JOHN WOOLMAN
Journal
John Woolman, American Quaker evangelist, author of this autobiography, was born in West Jersey in 1720 and followed the trade of a tailor. But all his interests lay in the practice of piety, and in the uncompromising application of religious Principles to the problems of social life. He advocated incessantly two principal reforms--that members of the Society of Friends should separate utterly from the possession of slaves, and that they should return to their primitive simplicity and moderation in the use of worldly things. Like many economists before and after him, he saw in luxury, extravagance and ostentation, the true cause of all poverty and oppression; and a tract of his entitled "A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich," first published in 1793, was republished a hundred years later by the Fabian Society. His most important treatise, published in 1754, entitled "Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes," was one of the earliest indications of the growing Abolitionist feeling in New England. His voyage across the Atlantic in May and Tune, 1772, to visit the English Quakers, was followed by his death from small-pox, in the city of York, on October 7 in the same year. The "Journal," which is marked by great simplicity and sincerity, was published shortly afterwards and has been issued in many subsequent editions.
I.--The Curse of Slavery
Having reached manhood, I wrought at my trade as a tailor; carefully attended meetings for worship and discipline; and found an enlargement of gospel love in my mind, and therein a concern to visit friends in the settlements of Pennsylvania, Virginia and other parts. I expressed it to my beloved friend, Isaac Andrews, who then told me that he had drawings to the same places. I opened the case in our monthly meeting, and friends expressing their unity therewith, we obtained certificates to travel as companions.
Two things were remarkable to me in this journey. First, in regard to my entertainment; when I ate, drank and lodged free of cost with people who lived in ease on the hard labour of their slaves, I felt uneasy, and this uneasiness returned upon me, at times, through the whole visit. Secondly, this trade of importing slaves from their native country being much encouraged among them, and the white people and their children so generally living without much labour, was frequently the subject of my serious thoughts. And I saw in these southern provinces so many vices and corruptions, increased by this trade and this way of life, that it appeared to me as a dark gloominess hanging over the land; and though now many willingly run into it, yet in future the consequence will be grievous to posterity.
About this time, believing it good for me to settle, and thinking seriously about a companion, my heart was turned to the Lord and He was pleased to give me a well-inclined damsel, Sarah Ellis, to whom I was married the 18th day of the 8th month, in the year 1749.
II--Among the Indians
Having many years felt love in my heart towards the natives of this land, who dwell far back in the wilderness, whose ancestors were the owners of the land where we dwell, and being at Philadelphia in 1761, I fell in company with some of those natives who live on the east branch of the river Susquehannah, at an Indian town called Wehaloosing, 200 miles from Philadelphia; and in conversation with them by an interpreter, as also by observations on their character and conduct, I believed some of them were acquainted with that divine power which subjects the rough and froward will of the creature.