This Week in Christian History: Tolstoy excommunicated, Quakers protest slavery, Thomas Becket canonized

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, February 17, 2019

Quakers issue first formal anti-slavery protest – February 18, 1688

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons) | (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

This week marks the anniversary of when the Quakers issued what is believed to be the first written protest against slavery in North America.

The document, known as the “Resolutions of the German Mennonites,” was addressed to Pennsylvania Quakers and called on them to cease owning slaves.

The resolutions cited multiple arguments for they opposed “the traffic of men-body,” including a belief that slavery was a form of robbery.

“And we who profess that it is not lawful to steal, must, likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing, if possible,” declared the protest.

“And such men ought to be delivered out of the hands of the robbers, and set free as in Europe. Then is Pennsylvania to have a good report, instead, it hath now a bad one, for this sake, in other countries …”