Lancaster Friends’ plaque acknowledges slavery links
‘We set out to identify and acknowledge the truth about how Quaker merchants in Lancaster had profited from the slave system.'
Quakers in Lancaster have installed a plaque to acknowledge their forebears’ role as ‘slave traders’ and ‘slave owners’.
The plaque in the Meeting House’s porch notes that ‘between 1711 and 1833, eighteen Lancaster Quakers were involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Some owned enslaved people on their plantations. They were not formally censured by Lancaster Meeting, despite Quakers nationally asking for those involved in the “iniquitous trade” to be disowned’. The plaque adds: ‘We acknowledge this history and seek to address the impact its legacy has today.’
Ann Morgan, from Lancaster Quakers, told the local press that the plaque was the result of work begun in 2020 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. ‘We set out to identify and acknowledge the truth about how Quaker merchants in Lancaster had profited from the slave system,’ she said.
Lancaster Quakers have also produced a leaflet outlining the decisions of Quakers in the eighteenth century in response to the slave trade. This will be available in the city museums and the Meeting House.
According to the Lancaster Guardian, the Lancaster merchants traded goods produced by enslaved people such as cotton, mahogany, tobacco and sugar. ‘Lancaster Quakers who made their fortune in the slave trade include the Rawlinsons, who owned plantations and traded in enslaved people, the Satterthwaites, and Dilworths. Some were disowned by Lancaster Meeting for debt, or marrying a non-Quaker, or privateering with an armed vessel – but none for trading in or owning enslaved people.’
Britain Yearly Meeting’s decision to make practical reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and economic exploitation was made partly due to the presentation of Lancaster’s findings at Yearly Meeting in May.
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