John Woolman Was Actually Kind of a Dick
April 1, 2025
Having just finished reading The Journal of John Woolman, I was struck by a few different things, the foremost: just how early of an anti-slavery campaigner Woolman was. I knew that they guy wrote about the evils of slavery around the time of the American revolution. What I did not realize is that Woolman actually died in 1774, 2 years before The Declaration of Independence was even signed. To say that the guy was "ahead of his time" is one of the most egregious understatements in history. At a time when virtually everyone owned slaves, including virtually all of our first presidents - this guy was actually running around successfully convincing people, on an individual level, to just straight up grant freedom to slaves they had already paid for.
This does beg a bit of an interesting question though: Why, if Woolman was running around as a powerful anti-slavery advocate, well before our nation was even formed, did it take so damn long for us to outlaw slavery?
One possible theory: Woolman was a bit of a dick.
None of what I'm about to say, should take away from his contributions to history; but having just read the guy's personal journals, I can pretty soundly say that this is not exactly the type of guy that I'd want to be listening to lectures from. Is this surprising? A Quaker coming off as a bit preachy -- yeah, kind of.
Maybe the weirdest thing about Woolman's early campaigning was the way in which he decided to make his case. In the early days Woolman was something akin to a modern day notary, or maybe just someone who could write properly (the difference between the two in 1740 isn't as big as you'd think). As a result Woolman often had requests to write up wills or miscellaneous contracts, which given the fact that this was eighteenth century colonial America, often facilitated the transfer of ownership of slaves. Rather than tell his peers outright that he wasn't willing to actually do this service for them; he would invite them to his house, write up the entirety of the contract, save for the bit about the slaves; and then proceed to lecture them about the ownership of slaves until they either gave up and bailed, or gave up and agreed to set the slaves free.
Now, it's hard to take shots at the guy, for doing something that, according to his journals did free at least two or three slaves from captivity. But just imagine if this were any other type of transaction. Let's say you're selling an iPhone. I see you're ad, but I'm an Android guy (newly converted too) and so the last thing in the world I want is an iPhone. But rather than just ignore the ad like a normal person, I invite you to my house under false pretenses, promising to buy the phone; but when you get there I proceed to lecture you for hours on end until you agree to just take the iPhone outback and put it down Old Yeller style.
Again, this criticism feels kind of gross even as I'm writing it, because they guy was using deceptive marketing to argue on behalf of freeing slaves -- so I'll just move onto another example:
In Chapter IX of his journal, Woolman goes into great detail about his account of the time that he stood outside of a magic show, pestering patrons for an hour, before feeling satisfied enough that he can leave.
The story goes that Woolman was traveling around, going to various Quaker meetings and spreading his anti-slavery message; or at least that's what he was meant to be doing. He also just mentions several times over and over again that he gets to some meeting and just sits there without saying anything at all the entire time, so make of that what you will. Anyway, while traveling around, Woolman spots what I'm guessing by his description is a kind of a pop-up magic show. He specifically asks the slight of hand artist there if it's cool if he hangs out; the artist says yes. At which point Woolman proceeds to stand outside of the show preaching the evils of magicians, pestering everyone who thought about coming to the show, until finally:
"So, having spent about an Hour amongst them, and feeling my Mind easy, I departed."
I could go on and on about the various dickish pursuits of John Woolman, but unfortunately I'd just be making stuff up. I read the whole journal and I could only find two moments that I could twist into something negative. Of course the reality is that Woolman was a trailblazer of early American politics, and deserves a huge amount of respect, even if he won't let you go to a magic show. I just thought this might be a fun essay to read, if you happen to actually come across it on the day that it's published: