Quaker Women & The Abolition of Slavery: a talk by Phillida Bunkle

As part of the celebrations of 400 years of Quakerism, a talk by Phillida Bunkle.

Tensions at the heart of the recent American election are long standing and go back to the early years of the American Republic. In 1783 when the War of American Independence ended and the new nation of the United States was established the central question facing the new nation was, (and still is), what would the new state stand for? Was it founded on violence of race-based chattel slavery, the sexual exploitation of women and the sale of their children. Or on free labour, equal opportunity, and inclusion?

The Declaration of Independence of 1776 declared the ‘self-evident ‘ truth ‘that all men are created equal,…and…. endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights’. Quakers were the first and most consistent religious group to insist that ‘all men’ meant ‘all’ - women and men, black, white, and indigenous people and that lasting peace required recognition of this simple fact.

Quakers, especially Quaker women, were at the very centre of the intense public debate about the nature of the democracy that emerged between 1783 when the American War of Independence ended and 1861 when the Civil War began. Abolitionist Quaker women worked tirelessly against war and violence. They challenged the violence and sexual exploitation endemic to slavery. They promoted temperance, non-violent resistance and the equal franchise and education for black and white, women and men.

I trace four women whose remarkable lives are central to the debate about the nature of the new country. They established free schools, clinics, and hospitals for the poor and opened the first medical schools for women.

The concerns about racism, violence and the suppression of women raised by Quaker women 200 hundred years ago echo through this most recent election. Will the opportunities they pioneered survive?

Are peaceful solutions still possible?

At Elma Turner Library.