John Woolman (1720-1772)

The phrase 'Quaker saint' is incongruous (Quakers have not been in the habit of canonization), but it has been applied to John Woolman, an American Quaker of the eighteenth century.
He lived in white colonial society, before the industrial revolution and shortly before the American Revolution, at a time when Quakers formed a larger proportion of the population than now (in Jersey and Pennsylvania).
 

Woolman is most famous for his pioneering opposition to slavery. The conviction slowly grew in him that buying and selling human beings and working them almost to death could not be reconciled with the belief that all people are equal in the sight of God. But the system of slavery was firmly established in the American economy, not just in the southern states where black slaves worked the cotton fields, but further north where they were employed as servants and labourers, and where ship-owners and merchants became rich on the profits.
At first Woolman made individual acts of witness such as refusing to prepare deeds of sale of slaves, and wearing white clothing because the dyes were made by slave-labour. But as time went on, he felt called upon to travel round the colonies, trying to persuade his fellow-Quakers to reject slavery. Gradually, his testimony won over opinion, and not just amongst Quakers. At the end of his life he voyaged to England to continue his campaign, and he died in York. He was always a gentle spiritual persuader rather than a strident opponent or public demonstrator.
 

Woolman was ahead of his time in advocating respect for the American Indians, the humane treatment of animals, and the conservation of the environment on which we all depend. He conspicuously exemplified the Quaker way of quiet conviction and conscientious action.

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