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Anthony Benezet (January 31, 1713May 3, 1784) was a French-born American abolitionist and teacher who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A prominent member of the Abolitionism in North America, Benezet founded one of the world's first anti-slavery societies, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. He also founded the first public school for girls in North America and the Negro School at Philadelphia, which operated into the nineteenth century. Benezet advocated for kind treatment of animals, racial equality and universal love.Hemphill, C. Dallett. (2021). Philadelphia Stories: People and Their Places in Early America. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 21-26.
In 1731, the Benezet family migrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded by Quakers and one of the English colonies of North America. Then 18 years old, Anthony Benezet joined John Woolman as one of the earliest American abolitionists. Like Woolman, Benezet also advocated war tax resistance.Gross, David M. American Quaker War Tax Resistance (2008) pp. 95-96, 174, 178-9 Several years later in 1736, he married Joyce Marriott. A collection of memorials concerning divers deceased ministers and others of the people called Quakers, p. 327
In Philadelphia, Benezet worked to persuade his Quaker brethren that slavery-owning was not consistent with Christian doctrine. He believed that the ban on slavery in the British Isles should be extended to the North American and Caribbean colonies. (After the Americans gained independence in the Revolutionary War, Benezet continued to urge the United States to ban slavery, and the state of Pennsylvania legislated slavery's gradual abolition in 1780.)
After several years as a failed merchant, in 1739 Benezet began teaching at a Germantown school, then a separate jurisdiction northwest of Philadelphia. In 1742, he moved to the Friends' English School of Philadelphia (now the William Penn Charter School). In 1750 he added night classes for black slaves to his schedule.
In 1755, Benezet left the Friends' English School to set up his own school, the first public girls' school on the American continent. His students included daughters from prominent families, such as Deborah Norris and Sally Wister.Vaux (ed), Benezet, 1817, p. 15
In 1770, he founded the Negro School at Philadelphia for black children. There was a growing free black community in Philadelphia, which increased after the state abolished slavery. Abolitionist sympathizers, such as Abigail Hopper Gibbons, continued to teach at Benezet's Negro School in the years before the American Civil War.
In 1775, he helped found the first anti-slavery society, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Eight years later in 1783, Benezet wrote a letter to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz discussing "the cruelty of slavery and his opposition to the slave trade." The Atlantic World of Anthony Benezet (1713-1784) Letter to Charlotte Queen of Great Britain, 1783-08-25 After Benezet's death, Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush reconstituted this association as the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.
Benezet was known for his kindness to animals such as feeding rats in his garden. He was once offered chicken for dinner which he replied "What, would you have me eat my neighbors?". Benezet and his wife were alleged to be vegetarians but according to Jacob Lindley, a Quaker minister who dined with Benezet and his wife, they ate corn beef, cabbage and potatoes. Benezet was a teetotaller and supported the temperance movement. He authored a pamphlet in 1774, The Mighty Destroyer Displayed which influenced Benjamin Rush, an early temperance advocate.
In 1817, the abolitionist Roberts Vaux published a biography about Anthony Benezet. "Benezet Instructing Colored Children", Africans in America/Part 3, PBS
This brief work, written while Benezet was teaching at the Quaker Girls' School in Philadelphia, was the author's first publication to draw on sources documenting the African trade in slavery.
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