Walking in the Way of Peace: Quaker Pacifism in the Seventeenth Century
Walking in the Way of Peace: Quaker Pacifism in the Seventeenth Century
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Abstract
“All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny” – so pronounced a small band of the first English Quakers in 1660, renouncing wars, fighting, and weapons and enunciating principles of peace called the “peace testimony.” The deceptively simple words of the peace testimony conceal the complexity of the task facing each Quaker as he worked out their precise meaning and the restraints and the actions they required in his own life. Quakers in early New England had to translate peace principles into practice during King Philip's War between settlers and Indians in 1675–76. In a time of terror, individual Quakers had to decide whether the peace testimony allowed service in militias, standing watch, seeking safety in garrison houses, and paying taxes. Their decisions covered a broad range and resulted in a pacifist continuum of interpretation and behavior.
During this war, Quakers who dominated the government of Rhode Island were faced with reconciling the peace testimony with their duties as governors to protect their colony, to punish “evil‐doers,” and to reward “those who do good.” Their dilemma stimulated both imaginative legislation and corrosive compromises, illuminating the ambiguities of principles when applied to public policy. Before the war a Quaker government had enacted legislation, the Exemption of 1673, exempting conscientious objectors from all military duties including alternative civil service. But some Quakers chastised their Quaker rulers in a document called the Rhode Island Testimony for putting their faith in “carnal weapons” when they took warlike measures of offense and defense, such as transporting soldiers to battle. The struggle of early Quakers in England and America illuminates the intricate complications of pacifist belief, suggesting the kind of nuanced questions any pacifist must address.
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Front Matter
- Introduction
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Part I The Peace Testimony
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Part II New England
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4
“Bold Boyes and Blasphemers”: Quakers in Early New England
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5
“The Habitation of the Hunted‐Christ”: Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
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6
“Times of Motion and Danger”: Reacting to Fear of War, 1667–1673
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7
“Fighting Against the Minde of God”: The 1673 Exemption
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8
“Sin and Flesh”: The New England Tribes: Englishmen and Indians
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4
“Bold Boyes and Blasphemers”: Quakers in Early New England
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Part III War
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9
“Midnight Shrieks and Soul‐Amazing Moanes”: The Rhode Island Government and King Philip's War
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10
“A Bulit out of Everi Bush”: War, Continued
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11
“To Looke to Our Selefs”: Ascribing Motives to a Quaker Government in Wartime
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12
“Witnesses to the Life of Innocency”: A Testimony from Rhode Island Quakers
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13
“Run the Hazard”: The Individual Quaker in King Philip's War
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14
“The Rectification of the Heart”: Around the Periphery of War
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15
“All Things Have Their Beginnings”
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9
“Midnight Shrieks and Soul‐Amazing Moanes”: The Rhode Island Government and King Philip's War
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End Matter
- Appendix 1 The 1660 Declaration
- Appendix 2 The 1673 Exemption
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Appendix 3
The Rhode Island Testimony
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Appendix 4
“The Taste of the World in Our Own Mouths”: Problems of Historical Interpretation
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Notes
- 1. “And the Shout of a King Is Amongst Us”
- 2. “A Killinge Instrument We May Neither Forme, Nor Beare”
- 3. “Fire at the Mast”
- 4. “Bold Boys and Blasphemers”
- 5. “The Habitation of the Hunted‐Christ”
- 6. “Times of Motion and Danger”
- 7. “Fighting Against the Minde of God”
- 8. “Sin and Flesh”
- 9. “Midnight Shrieks and Soul‐Amazing Moanes”
- 10. “A Bulit out of Everi Bush”
- 11. “To Looke to Our Selefs”
- 12. “Witnesses to the Life of Innocency”
- 13. “Run the Hazard”
- 14. “The Rectification of the Heart”
- 15. “All Things Have Their Beginnings”
- Appendix 4. “The Taste of the World in Our Own Mouths”
- Bibliography
- Index
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