The Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker

Self-educated, with little formal schooling, he worked variously as a shepherd, a glover, a sailor (in which capacity he travelled the globe) and a bookseller.

One of the reasons for these changes was Lay himself, who for a quarter-century ‘railed against slavery in one Quaker meeting after another, in and around Philadelphia, confronting slave owners and slave traders with a savage, most-un-Quaker-like fury.’īorn in Essex in 1682 in the village of Copford, Lay came from a humble background and was poor for most of his life. Yet it wasn’t until 20 years later that Quakers agreed ‘to the possibility of disowning a member for slave-trading and an additional eighteen years to begin to excommunicate slave owners.’ In 1738, Benjamin was to become ‘the last Quaker disowned for protests against slavery’. Yet when Benjamin Lay and his wife Sarah arrived in Philadelphia in 1732, ‘more than half the members of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting owned slaves’.

Given the prominent role played by Quakers in anti-slavery movements, it may come as a surprise to some readers to learn that this struggle first had to be fought and won within Quaker communities. So how could anyone with an interest in radical history fail to spot the publication of a new book by him – let alone one with this book’s subtitle?įortunately, it’s not too late to correct this oversight.

Marcus Rediker’s 2002 book The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (co-authored with Peter Linebaugh) has become a modern classic. Sometimes you discover a book which you just can’t believe slipped past you when it was published.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker