Lay's body featured prominently in his activism, which often involved physical demonstrations comparable to the provocative demonstrations of Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes. 77) and made other condescending remarks about his physique (and sanity) in publications like the Pennsylvania Gazette. As Rediker notes, his size and shape were part of his renown in the eighteenth century, when his detractors called him 'little Benjamin' (p. One of the most extraordinary characteristics of Benjamin Lay was his body he was described as a 'dwarf' and 'hunchback,' standing just over four feet tall. Later in life Lay became a hermit, living a simple existence in a cave in Abington, Pennsylvania, immortalized in a 1758 portrait by painter William Williams and his apprentice, Benjamin West. Lay was certainly a polarizing and antagonistic figure in Pennsylvania society, but a well-known one the Society of Friends disowned him in 1738, shortly after the publication of his book and the pokeberry juice demonstration. His controversial and prophetic (if somewhat confusing) book All Slave-Keepers that Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates was published in 1738, shortly after Sarah's death, and printed anonymously by Lay's friend Benjamin Franklin. 2) to protest slavery: spattering pokeberry juice as ersatz blood at Quaker slaveholders attending the Friends' Philadelphia Yearly Meeting kidnapping the child of slaveholding neighbors for a short period to induce the panic that bondage had caused their servants' parents and smashing fine china teacups and saucers in an open-air Philadelphia market to protest the mistreatment of labourers who produced tea and sugar. He indulged in a number of 'guerrilla theater' tactics (p. It was there that Benjamin devoted himself to more radical views, including antinomianism, vegetarianism and animal rights, egalitarianism, and, most famously, abolitionism. Lay was an autodidact and worked as bookseller in Pennsylvania. He and his beloved wife, Sarah, a Quaker minister, lived for a time in Barbados before obtaining permission to settle in the North American Quaker colony of Pennsylvania.

Born a Quaker commoner in Essex in 1682, Lay learned a number of trades in England before he became a sailor, in which capacity he first witnessed the harsh realities of Atlantic slavery. This fascinating and engaging biography illuminates the life of Benjamin Lay, who became an early 'prophet against slavery' in the British colonial world.

The fearless benjamin lay