend pots,
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  Speaker 1: sharper knives. Glover is somebody who's too old for there.
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  Speaker 1: There you go, casey on the case on the case. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Glover is someone who makes our sells gloves. So you
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  Speaker 1: know it was good that we didn't assume. Yeah, we
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  Speaker 1: never assume on ridiculous history. We always uh trust but verify.
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  Speaker 1: There we go. Just like Gregan said, today, we're fortunate
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• 10:25
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• 12:40
  Speaker 1: what happens with his apprenticeship in is a life of glovery.
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  Speaker 1: The life for Benjamin La gloving glovery. I like glovery better.
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  Speaker 1: I think he nailed it. Yeah, um no, it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the life for him. I think not. He liked it
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  Speaker 1: a lot less than being a shepherd. I think he.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm gonna editorialize here a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: I think he probably preferred the out of door wars,
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  Speaker 1: you know, roaming with the with the herds and the
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  Speaker 1: sheep's and his his best dog by his side. You know.
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  Speaker 1: He gliked making mittens and so on. But he didn't
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  Speaker 1: love it. God, that was rough? Oh man? Why so?
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  Speaker 1: So Yeah, you're right, right. He he probably looked back
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  Speaker 1: on his shepherding days and thought that was that was
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  Speaker 1: a nicer life. I was out and I was in
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  Speaker 1: the outdoors, had a more dynamic day to day. I
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  Speaker 1: was doing stuff. And his next to let career choice,
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  Speaker 1: you know, supports that because he decided that it was
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  Speaker 1: the sailor's life for him, which I guess was much
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  Speaker 1: easier to do at that point. You think, so, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know why. It seems like a lot of hard work. No,
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  Speaker 1: it was much easier to run away, run away and
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  Speaker 1: not get caught. Why why why would he have to
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  Speaker 1: worry about getting caught. Oh, yeah, he's twenty one. You
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  Speaker 1: can do what he wants. Did he even matter back then?
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  Speaker 1: It's his life. Yeah, but let let that boy run,
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  Speaker 1: let that boy fly, Let this ponies ride. Yeah. Well,
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  Speaker 1: he wanted to see the world. He knew there was
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  Speaker 1: a huge, vast realm of experience just beyond the visible horizon.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, you know, I might die, I might
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  Speaker 1: get grievously injured. Because the same year he ran away,
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  Speaker 1: seventeen o three, right, like, thousands of British sailors had
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  Speaker 1: lost their lives in a major cyclone, so he knew
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  Speaker 1: what was at stake and he decided yolo, yeah and UM.
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  Speaker 1: It ended up being a good move because it opened
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  Speaker 1: his eyes to the possibilities of the world had to offer.
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  Speaker 1: So he, you know, for about twelve years, he kind
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  Speaker 1: of flitted between London and the sea, his second home
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  Speaker 1: of the sea. He beat out on voyages, I guess
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  Speaker 1: you can say, for months and months, and he got
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  Speaker 1: used to sharing very tight quarters with um, a very
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  Speaker 1: diverse crew of individuals, lots of different ethnic groups represented,
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  Speaker 1: and he kind of learned literally how to get along
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  Speaker 1: with his fellow man. Yeah, it's true. Literally, you have
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  Speaker 1: to get along with your fellow men in order to
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  Speaker 1: cooperate in a sailing situation, or else you're all gonna die. Right.
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  Speaker 1: The only person who's better than other people would be
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  Speaker 1: the captain, and everybody else kind of follows that person's
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  Speaker 1: orders and their whims. That's not entirely true. The hierarchy
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: is rank and therefore merit based. But a good captain
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: should be down there in the trenches with his mates
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in my opinion. You know, I haven't captained the ship yet,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: so I I can't speak for sure. I'd like to
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: think that's the truth. Second career. I don't know, man,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I'm gonna I gotta learn a
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: little bit more about gloving. Kind a very striking figure
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  Speaker 1: for a captain. I would say that that's thank you.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And now, due to an ankle injury, I do have
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  Speaker 1: a seaworthy limp, so I look like I could be
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  Speaker 1: out a boat. I guess now I just need to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: get rid of the one of the eyes right now.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: You have to do that. You can just wear a patch.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Do you have a patch for one of those characters
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you play where you meet in random people and poses
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a patchman attatchment. Uh, funny that you say that. There's
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  Speaker 1: there's pretty strong evidence that the eye patch motif for
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  Speaker 1: pirates specifically or sailors in general doesn't come from Lucian.
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  Speaker 1: I it's too you've heard this to preserve night vision
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  Speaker 1: when they go down into the cabin beneath YEA. I
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  Speaker 1: never heard that. Yeah, have you heard that, Casey? I
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: don't think I have now. So the idea is that
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: they don't have something wrong with their left or right eye.
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  Speaker 1: They switched the patch when they walk out of the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: sunshine with low deck because there was very little lighting.
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  Speaker 1: I always thought when you saw him switch the patch,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: it was just kind of meant to be a joke,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the fact that they like, don't really have a missing eye,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: like a mel Brooks kind of thing. Exactly. Yeah, So
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Lay did not at this point have an eyepatch,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: but he had a hard earned rep And I like
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  Speaker 1: what you pointed out about how diverse his experience was,
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  Speaker 1: because we have to remember this is a time where
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  Speaker 1: people would spend their entire lives living, I mean, barely
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  Speaker 1: going more than a hundred miles from where they were
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  Speaker 1: physically born. And this guy traveled across the globe. He
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  Speaker 1: gained a tolerance for people, tolerance through familiarity and experience
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  Speaker 1: that was absent from a lot of his peers, even
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  Speaker 1: his fellow Quakers. He identified with the underdogs. He was
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  Speaker 1: terrified and horrified and disgusted by the stories he heard
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  Speaker 1: of the slave trade, and he never worked on a
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  Speaker 1: slave ship. He was not friendly to people who did he.
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  Speaker 1: We we think he learned to read while he was
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  Speaker 1: at sea, which is interesting and kind of inspiring, because
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know, you can't blame people for just assuming most
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: sailors at the time and the sixteen or sevres would
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: be illiterate. Turns out they were actually monster readers. You know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: they say, but he blew assume Ben, what's that? They're jerks?
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I learned something interesting to second ago to just in
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: quick aside, do you know where the name Quaker comes from?
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  Speaker 1: Is it from a It's a physical motion, right, sure is.
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  Speaker 1: But George Fox again, the founder or one of the
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: main forces of you know, the credited founder of Quakers,
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  Speaker 1: m apparently once told a magistrate, uh, in in like
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  Speaker 1: Jesus flipping over the money changers table fashion to quake
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  Speaker 1: at the name of God and uh and it's stuck,
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  Speaker 1: similar to the Shakers. Right, that's like a Shaker hymn
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: shape songs uh shape note singing. Right. Okay, so the Shakers,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: just to clear this up real quick, the Shakers came
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: from the Quakers. The woman who started the Shaker movement,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: lady named mother Ann Lee, was formerly a Quaker, and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: she incorporated some of her Quaker experience into Shaker practice.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And if I'm not mistaken, uh, Shaker has lived in
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: much more Amish type situation, self contained, subsistence communities. And
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they were celibates, right, that's the thing. They their religion
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: did not increase through reproduction. It increased through proselytization. But
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: does that really work. The Shakers were not as numerous
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: as the Quakers would seem so, and we also have
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: this idea, I think nowadays, of Quakers being pretty literate,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: well educated people. Benjamin at the time did not receive
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of formal schooling, but he grew up, you know.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: He he learned to read on the mean tides of
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic, I don't know, and he and he also
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: became very very well read and self educated as an adult.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: There was a moment where I think that's really cemented
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: his hate of slavery when he was working as a
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: shopkeeper in Barbados. It's true, and up to this point
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: he had heard tales of the slave ers and slave
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: ships and refused to work on one of those types
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of ships. We already kind of drawn a line in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the sand there. But um. There was a time when
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: he was living in London in between voyages where he
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: met uh someone named Sarah Smith, and she, like him,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: also suffered from dwarfs um um and they very quickly
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: fell in love and got married, and they shared both
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the their faith and their their physical conditions, and it
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: really kind of bonded them together and they started to
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: kind of really lift each other up and influence each
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: other in these very forward thinking ideas of the time,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and they moved to Barbados in seventeen eighteen, where there
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: was a small Quaker community. Unfortunately, though, uh, I think
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: they didn't realize before they set off for this new life,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: was that the island um was built on the practice.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: They both so despised, yes, in their minds, uh, the slaves,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the human slaves, were treated worse than the livestock. So
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: they took action. This was an activist couple. We have
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: to remember. They held open meetings, They offered to feed
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: anybody in the islands enslaved population, and that made the
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: white uh slaver population incredibly upset and they said, you know,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: stop interfering with this, even to the point where these
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: quote unquote masters and mistresses of slaves, as described an
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura, called for the Lays to be banished from
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the island. Luckily, the Lays had already made plans to skedattle,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and so it was that in seventeen twenty they returned
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to England, but Lay was he now had a taste
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: for righteous causes. And I won't spoil the rest of
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the story reading the headline of this alice obscure article,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: but it is by Natasha Frost and as a fantastic read.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: So when he came back to England, he was disowned,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: formally expelled from two different Quaker congregations. Eventually the couple
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: boarded a ship bound for Philadelphia in seventeen thirty two.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Benjamin and Sarah thought they would join up with the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: famous William Penn's Holy Experiment. They wanted to go to
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: what he called the good Land, Pennsylvania, and they thought
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: they would have a future with liberty of future, free
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: from religious persecution, a future where people were call it
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a hot take, treating other people like human beings, that
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: sounds nice. Lay arrived in Philadelphia, Uh completely appalled um,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: because you know, slavery was almost as much ingrained into
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the culture as what he had seen in Barbados. And
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: according to some stats laid out in the Smithsonian magazine
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: article the Quaker comment was the greatest abolitionist You've never
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: heard of by Marcus Hddicker, one in ten individuals in
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia was an enslaved person, and by contrast that that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: sadly compares favorably to Barbados, where almost nine out of
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: ten people on the island were enslaved. There was also,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it feels we're saying this the levels of violence and
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: repression were apparently lower, but still it's a situation where
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: slaveries involved chattel slavery, so violence and repression are still
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: a daily thing that happens all the time. And Laid
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: notes in his writing that enslaved men would plow so
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: thresh windows, split rails, cut, would clear land, make ditches
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and fences, fodder cattle, run and fetch up the horses.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: They were doing all of the work. And he saw
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: women who were enslaved doing all of the work in
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the dairy, in the kitchen, inside and outside. And then
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: this made him look, uh, with disgust upon the slave
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: owners who saw is very lazy, right, yeah, And I mean,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it affected his view of humanity in general
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: to a degree. Or maybe there was a moment where
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he was like, hash, you know, is everyone just awful?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: But he didn't give up, right, And that's the most
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: important part of any story like this, is he saw
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: things that he um found disturbing and disgusting, and rather
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: than just throw his hands up and give up on humanity,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: he tried to change it. Yep, and he partnered up
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: with a guy named Ralph Sanderford. Ralph Sanderford had earlier
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: published an indictment of slavery against the recommendations of the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Board of Overseers in the community, and that was about
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: three years ago when Lay ran into Sanderford. Ralph Sanderford
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: was not doing well. Also, I loved the picture of
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: somebody to be named Ralph in the seventeen hundreds. It
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: feels like a nineteen eighties name. It really does. It's
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: also a very popular chain of grocery stores in Los Angeles.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. So Lay found this guy wasn't
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: doing well. He had a lot of bodily infirmities. Lay
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: also noted that he had a sore affliction of the mind.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And to Benjamin Lay, this was all caused by persecution
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: from the leaders of the Quaker community. He had. Ralph Sandaford,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: that is, had moved from Philadelphia nine miles northeast to
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a cabin in the woods to get away from these
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: people who were pushing him around. And Lay visits with Ralph.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: They they speak of many things, the injustices of the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: world now to correct them for almost a year, and
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: eventually he spoke with Sandiford when Ralph Sandeford was on
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: his deathbed in a sort of delirium, and Sanford passed
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: away only forty years old May seventeen thirty three. You
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: gotta think that this was a meaningful friendship to Lay
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: because he had just experienced such abject horror in Barbados
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and just seeing the worst of people for him to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: find somebody like this who could kind of share his
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: h his understanding of you know, the common good and
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: working with your fellow man and all that. Um And actually,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: you know, I think you mentioned this ben Um he
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: published that treatise against the objection of the Board of Overseers.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I don't want to understate that enough like that is
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: literally like the body, the organization that you know governs slavery.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I never even thought of that as being a thing,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: but of course there had to be some kind of
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you know, organization behind it. It's really, uh it did
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: it kind of breaks your heart to think about. It's
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a banality of evil kind of thing. Yeah, so Ley
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: takes up the torch from Ralph and he saw arts
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: doing stuff similar to the protests. He and Sarah at
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: stage before he has public protest, and he says, I'm
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: gonna shock the friends of Philadelphia, the Quaker members of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the community, into awareness because they have their own deep,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: abiding moral failings. He said, look at all the hard
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: labor that goes into making these commodities that are making
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: you so much money, tobacco and sugar particularly. He shows
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: up at a Quaker meeting that happens annually with three
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: large tobacco pipes stuck in his bosom, stuck in his chest.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: What does that mean that like strapped to him like
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: John Popper carries around the harmonicas. Yeah, like John Popper,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I guess. He sits between these galleries of men and women,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: elders and ministers who are seated separately. He just sits
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: there and stews, And as the meeting ends, he rises,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: without saying a word, and takes one of those large
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: pipes and quote no one asked you about the quote,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: dashes one pipe among the men ministers, one among the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: women ministers, and the third among the congregation assembled. Wait
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a minute, is he throwing them or is he hitting,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: he's flogging them with it. How I don't understand. You
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: feel like by the time he got to the third pipe,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: people would have wised up. And also, how is he
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: doing this simultaneously? Is he doing it like one group
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: at a time? And why do they each get their
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: own pipe? I don't understand. Couldn't he have accomplished the
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: same thing with one pipe, ben I don't know. I
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: guess it was a different time pipe wise. Yeah, but
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the bottom line is it created It created a real
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: hubbub uh. Okay, Yeah, here we go. This is from
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Smithsonian mag I'm gonna quote the article directly because it
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: is a really good job of something that's up. With
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: each smashing blow. He protested slave labor, luxury, and the
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: poor health caused by smoking the stinking saltweed. I never
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: heard of tobacco referred to as saltweeds saltweed. Interesting. Yeah,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And he was really trying to band together his people,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: you know, toward a common cause which he knew they
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: were capable of in their hearts. This is only the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: beginning of Benjamin Lay's career really as an activist, as
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a protester. Right, It's true, and you might be asking yourselves. Really, guys,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you're gonna make that's a two parter. Really you're gonna
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: do that to me? Well, yeah, we really are. The
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: answer is yes, a hard yes, because this is an
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: important episode, important episode you want to give it its due,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and we hope that you will join us for part
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: two of the Life and Times of Benjamin Lay Because
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: new spoilers things get pretty intense and he does some
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: i would say, very innovative protesting, very innovative, bordering on
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the absurd, and varying into sort of performance art territory
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: as you'll start to hear. Um, So you can wait,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: it's just a couple of days, because this one is
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: absolutely gonna be worth it. The payoff is there, we promise, agreed,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: and this ends our episode, but not our show. Continue
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the conversation with us. You can find us on Facebook,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you can find us on Instagram, you can find us
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: on Twitter. We want to hear your stories of other abolitionists,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: other people on the side of the good guys who
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: for one reason or another have been kind of forgotten
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: by history. It's true, and you can find us in
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: those locations at Ridiculous History on Twitter and Instagram. Um
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: on Facebook. You can join our Ridiculous Historians group simply
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: by naming Ben or myself in the little question that
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: pops up, and then you're in, and you can join
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: us for all kinds of fun discussions with your fellow
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, including meme posts, uh, you know, musings on
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: all kinds of historical subjects, and you know, it's just
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a genuinely good group of folks. So we really recommend
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: you checking that out. Hot takes from Young Quizzles himself,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: which is how I'm referring to the quiz turn. Yeah,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: he's he's He's in there lurking pretty regularly around every corner.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: You can probably even engage him in a flame war
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: if you if you so choose. You can also check
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: out every single episode we've ever done on our website,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History Show dot com. We are not just the show,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: we are also people, and you can follow us individually
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: on the Internet. I am at how Now Noel Brown
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: on Instagram exclusively, I am at Ben Bowling on Instagram,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I am at Ben Bowling h s w uh the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the Old School House of Works head to know Why?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And on Twitter and let's see, well we've got we've
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: gotta get cracking on part two. We should do in
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: the meantime. Big thanks to super producer Casey Pegram Alex Williams,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: who composed our theme, Christopher haciotas his shape lingers in
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the corner, sort of like one of those aura clouds
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you see. Uh, And then you've got this other shape
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: that sort of looms overhead like a dark rain cloud.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: And that would be Jonathan's trick from the Quisters spirit
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: a k A. Young quizzles himself. I don't know what
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I've cracking up. I like it. Also thanks to Gabe Louesier.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Where would we be without a mention of Gabe. Also
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: thanks to Eve's Jeff Cope, Thanks to Benjamin Leigh, and
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: thanks to all the historians out there who preserved this
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: person's store right and brought them back into the mainstream narrative.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.