Analysis: Life, Gospel Labours, and Christian Experience of John Woolman

Date: 1756

Author: Woolman, John

Genre: memoir

Summary Overview

Although the movement in favor of the abolition of slavery in the United States is typically associated with the nineteenth century, a number of individuals and groups protested the practice during the colonial and early revolutionary periods. One such individual was John Woolman, a New Jersey shopkeeper and minister whose memoir, A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, and Christian Experience of that Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, John Woolman, details the development of his abolitionist thought. As a devout Quaker, Woolman came to believe that the institution of slavery was in conflict with Christian teachings. In his memoir, he recounts his first direct dealings with slavery and explicitly outlines his daily struggle with remaining true to Christian precepts and positing himself as an example to others.

Document Analysis

In his memoir, A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, and Christian Experience of that Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, John Woolman, Woolman explains the role his Quaker upbringing and experiences early in life played in the development of his abolitionist thought. He begins by explaining his desire to live as much under God’s will as he was capable, and he notes that in doing so, he became further imbued with enlightenment. Woolman wished to live simply to gain a greater insight into God’s world and how he wished his creations to live together. Living the way he does, he recognizes, is not for everyone, nor will everyone understand. He writes, “My former acquaintance were left to judge of me as they would, for I found it safest for me to live in private, and keep these things sealed up in my own breast.”

With this in mind, it is easier to understand why Woolman felt as he did about such powerful issues as slavery and animal welfare. He believed that cruelty toward human beings or animals was against Christian teachings, and he felt guilt for any participation or complicity in such actions; his belief that God’s eyes were always upon him magnified this guilt. The act of keeping a journal may have also served as a constant reminder to him of particular temptations faced and resolutions made. His memoir, through its simple and heartfelt language and highly personal reflections on faith, indicates that he was honest with himself and truly sought to learn from each experience.

One such experience that had a profound effect on Woolman was his first recorded direct encounter with slavery, which occurred during his tenure as a clerk in a shop. One day, his employer requested that Woolman write a bill of sale for a female slave he had sold. Despite his reservations about the issue, Woolman did as he was asked. He explains, “I remembered that I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed me to it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our Society, who bought her; so through weakness, I gave way, and wrote it.” Woolman felt bound to obey these men, both of whom were in positions of authority over him, but this obedience had a moral cost. His participation in the institution of slavery was likely perceived as minimal by the individuals present; he was not a buyer or seller of slaves but a clerk documenting a transaction. In Woolman’s eyes, however, he had become actively involved in the slave trade by assisting in the sale of a person. Writing the bill of sale made him complicit in a system he believed to be un-Christian.

After completing the task, Woolman writes that he “was so afflicted in [his] mind” that he admitted to his employer and the man purchasing the slave that he that he “believed slave-keeping to be a practice inconsistent with the christian religion.” For a man in Woolman’s position, it would have been all too easy to write up the bill of sale without comment. However, he took it upon himself to do so while marking his stance very clearly before his employer and an elder within his Quaker community. Given his strong beliefs within his religious faith, there is no doubt that he wished to be seen avowing the truth of his convictions while completing an act of which he so heartily disapproved. Making this statement, Woolman writes, somewhat “abated [his] uneasiness”; however, he later determined that he should have asked to be excused from the task altogether, as it was “a thing against [his] conscience.”

Woolman’s central argument against slavery was that it flew in the face of Christianity. Woolman, as a Christian, believed that God had created humankind. For one human to hold another in bondage was therefore against the laws of nature as dictated by the creator. The placement of animals below human beings gave credence to humanity’s superiority, but God’s laws did not substantiate the placement of one human over another.

Pained as he was about the situation of humans owning other humans, Woolman was even more pained by the fact that members of his own religious community participated in the institution. Woolman notes that after his first experience with slavery, he refused to become any more complicit, even when the person requesting his assistance was a member of the Society of Friends. He records that he was approached by another Quaker who asked Woolman to “write a conveyance of a slave to him.” Woolman writes, “I told him I was not easy to write it; for, though many of our meeting and in other places kept slaves, I still believed the practice was not right; and desired to be excused from the writing.” Woolman then spoke with the man on the topic, and he disclosed to Woolman that he himself felt “that keeping slaves was not altogether agreeable to his mind,” but he was doing so out of a social obligation.

In speaking with the man requesting his help in the transaction, Woolman presented himself as sort of a counselor, seeking to call the man’s attention to his complicity in human trafficking. He desired not only to see the end of the practice but also to teach other residents of the colonies how to rid themselves of such evils. His actions were not merely those of one wishing to cleanse his own soul. In the years following his early encounters with slavery, Woolman embarked on a mission to educate people throughout the colonies about slavery’s incompatibility with Christianity. However, he went beyond simple education, seeking to serve, in his day-to-day life, as an example of a person deliberately rejecting slavery and its products. For a man who once was rendered “afflicted” by his employer’s request that he “write a bill of sale” for a slave, Woolman made large strides in his lifetime. His memoir, chronicling his personal devotion to Christ and his brothers and sisters in slavery, is a testimony to the strength of his faith and his will to help those around him—especially those participating in acts of which he disapproved. Where others could have looked away, dismissing slavery as a problem to be dealt with by other people at some point in the future, Woolman faced these issues straight on, becoming one of the earliest individuals to do so. He lived his life according to his interpretation of Christian principles and, in so doing, helped others develop their own ways of understanding the relationship between religion and human rights. In A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, and Christian Experience of that Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, John Woolman, he writes, “I felt a tender compassion for the youth who remained entangled in snares like those which had entangled me. This love and tenderness increased; and my mind was strongly engaged for the good of my fellow-creatures.” Formally working as a minister, his true purpose was that of a guide, seeking to lead slaveholders out of the darkness and the slaves themselves to the light of freedom.

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