'‘Lay’s activism against those involved in the slave trade was just one part of a principled life.’ Photo: Benjamin Lay painted by William Williams in 1790
Benjamin Lay: Another look at an old Friend by Simon Webb
‘It is tempting to think of Benjamin Lay as an anachronism.’
by Simon Webb
6th May 2022
Some time around the year 1731, a Quaker called Sarah Lay went to visit her neighbour on Barbados. Sarah was shown into her neighbour’s kitchen, and couldn’t help noticing something hanging from a beam in the ceiling. It was not a side of ham or a brace of conies, but a man: an enslaved person, strung up and standing in a pool of his own blood – he had been whipped. Naturally, Sarah asked what the man was doing there. She was told that he had been caught trying to escape.
