USA > North Carolina > Toward freedom for all : North Carolina Quakers and slavery > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16
Div.Sch. E 445 .N8 H55 1984
DUKE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013
http://archive.org/details/towardfreedomfor00hilt
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
North Carolina Quakers and Slavery Hiram H. Hity
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
North Carolina Quakers and Slavery
Hiram H. Hilty
FRIENDS UNITED PRESS
RICHMOND INDIANA
Hilty, Hiram H. Toward freedom for all.
Bibliography: p. Includes index.
1. Slavery - North Carolina - Anti-slavery movements.
2. Slavery and the church - Society of Friends.
3. Quakers - North Carolina - History - 19th Century.
4. North Carolina - Race relations. 5. North Carolina - Church history. I. Title. E445.N8H55 1984 975.6'00496 84-10325 ISBN 0-913408-83-2
Copyright 1984 Friends United Press 101 Quaker Hill Drive, Richmond, IN 47374 Printed in the United States of America
975 , 600426 H456 * 137 1964
V
Contents
The Origins of North Carolina Quakerism 1
Quakers and Slavery in Colonial North Carolina
13
Slaves Given Freedom 28
Colonization in Haiti and Africa
44
Quakers in Court
61
Relocation in the West and North
75
The Underground Railroad and Abolitionism
89
The Civil War and After
101
Notes
110
Bibliography
136
Index 147
vii
Preface
In 1896, Stephen B. Weeks published his widely acclaimed Southern Quakers and Slavery, a work bearing the official approval of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends. Weeks' copy of this book, now in the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, reveals that the origi- nal title was: "The Quakers in Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia and their Settle- ment in the Middle West." This title is more appropriate than the one chosen for publication, for only one chapter is devoted to the slavery question. I have chosen a more restricted topic than either of those selected by Weeks, limiting myself to the dealings of North Carolina Friends with slavery.
North Carolina Quakers struggled for a hundred years to free themselves of the taint of slavery which had been bequeathed to them by their forefathers. As a body, they were manumissionists and colonizers, and as individuals many of them were abolitionists and agents of the Underground Railroad. It has been exciting to walk with them in their humanitarian adventures during the century preceding the Civil War.
l owe a special debt to the late Dorothy Gilbert Thorne and the staff of the Friends Historical Collection at Guilford College for their assistance in the early stages of this study, and to J. Floyd Moore, E. Daryl Kent, A.I. Newlin and Herbert Poole for their encouragement. Professor Robert H. Woody, of Duke University, gave invaluable advice and assistance.
Hiram H. Hilty Guilford College
viii
Maps
Map showing Friends meetings in North Carolina 18 Map showing routes to liberty 74
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
The Origins of North Carolina Quakerism
The English who settled Virginia were not the type to throw themselves eagerly into the back-breaking work of clearing the forests and raising their own food. They seem to have come, rather, following the will-o'-the wisp of promotional propaganda which had convinced them that life would be easier and more pleasant in the New World than in the Old.1 Notwithstanding this notion, it turned out that an enormous amount of hard work had to be done if any kind of productive economy was to be established, and it would have to be done under a sun much hotter than that of England. The Indians, content to live at a subsistence level, were less than eager to serve the English. And so it came about that the English colonists imitated their Spanish predecessors in America by turning to African slave labor.
The cash crop settled on by southern colonists was tobacco, and, within a few decades of the founding of Jamestown, the pattern of southern colonial agri- culture already had been firmly established in Virginia: the plantation system, resting firmly on a base of African slave labor. Beyond the Dismal Swamp to the south, a similar society took shape, so that before the end of the seventeenth century the shores of Albemarle Sound in present North Carolina became a part of the slave empire.
Among the earliest inhabitants of this latter area was a body of people called Quakers, who began to have conscientious scruples about slavery as early as 1750, although for several generations they themselves had been slaveholders. Once their consciences had been pricked, antislavery sentiment grew among them steadily, and for a century before the Civil War they opposed slavery actively as a body. Naturally, the cause was not a popular one. They first had to free their own slaves. This brought them up against formidable legal obstacles from the start, but by dint of persistent effort, they finally managed to cleanse themselves of their own shame. At the same time, they pursued such avenues as were open to them as a peace-loving and law-abiding people to bring an end to the institution of slavery.
2
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
BIRTH IN ENGLAND
Opposition to slavery did not arise by spontaneous generation out of the Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. To understand this group of dissenters in the midst of the slave empire, it is necessary to go back to England where the Reli- gious Society of Friends (commonly called Quakers) had its origin during the very years of the formation of the American colonies. The Puritan Revolution gave rise to numerous religious sects, each offering its own formula for salva- tion to a confused generation which was groping everywhere for some spiritual certainties to replace its lost faith in the established churches. One of these sects was the Religious Society of Friends, a group that grew up around a young religious genius named George Fox. Four years of wandering and searching had led him deeper and deeper into despair, when suddenly he experienced an illumination which brought him to the end of his search. A Voice declared: "There is One, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition."
Fox had rejected as false all the religious leaders whose counsel he had sought; he now accepted as authoritative the Inner Light which had brought him a direct revelation of Christ. It was a simple conviction, but it so gripped the young man that he seized every opportunity to share his new discovery with others. This Inner Light, he was convinced, was available to all - men and women, rich and poor, young and old, educated and uneducated, Englishman and foreigner.
Although he lacked any formal training in theology, George Fox challenged the ordained clergy in open meetings and in private disputations. He accused them of engaging in empty rituals and mindless repetition of theological formulas which neither they nor their parishioners understood. Derisively, he declared that "breeding" at Oxford or Cambridge in no way qualified them to preach the living Truth of God unless they themselves had experienced and perceived that Truth.
Fox was certainly a non-conformist, but he was not an agnostic. He took the Bible very seriously, but insisted that it was valid because of the spirit that inspired its writers, not because of the exact, literal form in which it was written. He shared strongly the Reformation desire to return to primitive Chris- tianity. The thrust of Fox's teaching was to encourage individualism in religious matters, and it was not long before he had to reprove some of his followers who took him too literally on this point. James Nayler, a sensitive religious person who was, nevertheless, worshiped by fanatics and formally convicted of blasphemy, was only the most dramatic example of individualism. There was something basic in the Quaker idea which always left the door open for one to follow his own private "leading," and this encouraged both saints and trouble- makers.2
George Fox was so excited about the Truth that he had discovered that he began to preach widely and soon won a considerable following. This brought with it the need for the very institutionalism that he disliked so much. Hoping to form a loose association of believers, rather than a sect, he established a variety
3
ORIGINS OF NORTH CAROLINA QUAKERISM
of devices intended to forestall a complicated ecclesiastical system. The Quaker monthly and yearly meetings for business were simply called monthly and yearly meetings, these names being applied to local congregations and regional associations, respectively. Presiding officers were merely called clerks, and ministers were not ordained, although it did become the custom eventually to "recognize gifts in the ministry" and "record" that fact. The first yearly meetings were held in London and Dublin in the year 1671.3
The revolt against ecclesiastical authority was accompanied by non-coopera- tion with the State. Indeed, in seventeenth-century England the two powers were very closely intermingled. Besides refusing to attend the churches in their local parishes or to pay tithes for their maintenance, Quakers steadfastly refused to take the oath of allegiance to the state, taking literally the biblical injunction to "swear not at all." It is hardly surprising that Oliver Cromwell, the Protector-Dictator who had plenty of real enemies plotting his overthrow, was not amused by this Quaker notion.
The stubborn refusal to take the oath brought arrests, fines and imprison- ments that sealed the first generation of Quakers in a bond of suffering. Thou- sands were in prison, and many died for their faith. To care for those suffering for conscience's sake and to care for their families, British Friends established the meeting for sufferings. More than a century later, a similar body would be created in North Carolina to look after the sufferings of slaves.
It is said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, and this principle indeed operated in the case of the Quakers. Confirmed in their faith by the very persecutions they suffered, they scattered far and wide on preach- ing missions. Special "concerns" moved individual Quakers to visit heads of state, ranging from Oliver Cromwell and King Charles Il to the Sultan of Turkey.4 Groups of Friends were established in Barbados and Jamaica, and as early as 1656 Quakers were disturbing the peace of Puritan Boston. The move- ment took root in Rhode Island, Maryland and Virginia during 1657, New Jersey in 1670, the Carolinas in 1671, and of course in Pennsylvania in 1682. George Fox himself visited all these places.
If Quakers were unwelcome in England, they were scarcely received with open arms in America in the beginning. Massachusetts hanged Mary Dyer in Boston, and Virginia and North Carolina were troubled by the Quakers' refusal to pay the church tax or join the militia. On the other hand, Quaker governors served a total of thirty-six terms in Rhode Island, and New Jersey was under Quaker control from 1674 to 1702. One Quaker governor served in the Caro- linas.5
Although not the oldest Quaker community in America, Pennsylvania easily holds first place as the Quaker Colony. Founded by William Penn as a laboratory for trying out Quaker ideas about human relations, it quickly became a haven for religious dissenters and the focal point for all colonial Quakers. For seventy years, from 1682 to 1756, Quakers controlled the Penn- sylvania legislature and made it a truly noble experiment in enlightened govern-
4
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
ment. Philadelphia rose to eminence in the colonies, and the names of William Penn, John Woolman and Anthony Benezet were, in their turn, known and revered by Quakers everywhere.
Despite initial hostile reception in some colonies, there was a Quaker Golden Age in which the spiritual descendents of George Fox tasted real power. Yet, this was a brief age, and in later years Quakers were much more familiar with petitioning governments for redress of grievances, and for social reforms, than they were with governing. This petitioning became a habit among them and kept them sensitive to the responsibility of a government to its people.
INTERNAL RELIGIOUS LIFE
The religious life of American Quakers followed generally the pattern estab- lished in England, and visitors from England even examined and corrected deviations from the norm, although in the long run there was some distinctive evolution within American Quakerism. The full gamut of meetings and com- mittees is highly complex if one considers all of Quakerdom over a period of two centuries, but a simple outline of the common structure of the Society will suffice. Within North Carolina, during the period of this study, the following general pattern prevailed.6
At the lowest level were the meetings for worship, which might involve only a few people who would probably gather in a home. If enough persons became involved in such a meeting, it might become a preparative meeting, which might gather in a meetinghouse once or twice a week. After the preparative meeting, came the monthly meeting for business, which in the eighteenth century commonly consisted of several preparative meetings. Gradually, preparative meetings earned the right to hold their own monthly meetings for business and were henceforth designated as monthly meetings. The monthly meeting thus came in time to be the typical local congregation. Above the monthly meeting was the quarterly meeting, consisting of several monthly meetings and assembling every three months. At the apex of the structure was the yearly meeting, attended by the general membership, but concerned technically with reports from the several quarterly meetings. The yearly meeting was the final arbiter within the geographical confines of the region in matters of business, and also in faith and practice. However, very "weighty" matters were likely to be referred to London Yearly Meeting from all the American yearly meetings. There were eight yearly meetings in colonial America: Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Maryland, Long Island, North Carolina, Virginia and Rhode Island.7
There was a meeting for ministers and elders which met every month to consider the spiritual welfare of the monthly meeting and its members. Un- seemly conduct, commonly called "disorderly walking," came under the care of this body. If the person against whom a complaint was made was responsive to counsel, the matter might be dropped, but in case of a serious infraction a letter of self-condemnation was required by the monthly meeting. If the sinner
5
ORIGINS OF NORTH CAROLINA QUAKERISM
remained unrepentant, the monthly meeting, on being informed thereof, named a committee (generally of two) to prepare a letter of "denial," or "dis- ownment," by which the member was expelled from the fellowship.
There were separate women's meetings duplicating some or all of the regular men's meetings. They were, however, subordinate to the men's meetings in any matters of great weight.
Ministers might be either men or women. They formed a special class whose gifts in the ministry had been demonstrated by acceptable exhortation in meet- ings for worship. Some of them were very eloquent, and, with the permission of the meeting of ministers and elders and the monthly meeting, often spoke and visited in other meetings, sometimes outside the limits of the yearly meeting, and even in foreign countries.8 George Fox's fierce objection to "hireling min- isters" prevented any of these persons from receiving any pay for religious work, but they were given travel expenses by the yearly meeting, and Friends entertained them in their homes in the communities where they visited. It was the custom in North Carolina to keep a common treasury in the monthly meet- ings, as well as in the yearly meetings. This fund was referred to as "stock." It was made up in part by voluntary subscriptions and in part by an annual assess- ment on the monthly meetings by the yearly meeting.
Much of the work among Quakers was assigned to committees. In 1757, North Carolina Yearly Meeting appointed a standing committee to help mem- bers who were being forced into the militia, but the committee became in effect the executive committee of the yearly meeting. As Friends began to free their slaves, the standing committee was given the responsibility of overseeing that work. In the year 1824, the meeting for sufferings superceded the standing committee and acted in the name of the yearly meeting between the annual sessions of that body. It also took on the work with the slaves.9
Perhaps the most powerful persons in this structure were the clerks of the monthly meetings and the yearly meeting. Officially, they merely presided, but actually much depended on their skill in conducting meetings for business. Decision was always by "the sense of the meeting," instead of by majority vote, and this was formulated by the clerk after all those who wished had spoken and "all minds were clear." The group then accepted or rejected the formulation of the clerk. Naturally, aggressive persons carried more weight in such meetings than the acquiescent, although clerks sought to place all contributions on an equal footing. As Sidney V. James, a contemporary historian, has said, it was the task of the clerks and other leaders "to act as brokers between the fervor of the few and the tepidity of the many."10
This, then, is the sort of people who made up the Quaker community in North Carolina. They were a conscious part of a larger whole scattered over the whole length of colonial America and spanning the Atlantic to include the British Isles. They were pledged to a soberly pious life, refused to take oaths or bear arms, and would have no part of a professional ministry. As citizens, they were egalitarian, devoted to industry, and were zealous for the well-being of
6
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
the colonial community.
The area where Friends emerged in North Carolina was the first region settled by the English in America. Sir Walter Raleigh planted a tentative com- munity on Roanoke Island in 1585 which remained only ten months and then returned to England in a body. A second attempt was made in 1587, but it had the misfortune to become known as "The Lost Colony."11 Although this colony did completely and mysteriously disappear, its proximity to Jamestown, Virginia, and the inclusion of the site in the Virginia grant of 1606 makes this coastal area of North Carolina a part of the oldest settled region in the original British colonies on the North American mainland.
After the tragedy of Roanoke Island, attention shifted to Virginia, and then to New England, and the coastal fringe of modern North Carolina became a mere backwater to the growing colony of Virginia. It was not until 1663 that formal settlement of the Carolinas was undertaken again. On March 24 of that year, Charles II of England issued a proprietary charter to Albemarle, Lord Craven, Lord Berkely, Sir John Colleton, Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret and Sir William Berkely, for a tract of land lying between thirty-six and thirty-one degrees north latitude, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific (called "the South Seas"). This included all the lands between Virginia and the Spanish territories to the south.
THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS
In terms of political planning, it must be said that the Proprietors of Carolina did their best to provide a suitable vehicle for an orderly society. They enlisted the services of none other than John Locke to draw up what was termed the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. The edition of 1663 stated that its pur- pose was to provide:
for a better settlement of the government of that place, and estab- lishing the Interest of the Lords Proprietors with equality and with- out confusion; and that the government of this Province may be most agreeable to the Monarchy under which we live, and of which this Province is a part; and that we may avoid erecting a numerous democracy.12
Yet, political affairs were never "settled" during the proprietary period, per- haps because a "numerous democracy" kept trying to assert itself. Mindful of the religious ferment of the time, they dutifully established the Church of England in Carolina, but as an encouragement to dissenters who might become interested in becoming settlers, the Charter stated:
And because it may happen that some of the people of said prov- ince, cannot in their private opinions, conform to the publick exercise of religion, according to the liturgy, form and cere- monies of the church of England, or take and subscribe the oaths
7
ORIGINS OF NORTH CAROLINA QUAKERISM
and articles ... our will and pleasure therefor is, and we do .. . give and grant unto the . . . (proprietors) ... full and free license, liberty and authority, by such ways and means as they shall think fit, to give and to grant unto such person or persons, .. . who real- ly in their judgments, and for conscience sake, cannot and shall not conform to the said liturgies or ceremonies, and take and sub- scribe to the oaths and articles aforesaid . .. such indulgences and dispensations in that behalf . .. as they in their discretion think fit and reasonable.13
This declaration was further reinforced in the 1669 edition of the Constitu- tions, in which it was declared that "No person whatsoever shall disturb, molest or persecute another, for his speculative opinions in religion or his way of worship."14
If the Proprietors had any serious intention to establish the Church of England in Carolina, it can only be said that they were not successful, for the Church did not take root under them, while dissent prospered. Taken in the large, North Carolinians were careless about religious matters in that period. If Quakers made some headway among them, as they did, it was perhaps more by default than anything else. In any case, they too apparently failed to wield a strong Christianizing influence on early North Carolina society. The Reverend John Blair, of the Church of England, observed in 1704 that North Carolinians were lax in religious matters. He wrote:
For the country may be divided into four sorts of people: first the Quakers, who are the most powerful enemies to Church govern- ment, but a people very ignorant of what they profess. The second sort are a great many who have no religion, but would be Quakers, if they were not obliged to lead a more moral life than they are willing to comply to. A third sort are something like Presbyterians, which sort is upheld by some idle fellows who have left their law- ful employment, and preach and baptize through the country, without any manner of orders from any sect or pretended church. A fourth sort, who are really zealous for the interest of the Church, are fewest in number, but the better sort of people. 15
William Byrd, of Virginia, had an equally low opinion of North Carolinians. In 1728, he wrote that:
.. . tis a thorough Aversion to Labour that makes people file off to N Carolina, where plenty of Warm Sun confirms them in their Disposition to Laziness for their whole Lives.
What little devotion there may happen to be is much more private than their vices. The People seem easy without a Minister, as long as they are exempted from paying Him. Sometimes the Society for propagating the Gospel has had the Charity to send over Mission-
8
TOWARD FREEDOM FOR ALL
aries to this Country; but unfortunately the Priest has been too lewd for the People, or which oftener happens, they too lewd for the Priest. For these Reasons these Reverend Gentlemen have always left their Flocks as arrant Heathen as they found them. This much, however, may be said of the inhabitants of Edenton, that not a Soul has the least taint of Hypocricy or Superstition, acting Frankly and aboveboard in all their excesses. 16
Although Byrd's remarks may well have been exaggerated, it must be said that the weight of testimony is not complimentary to the earliest settlers of North Carolina. Measured by the standards of contemporary Englishmen, they were mostly of "the poorer sort" and largely devoid of the amenities of life then considered indispensable in England. The pattern of life was far removed from the pretentions to elegance found in Virginia, and equally far removed from the severe Puritanism of New England. In public affairs, the chief object seems to have been to have as little government as possible. Royal governors found the Carolinas hard to govern. Governor Peter Cartaret fled the colony in 1672, and John Jenkins was deposed in 1676. Governor Eastchurch was forbidden to occupy his post in 1676, and the following year Governor Thomas Miller was overthrown and jailed. Governor Seth Sothel was banished from the colony by the colonial assembly in 1689. It was an obstreperous colony.17
VISITS OF WILLIAM EDMUNDSON AND GEORGE FOX
Actually, the Quaker beginnings in North Carolina antedated the observa- tions of John Blair and William Byrd. The earliest recorded visit of a Quaker to North Carolina is that of Englishman William Edmundson on May 1, 1672. He went directly to the home of Henry Phillips, a New England Quaker who was already settled on Albemarle Sound. Phillips was overjoyed by the visit, be- cause, as he declared, he had not seen a fellow Quaker in seven years.18 If we take him at his word, he apparently settled there not later than 1665, two years after Charles Il issued the Carolinas Charter to the Lords Proprietors and four years before the 1669 edition of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. North Carolina was a remote and sparsely settled place at the time.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.