The Quakers in America, it must be owned, did most of them originally as
other settlers there with respect to the purchase of slaves. They had
lands without a sufficient number of labourers, and families without a
sufficient number of servants, for their work. Africans were poured in
to obviate these difficulties, and these were bought promiscuously by
all. In these days, indeed, the purchase of them was deemed favourable
to both parties, for there was little or no knowledge of the manner in
which they had been procured as slaves. There was no charge of
inconsistency on this account, as in later times. But though many of the
Quakers engaged, without their usual consideration, in purchases of this
kind, yet those constitutional principles, which belong to the society,
occasioned the members of it in general to treat those whom they
purchased with great tenderness, considering them, though of a different
colour, as brethren, and as persons for whose spiritual welfare it
became them to be concerned; so that slavery, except as to the power
legally belonging to it, was in general little more than servitude in
their hands.
This treatment, as it was thus mild on the continent of America where
the members of this society were the owners of slaves, so it was equally
mild in The West India Islands where they had a similar property.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167