Friends in the Meetinghouse and Masters in the Fields: Seventeenth Century Quakers in the Slave Society of Barbados

Abstract

The Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, are well known for their antislavery philosophy in the United States prior to the Civil War. During the 17th century, however, many Quakers owned plantations in the colony of Barbados and reaped the profits of sugar harvested and produced through slave labor. The engagement of Barbadian Quakers with the institution of slavery caused the group to negotiate between their Christian values and the dominant economic model of their society. This study explores the development of the Quaker philosophy concerning slavery while members of the denomination participated in the slave society of Barbados. It argues that as members of the sect became increasingly involved with slavery, a body of rhetoric was produced by prominent Quakers that positioned the group in opposition to the ruling planter class, but was not yet antislavery. Also, the actions of the Quakers in response to the rhetoric about slavery signify that the sect was moving toward to position that was emphatically antislavery, but that position was not fully realized until after the height of Quaker influence in Barbados. The Society of Friends migrated away from the Caribbean in the late 1600s and carried with them ideas and convictions that developed into abolitionist philosophy in the subsequent centuries.