Cuáqueros

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[Quakers]: [American Revolution]:Biblio.com

A TESTIMONY GIVEN FORTH FROM OUR YEARLY-MEETING HELD AT PHILADELPHIA FOR PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW-JERSEY BY ADJOURNMENTS FROM THE 29th DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH TO THE 4th OF THE TENTH MONTH INCLUSIVE 1777 caption title.

1777ref. 69134Philadelphia. 1777. Calling for the Rights of Conscientious Objectors and the Release of Exiled Quakers A rare broadside concerning the so-called "Quaker exiles" the Philadelphia Friends who were rounded up held without hearing and banished to the Virginia frontier in 1777–1778 during the height of the American Revolution. Signed in type by clerk Isaac Jackson on behalf of the Yearly Meeting the broadside calls for the release of "A Number of our Friends" who have recently "been imprisoned and banished unheard from their Families under a Charge and Insinuation that 'they have in their general Conduct and Conversation evidenced a Disposition inimical to the Cause of America.'" When war broke out between Britain and its North American colonies many Quakers remained steadfast in their religious commitment to pacifist principles refusing to pay taxes bear arms or take oaths of allegiance on behalf of the Patriot cause. This pacifism was met with suspicion by American Revolutionaries who accused Quakers of secretly supporting the British. In August and September 1777 with Philadelphia under imminent threat of capture by the enemy Quakers became the victims of growing persecution. Patriot suspicions were seemingly confirmed when on August 25 1777 the Continental Congress received a letter from Major-General John Sullivan reporting the discovery of several documents signed "the Spank-town Yearly-Meeting" implicating the Society of Friends in passing sensitive military information to the British. Never mind that no such Meeting at Spanktown existed or that the documents were likely fabricated by someone intent on maligning Quakers. The letter together with the incriminating documents were immediately referred to a committee which in its report concluded that the actions of "a number of Quakers of considerable wealth.render it certain and notorious that those persons are with much rancour and bitterness disaffected to the American cause" and that since those persons might be inclined "to communicate intelligence to the enemy and in various other ways to injure the councils and arms of America" they therefore ought to be considered a risk "to the public safety" Ford. The committee recommended that "the executive powers of the respective states.apprehend and secure all persons as well among the people called Quakers as others who have in their general conduct and conversation evidenced a disposition inimical to the cause of America" Ford. On August 28 the Congress approved the committee's recommendation. Three days later on August 31 the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in response to the resolution in Congress called for the arrest of forty-one people among them some of the city's most prominent and wealthy Quakers. Following their arrest in early September the prisoners were held for several days at the Philadelphia Masonic Lodge pending their removal to Virginia. The prisoners were offered release on condition that they swear or affirm allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania but some refused. On September 10 the twenty remaining prisoners nearly all of them either Quakers or disowned former Quakers were banished from Philadelphia and sent to the Virginia frontier. En route the exiles were granted writs of habeas corpus by Chief Justice Thomas McKean of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court but these were denied. The next day the Pennsylvania Assembly passed a bill suspending habeas corpus entirely. The prisoners arrived in Winchester Virginia on September 29. They were released the following April in the face of mounting public pressure but only after two had died in exile. The present broadside is a product of the "extensive publishing campaign" that helped secure the Quaker exiles' release Whidbee. The broadside serves first to reiterate the Friends' position of pacifism and neutrality to remind the public that Quakers "are led out of all Wars and Fightings by the Principle of Grace and Truth in our own Minds by which we are restrained either as private Members of Society or in any of our Meetings from holding a Correspondence with either Army." The authors explain that Quakers are called "to spread the Testimony of Truth and the peaceable Doctrines of Christ to seek the good of all." They then go on to address the fabricated documents recently discovered by the Continental Army and to combat the resulting spread of misinformation: "As to a nameless Paper lately published said to be dated at Spank-Town Yearly-Meeting and found among the Baggage on Staten-Island every Person who is acquainted with our Stile may be convinced it was never wrote at any of our Meetings or by any of our Friends." The authors go on to note that "there is no Meeting throughout our whole Society of that Name; nor was that Letter or any one like it ever wrote in any of our Meetings since we were a People." Finally the Yearly Meeting pleads for the release of "our banished Friends" who they insist "have done nothing to forfeit their just Right to Liberty." OCLC locates at least six copies at Yale University the Society of the Cincinnati the Friends Historical Library Florida Atlantic University the Library of Congress and Princeton University. Additionally we find one copy at Brown University and two at the Library Company of Philadelphia. A rare broadside marking an important moment in the history of civil liberty religious freedom habeas corpus and conscientious objection in America. Old folds two horizontal and one vertical. Very minor splitting to one fold affecting text without loss. Light toning. Near fine. SABIN 94920. EVANS 15302. HILDEBURN 3638. SMITH FRIENDS' BOOKS I p.762. ESTC W5972. OCLC 1365079001 27103627 1268543044. Jack D. Marietta The Reformation of American Quakerism 1748–1783 Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 1984 pp.240-44. Arthur J. Mekeel "The Relation of the Quakers to the American Revolution" in Quaker History Vol. 65 no. 1 Spring 1976 pp.3-18. Robert F. Oaks "Philadelphians in Exile: The Problem of Loyalty during the American Revolution" in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 96 no. 3 July 1972 pp.298-325. Paige L. Whidbee "The Quaker Exiles: 'The Cause of Every Inhabitant'" in Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies Vol. 83 no. 1 Winter 2016 p.29. Worthington Chauncey Ford ed. Journals of the Continental Congress 1774–1789 Vol. VIII May 22–October 2 1777 Washington: Government Printing Office 1907 pp.694-95. unknown