Anthony Benezet, Abolitionism Focus of New Book - Georgetown College

While many historians have focused on 19th -century abolitionists as the beginning of the organized fight against slavery, few have examined Anthony Benezet’s role in the dawn of the antislavery movement during the 18th-century. In his latest book, “Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism” Maurice Jackson (University of Pennsylvania Press 2009), provides an intellectual and social history of the trans-Atlantic fight against slavery triggered by Benezet, a Philadelphia-based, French-born Huguenot-turned-Quaker. Through a detailed examination of Benezet’s life and writings, Jackson identifies the ideological, religious and social underpinnings of the beginnings of the Atlantic world’s first human rights movement.