For Quakers in Britain, historian Lily Chadwick explains how a recent project discovered what is known, and what can’t be known, about Quaker complicity in enslavement. Our own CEQ Responding to Racism group hope to publish a report on their own local research soon.

Over the last eighteen months, Woodbrooke Quaker Learning and Research has been involved in producing a report on the history of Quaker complicity in the trafficking and enslavement of African people and of people of African descent, on Quaker involvement in abolitionist movements, and finally, Quaker engagement with themes of liberation and reparation.

Each of these ‘strands’, as we refer to them in the report, provides a comprehensive overview of the theology Quakers used to ‘justify’ their approaches, actions, and beliefs regarding enslavement, abolition, and liberation.

As this research has developed, Woodbrooke has also been able to offer many sessions and courses to Friends with the intention of complicating traditional narratives told around Quakerism – namely ‘traditional’ histories which have only elevated Friends’ work as abolitionists while ignoring Quakers’ complex entanglements with transatlantic chattel enslavement.