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Swarthmore College Works   Religion Faculty Works   7-1-2014  Review Of "From Peace To Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric And The Birth Of American Antislavery, 1657-1761" By B. Carey  Ellen M. Ross Swarthmore College, eross1@swarthmore.edu     Let us know how access to this work benefits you.  Follow this and additional works at: http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-religion   Part of the Religion Commons   Recommended Citation Ellen M. Ross. (2014). "Review Of "From Peace To Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric And The Birth Of American Antislavery, 1657-1761" By B. Carey". Pennsylvania Magazine Of History And Biography. Volume 138, Issue 3. 339-340. http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-religion/40  This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Swarthmore College Libraries. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religion Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu.   Accessed: 17-05-2017 14:50 UTC ReviewReviewed Work(s): From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of AmericanAntislavery, 1657–1761 by Brycchan CareyReview by: Ellen RossSource: The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 138, No. 3 (July 2014),pp. 339-340Published by: The Historical Society of PennsylvaniaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5215/pennmaghistbio.138.3.0339JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusteddigital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information aboutJSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttp://about.jstor.org/termsThe Historical Society of Pennsylvania is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and BiographyThis content downloaded from 130.58.88.100 on Wed, 17 May 2017 14:50:30 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termsTHE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHYVol. CXXXVIII, No. 3 ( July 2014)This content downloaded from 130.58.88.100 on Wed, 17 May 2017 14:50:30 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termsBOOK REVIEWSFrom Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657–1761. By BRYCCHAN CAREY. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. 272 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $35.)This well-written and informative book, distinguished by its careful attention to rhetoric, provides historical background for the more well-known narrative of American and British antislavery work of the later eighteenth century. In this exploration of early Quaker antislavery literature, Brycchan Carey argues that the “origins of most of the arguments made in the formalized antislavery campaigns that emerged from the 1770s onward can be found throughout writings produced by Friends in the century-long debate that took place from 1657–1761” (36). The study of historical movements often demonstrates that by the time the goals of widespread social and political change have been achieved, early and crucial voices in the emerging movements have been forgotten. Carey has un-earthed early Quaker antislavery voices and has composed a compelling narrative of their discursive history. Focusing on the development of a “discourse of anti-slavery,” with particular attention paid to the characteristic rhetorical maneuvers and patterns of thought in the texts and traditions he analyzes, Carey explores a lineage of antislavery discourse that links together writers who have often been perceived as voices in the wilderness. Generous and judicious in his use of quota-tions from these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources, including George Fox, William Edmundson, Alice Curwen, the 1688 Germantown Protest, George Keith, and John Hepburn, Carey demonstrates that “a sustained debate over slave-holding in fact subsisted . . . from at least the late seventeenth century” and argues that by the start of the eighteenth century antislavery sentiment “had a discursive existence” (25, 105).  In articulating the social and political dominance of Pennsylvania in the devel-opment of antislavery rhetoric, Carey suggests that the Quaker community became a crucial context for the growth of antislavery due in part to its “tight or-ganization, congenial principles, culture of debate, and propensity to share ideas” (30). Among other topics, he considers theological and pragmatic arguments against slavery, the signifi cance of writings of Ralph Sandiford and Benjamin Lay, the impact of the structure of the Society of Friends—in particular, the embed-ding of antislavery thought in the Quaker ritual of queries—and the signifi cance BOOK REVIEWS340 Julyof London Yearly Meeting on the formulation of antislavery thought. He discusses infl uential writings by John Woolman and Anthony Benezet, and he argues that the 1754 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Epistle of Caution and Advice, concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves “recapitulates in essence almost the entire Quaker debate on slavery since 1688” (193).In this survey of early Quaker antislavery literature, which begins with writ-ings on slavery in Barbados, Carey acknowledges that many Quakers themselves were implicated in the brutality of slavery, and he points to the confl ict of thought within the Quaker community in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting during the 1730s, for example (162). He demonstrates that throughout the period he studies, Quaker concern was predominantly with halting the purchasing of “newly im-ported slaves” much more than with asking people “outright to stop buying slaves” or emancipating those who were already enslaved (178). Antislavery activism and rhetoric began to coalesce and gain momentum in the 1760s and 1770s in a transatlantic context, and a signifi cant part of the mo-mentum can be attributed to the development of an antislavery discourse from the late seventeenth- through the mid-eighteenth century among Quakers—and, in a particular way, among Quakers with a Pennsylvania and a Philadelphia Yearly Meeting connection. This readable and important book is a welcome addition to the history of antislavery work. Swarthmore College         ELLEN ROSSThe Cost of Liberty: The Life of John Dickinson. By WILLIAM MURCHISON. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2013. 252 pp. Notes, in-dex. $25.) The title of William Murchison’s biography on John Dickinson (1732–1808) does not reveal the high aspirations the publisher, Intercollegiate Studies Institute (a conservative “educational organization” whose fi rst president was William F. Buckley Jr.), has for this slim volume. “It has been more than a half century since a biography of John Dickinson appeared,” the book jacket claims, promising that Murchison’s work “offers a sorely needed reassessment of a great patriot and mis-understood Founder.” An introductory publisher’s note asserts that Murchison has “correct[ed] the record at last” (x). All these statements are untrue. The author completely ignores the most recent biography, Milton Flower’s John Dickinson: Conservative Revolutionary (1983), and there is no reassessment or correction be-cause Murchison, a journalist, only reports what others have already argued. Yet, even while depending heavily on secondary sources, he largely neglects the schol-arship of the last forty years that could have helped him offer a convincing and new portrait of Dickinson.This content downloaded from 130.58.88.100 on Wed, 17 May 2017 14:50:30 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Review Of  From Peace To Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric And The Birth Of American Antislavery, 1657-1761  By B. Carey

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Review Of From Peace To Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric And The Birth Of American Antislavery, 1657-1761 By B. Carey

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