The fearless Benjamin Lay

By Marcus Buford Rediker, Cornell Womack

Subjects: Dissenters, Biography, Quakers, biography, Dwarfs (Persons), Pennsylvania, biography, HISTORY / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), Quakers, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Slavery, Antislavery movements, Abolitionists, History, RELIGION / Christianity / Quaker, Dwarfs

Description: "The Fearless Benjamin Lay chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular and astonishing man--a Quaker dwarf who became one of the first ever to demand the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. He performed public guerrilla theater to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity. He wrote a fiery, controversial book against bondage that Benjamin Franklin published in 1738. He lived in a cave, made his own clothes, refused to consume anything produced by slave labor, championed animal rights, and embraced vegetarianism. He acted on his ideals to create a new, practical, revolutionary way of life"--Provided by publisher.