Anthony Benezet

An American philanthropist and Quaker educator, Anthony Benezet (1713-1784) wrote and distributed antislavery tracts, promoted education for women and African Americans, urged better relations with the Native Americans, and composed a brief history of his sect.

Of a well-to-do Huguenot family, Anthony Benezet was born in Saint-Quentin, France, on Jan. 31, 1713. When he was 2, his family moved to Rotterdam to escape religious persecutions following revocation of the Edict of Nantes; shortly afterward they went to London. Anthony received a liberal education, was apprenticed to a mercantile house, and at the age of 14 joined the Quaker faith.

The family came to Philadelphia in 1731, and 18-year-old Anthony entered the merchant business with his three brothers. In May 1736 he married Joyce Marriott. Following a brief experience in manufacturing in Wilmington, Del., he decided to enter teaching. He attended Germantown Academy and then instructed in the Friends' English Public School in Philadelphia (1742-1754).

Distressed by the inferior education offered to women, Benezet established a girls' school in 1755. Through wide reading, travelers' reports, and the influence of Quaker minister John Woolman, he became concerned about slavery. Benezet corresponded with English emancipationists and began to write pieces for newspapers and almanacs, as well as free pamphlets, on the subject. His knowledge of French enabled him to communicate with the 450 Acadian exiles who came to Philadelphia in 1756; he solicited funds and obtained shelter for them and appealed to the Assembly in their behalf.

Benezet's health was poor, and in 1766 he retired to the quiet of his wife's hometown of Burlington, N.J., but he could not remain inactive. He wrote A Caution …to Great Britain and Her Colonies on the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes (1766). This was his most important work; approved by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, it was widely distributed in Britain. He returned to teaching in Philadelphia in 1768. His Some Historical Account of Guinea… (1771) helped stir up English protests against the slave trade.

Benezet founded a school for African American children in 1770; after the Revolution it met for a time in his home. He taught until nearly the end of his life, and when his wife died in 1784, he endowed his school with what property he possessed. Overseers of the Friends' Public Schools were named trustees for the institution.

Yet African Americans were not his only interest. He published an essay, "The Mighty Destroyer Displaced" (1774), against excessive consumption of alcohol, which influenced Dr. Benjamin Rush to write a powerful temperance treatise. Benezet's Short Account of the People Called Quakers… (1780) was one of the earliest American histories of that denomination. Convinced the Native Americans had been mistreated, he worked to ameliorate their lot; in his last year he published Some Observations on the … Indian Natives of This Continent. Benezet died in Philadelphia on May 3, 1784.

Further Reading

George S. Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet (1937), is a detailed account of the humanitarian's life. Much earlier but still worthwhile is Roberts Vaux, Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet (1817). François Jean de Chastellux, Travels in North-America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782 (2 vols., 1786; trans. 1787; rev. trans. 1963), has some interesting observations.

Benezet instructing colored children
Illustration in a book from 1850

Anthony Benezet, or Antoine Bénézet (January 31, 1713 - May 3, 1784), was an American educator and abolitionist.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Bibliography 3 See also 4 Notes 5 References

Biography

Anthony Benezet was born in Saint-Quentin, France, on 31 January 1713. His family were Huguenots. Because of the persecution of Protestants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, his family decided to leave France. They moved first to Rotterdam, then briefly to Greenwich, then to London. In 1727 Benezet joined the Religious Society of Friends. In 1731 the Benezet family immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in North America.

Anthony Benezet and John Woolman were the earliest American abolitionists. Like Woolman, Benezet was also an advocate of war tax resistance.^[1]

In Philadelphia, Benezet worked to convince his Quaker brethren that slave-owning was not consistent with Christian doctrine. He believed that the British ban on slavery should be extended to the colonies (and later to the independent states) in North America.

After several years as a failed merchant, in 1739 Benezet began teaching at a Germantown school. In 1742, he moved to the Friends' English School of Philadelphia (now the William Penn Charter School). In 1750 he added night classes for black slaves to his schedule.

In 1754, Benezet left the Friends' English School to set up his own school, the first public girls' school on the American continent. In 1770, he founded the Negro School at Philadelphia.

Benezet also founded the first anti-slavery society, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush reconstituted this association after Benezet's death as the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

Benezet died on 3 May 1784, and was buried in the Friends' Burial Ground, Philadelphia.

Bibliography

• Observations on the inslaving, importing and purchasing of Negroes. With some advice thereon, extracted from the Epistle of the yearly-meeting of the people called Quakers held at London in the year 1748., 1760

This brief work, written while Benezet was teaching at the Quaker Girls' School in Philadelphia, was the author's first publication to draw on sources directly familiar with the African trade in slavery.

• A short account of that part of Africa inhabited by the negroes, 1762
• A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a short representation of the calamitous state of the enslaved negroes in the British Dominions. Collected from various authors, etc., 1767
• Some Historical Account of Guinea ... With an inquiry into the rise and progress of the slave-trade ... Also a republication of the sentiments of several authors of note on this interesting subject; particularly an extract of a treatise by Granville Sharp, 1767

In 1817, abolitionist Roberts Vaux wrote a biography on Anthony Benezet.^[2]

See also

• Benjamin Rush

Notes

1. ^ Gross, David M. American Quaker War Tax Resistance (2008) pp. 95-96, 174, 178-9 ISBN 1438260156
2. ^ Africans in America/Part 3/Benezet Instructing Colored Children

References

• Anthony Benezet: biography and bibliography from Slavery, Emancipation, and Abolition
• Claus Bernet: Anthony Benezet. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Bd. 29, , Sp. 146–157. (German)
• Vaux, Roberts (1817). Memoirs of the life of Anthony Benezet. Philadelphia, PA: W. Alexander. http://books.google.com/books?id=pwQIAAAAMAAJ. 
• Jackson, Maurice (2009). Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of American Abolitionism. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812241290. 
• Webster's Biographical Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Co., Springfield, MA (1980).

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