Anthony Benezet, or Antoine Bénézet (January 31, 1713 - May 3, 1784), was a French-born American educator and abolitionist.

Biography

Anthony Benezet was born in Saint-Quentin

Saint-Quentin, Aisne

Saint-Quentin is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France. It has been identified as the Augusta Veromanduorum of antiquity. It is named after Saint Quentin, who is said to have been martyred here in the 3rd century....

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, on 31 January 1713. His family were Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

s. Because of the persecution of Protestants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes

Edict of Nantes

The Edict of Nantes, issued on 13 April 1598, by Henry IV of France, granted the Calvinist Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic. In the Edict, Henry aimed primarily to promote civil unity...

 in 1685, his family decided to leave France. They moved first to Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, then briefly to Greenwich

Greenwich

Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...

, then to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. In 1727 Benezet joined the Religious Society of Friends

Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

. In 1731 the Benezet family immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, in North America.

Anthony Benezet and John Woolman

John Woolman

John Woolman was an American itinerant Quaker preacher who traveled throughout the American colonies and in England, advocating against cruelty to animals, economic injustices and oppression, conscription, military taxation, and particularly slavery and the slave trade.- Origins and early life...

 were the earliest American abolitionists. Like Woolman, Benezet was also an advocate of war tax resistance

Tax resistance

Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax or to government policy.Tax resistance is a form of civil disobedience and direct action...

.

In Philadelphia, Benezet worked to convince his Quaker brethren that slave

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

-owning was not consistent with Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 doctrine

Doctrine

Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...

. He believed that the British ban on slavery should be extended to the colonies (and later to the independent states) in North America.

After several years as a failed merchant, in 1739 Benezet began teaching at a Germantown

Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Germantown is a neighborhood in the northwest section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, about 7–8 miles northwest from the center of the city...

 school. In 1742, he moved to the Friends' English School of Philadelphia (now the William Penn Charter School

William Penn Charter School

William Penn Charter School is an independent school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded in 1689 by William Penn...

). In 1750 he added night classes for black slaves to his schedule.

In 1754, Benezet left the Friends' English School to set up his own school, the first public girls' school on the American continent; students included Deborah Norris and Sally Wister

Sally Wister

Sarah Wister was a girl living in Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. She is principally known as the author of Sally Wister's Journal, a first-hand account of life in the nearby countryside during the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777–78, when she was sixteen.-Family and early...

. In 1770, he founded the Negro School at Philadelphia.

Benezet also founded the first anti-slavery society, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage

Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage

The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society. It was initially formed April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and held four meetings. Seventeen of the 24 men who attended initial meetings of the Society were Quakers...

. Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

 and Dr. Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian and a Christian Universalist, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania....

 reconstituted this association after Benezet's death as the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

Benezet died on 3 May 1784, and was buried in the Friends' Burial Ground, Philadelphia.