Let no casual reader of this story conclude that Benezet was a mere theorist or pamphleteer. He ever translated into action what he professed to believe. Knowing that the enlightenment of the blacks would not only benefit them directly but would also disprove the mad theories as to the impossibility of their mental improvement, Benezet became one of the most aggressive and successful workers who ever toiled among these unfortunates. As early as 1750 he established for the Negroes in Philadelphia an evening school in which they were offered instruction gratuitously. His noble example appealing to the Society of Friends, he encouraged them to raise a fund adequate to establishing a larger and well-organized school.[46] This additional effort, to be sure, required much of his time. When he discovered, however, that he could not direct the colored school and at the same time continue his female academy which he had conducted for three generations, he abandoned his own interests and devoted himself exclusively to the uplift of the colored people. In this establishment he received all the rewards he anticipated. It was sufficient for him finally to be able to say: "I can with truth and sincerity declare that I have found amongst the Negroes as great variety of talents, as among a like number of whites, and I am bold to assert, that the notion entertained by some, that the blacks are inferior in their capacities, is a vulgar prejudice, founded on the pride or ignorance of their lordly masters, who have kept their slaves at such a distance as to be unable to form a right judgment of them."[47]
His devotion to this work was further demonstrated by another noble deed. His will provided that after the payment of certain legacies and smaller obligations his estate should at the death of his widow be turned over to the trustees of the public school "to hire and employ a religious-minded person or persons to teach a number of negroe, mulatto, or Indian children, to read, write, arithmetic, plain accounts, needle work." "And," continued he, "it is my particular desire, founded on the experience I have had in that service, that in the choice of such tutor, special care may be had to prefer an industrious, careful person, of true piety, who may be or become suitably qualified, who would undertake the service from a principle of charity, to one more highly learned not equally disposed."[48]
But this philanthropist's work was almost done. He was then seventy years of age and having been an earnest worker throughout his life he had begun to decline. One spring morning in the year 1784 it was spread abroad in Philadelphia that Anthony Benezet was seriously ill and that persons realizing his condition were apprehensive of his recovery. So disturbed were his friends by this sad news that they for several days besieged the house to seek, so to speak, the dying benediction of a venerable father. The same in death as he had been in life, he received their attentions with due appreciation of what he had been to them but exhibited at the same time in the presence of his Maker the deepest self-humiliation. "I am dying," said he, "and feel ashamed to meet the face of my Maker, I have done so little in his cause." Anthony Benezet was no more.
The honors which his admirers paid him were indicative of the high esteem in which they held the distinguished dead. Thousands of the people of Philadelphia followed his remains to witness the interment of all that was mortal of Anthony Benezet. Never had that city on such an occasion seen a demonstration in which so many persons of all classes participated. There were the officials of the city, men of all trades and professions, various sects and denominations, and hundreds of Negroes, "testifying by their attendance, and by their tears, the grateful sense they entertained of his pious efforts in their behalf."[49]
C. G. Woodson.
Footnotes:
[22] William Burling of Long Island was the first to conceive an abhorrence of slavery. Early in his career he began to speak of the wickedness of the institution at the yearly meetings of the Quakers. He wrote several tracts to publish to the world his views on this great question. His first tract appeared in 1718. It was addressed to the elders of the Friends to direct their attention to "the inconsistency of compelling people and their posterity to serve them continually and arbitrarily, and without any proper recompense for their services." See Clarkson's "History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade," Volume I, pp. 146-147.
[23] After Burling came Ralph Sandiford, a merchant engaged in business in Philadelphia. This man attracted the attention of his friends because he declined the assistance offered him by persons sufficiently wealthy to establish him in life, merely because they had acquired their wealth by enslaving Negroes. He not only labored among his own people for the liberation of the slaves, but boldly appealed to others. He finally expressed his sentiments in a publication called the "Mystery of Inquiry," a brief treatise on the evil of the institution of slavery. The importance attached to this work is that Sandiford published it and circulated it at his own expense despite the fact that he had been threatened with prosecution by the judge. This pamphlet was written in correct and energetic style, abounding with facts, sentiments and quotations, which showed the virtue and talents of the author and made a forceful appeal in behalf of the blacks. See Clarkson's "History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade," Volume I, pp. 147-148.
[24] Benjamin Lay, the next worker in this cause, lived at Abington, not far from Philadelphia. He was a man of desirable class and had access to the homes of some of the best people even when in England. He was not long in this country before he championed the cause of the slave. In 1737 he published his first treatise on slavery, distributing it far and wide, especially among the members of the rising generation. He traveled extensively through this country and the West Indies and personally took up the question of abolition with the governors of the slave colonies. It is doubtful, according to Clarkson, that he rendered the cause great service by this mission. This writer says that "in bearing what he believed to be his testimony against this system of oppression, he adopted sometimes a singularity of manner, by which, as conveying demonstration of a certain eccentricity of character, he diminished in some degree his usefulness to the cause which he had undertaken; as far indeed as this eccentricity might have the effect of preventing others from joining him in his pursuit, lest they should be thought singular also, so far it must be allowed that he ceased to become beneficial. But there can be no question, on the other hand, that his warm and enthusiastic manners awakened the attention of many to the cause, and gave them first impressions concerning it, which they never forgot, and which rendered them useful to it in the subsequent part of their lives." See Clarkson's "History of Abolition of the African Slave Trade," Vol. I, pp. 148-150.
[25] John Woolman shared with Anthony Benezet the honor of being one of the two foremost workers in behalf of the oppressed race. He was born in Burlington County in New Jersey in 1720. When quite a youth he was deeply impressed with religion and resolved to live a righteous life. He was therefore in his twenty-second year made a minister of the gospel among the Quakers. Just prior to his entering upon the ministry there happened an incident which set him against slavery. Being a poor man he was working for wages as a bookkeeper in a store. "My employer," said he, "having a Negro woman sold her, and desired me to write a bill of sale, the man being waiting, who bought her. The thing was sudden, and though the thought of writing an instrument of slavery for one of my fellow-creatures made me feel uneasy, yet I remembered I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our Society, who bought her. So through weakness I gave way and wrote, but, at executing it, I was so afflicted in my mind, that I said before my master and the friend, that I believed slave-keeping to be a practice inconsistent with the Christian religion. This in some degree abated my uneasiness; yet, as often as I reflected seriously upon it, I thought I should have been clearer, if I had desired to have been excused from it, as a thing against my conscience; for such it was. And some time after this, a young man of our Society spoke to me to write a conveyance of a slave to him, he having lately taken a Negro into his house. I told him I was not easy to write it; for though many of our meeting, and in other places kept slaves, I still believed the practice was not right, and desired to be excused from the writing. I spoke to him in good will; and he told me that keeping slaves was not altogether agreeable to his mind, but that the slave being a gift to his wife he had accepted her." Moved thus so early in his life he developed into an ardent friend of the Negro and ever labored thereafter to elevate and emancipate them. See Clarkson's "History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade."