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# The most remarkable part of Benjamin Lay's biography is his literal adherence to his theoretical ideals: first he left Barbados, where he could not reconcile himself to the condition of the slaves, then he resolved to renounce the fruits of slavery's expl
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/naibolee-primechatelnaia-chast-biografii-bendzhamina-leia-v-ego-bukvalnom-sledovanii-svoim-teoreticheskim-idealam-snachala-on-pokinul-barbados-gde-ne-mog-smiritsia-s-polozheniem-rabov-z/
- Published: 2020-10-19T14:40:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:42:06.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Mores, Society, People

The most remarkable part of Benjamin Lay's biography is his literal adherence to his theoretical ideals: first he left Barbados, where he could not reconcile himself to the condition of the slaves, then he resolved to renounce the fruits of slavery's exploitation, ceasing entirely to acquire any goods produced with the aid of slave labour. Moreover, Lay had no intention of putting up with man's exploitation of the dumb creation either, and gave up products of animal origin, though by some accounts he made an exception for dairy.

The greatest injustice connected with the life of Benjamin Lay is that he really was a furious fighter against slavery, the author of numerous pamphlets against it (and please do not compare this with signing online petitions), and the inspirer of a movement, yet he was simply struck out of the history of American abolitionism. Why? On account of his unprepossessing appearance, his unglittering biography, his humble origins, his quarrelsome and cantankerous temper, and because he rose from the bottom, and not from ideological heights or secret societies. The institution of the struggle against slavery found, after the fact, that it had no use for so unpresentable a self-taught thinker, who had given his life without reserve to the service of pure ideals.

In his lifetime Lay had no talent for resting on the laurels of a preacher: he was constantly thrown out of public meetings for the bluntness and unconditional character of his views and methods of struggle. Consider it: here is a man who does not merely prattle about justice and the harm of evil, but shows by his own example, by his own passion, how that evil ought to be fought. He is hardly likely to be greeted with open arms by theorists of benevolence who are unwilling to soil their hands for the sake of their values.

What does Lay, accused of being unsystematic, do? He goes and settles in a cave hollowed out by hand, so that not a single object in his life should derive from industries resting on slavery: neither bricks, the raw material for which is dug by slaves, nor planks, which slaves make from trees felled by slaves, and there was no place in his cave either for the colonial goods that supplied the working capital of slave-trading ventures. In his cave he housed goats, though to this day it is not quite clear why, since he had renounced meat and woollen clothing, but there is evidence that the goats were for him animal companions. It is known that Lay wove his own clothes, from flax he had grown himself. He lived on fruit and honey. And between his labours on the cave he read about the English Revolution, Greek philosophy and the Bible. Nor were these the simplest of books: the Cynics, for instance, and the Revelation of St John.

Much was said of this stubborn dwarf, and he was a considerable celebrity already in his lifetime; many younger representatives of the middle class were imbued with his ideas. The chief distinguishing feature of Benjamin Lay's philosophy is the real following of the logic of his convictions, the projection of his ideology onto the whole skeleton of life. If slavery springs from greed, from the endless striving to increase wealth, then one must fight the very system by which wealth is created, beginning by not taking part in it. In his search for justice he points to connections that usually escape notice, and this at the very dawn of the eighteenth century. He becomes one of the first to proclaim the importance of the rights of the poor and the rights of animals, which is almost unimaginable for that time. By the time of his death at the age of 82 he had nevertheless achieved this: the Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania declared the slave trade incompatible with membership of the organisation.

Everything Lay does has not only a social dimension but can also be regarded as genuine actionism and protest theatre, and moreover without moral restraints or the shackles of formal politeness. His manifesto-performance is well known: he displayed a Bible and above its block of pages pierced with a sharp skewer a bladder of fruit juice, so that the juice ran down over the pages and, as they moved, spattered the passers-by. The blood of injustice, pouring from the word of God, denounced the Quakers who had not renounced the exploitation of slave labour.