Benjamin Lay, Quaker and Abolitionist

This is the story of Benjamin Lay (1682?-1759), the vertically-challenged colonial activist, and how he shamed the Quakers in 18th-Century America out of slaveholding1.

The diminutive Lay - vegetarian, pacifist, eco-friendly farmer, antislavery activist - was a pioneer in the 18th Century, when most people took the sort of things he objected to for granted. It took persistence to argue that it was wrong to abuse one's fellow man for gain, or to take advantage of animals. Lay had lots of persistence - and, in the case of the Quakers and slavery, it paid off.