arly as 1672 their attention was directed to this
important matter by George Fox.[1] In 1679 he spoke out more boldly,
entreating his sect to instruct and teach their Indians and Negroes
"how that Christ, by the Grace of God, tasted death for every man."[2]
Other Quakers of prominence did not fail to drive home this thought.
In 1693 George Keith, a leading Quaker of his day, came forward as a
promoter of the religious training of the slaves as a preparation for
emancipation.[3] William Penn advocated the emancipation of slaves,[4]
that they might have every opportunity for improvement. In 1696 the
Quakers, while protesting against the slave trade, denounced also the
policy of neglecting their moral and spiritual welfare.[5] The
growing interest of this sect in the Negroes was shown later by the
development in 1713 of a definite scheme for freeing and returning
them to Africa after having been educated and trained to serve as
missionaries on that continent.[6]

[Footnote 1: Quaker Pamphlet, p. 8; Moore, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p.
79.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 79.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, p. 376.]

[Footnote 4: Rhodes, _History of the United States_, vol. i., p. 6;
Bancroft, _History of the United States_, vol. ii., p. 401.]

[Footnote 5: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, p. 32.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 30.]

The inevitable result of this liberal attitude toward the Negroes
was that the Quakers of those colonies where other settlers were
so neglectful of the enlightenment of the colored race, soon found
themselves at war with the leaders of the time. In slaveholding
communities the Quakers were persecuted, not necessarily because they
adhered to a peculiar faith, not primarily because they had manners
and customs unacceptable to the colonists, but because in answering
the call of duty to help all men they incurred the ill will of the
masters who denounced them as undesirable persons, bringing into
America spurious doctrines subversive of the institutions of the
aristocratic settlements.

Their experience in the colony of Virginia is a good example of how
this worked out. Seeing the unchristian attitude of the preachers in
most parts of that colony, the Quakers inquired of them, "Who made you
ministers of the Gospel to white people only, and not to the tawny and
blacks also?"[1] To show the nakedness of the neglectful clergy there
some of this faith manifested such zeal in teaching and preac