Geoffrey Plank's biography of John Woolman (1720–1772) is indispensable for those interested in this colonial American Quaker and early anti-slavery reformer. Plank has no intention of writing hagiography. He is not afraid to show Woolman's sometimes shortsightedness. The title the Path to the Peaceable Kingdom and subtitle A Quaker in the British Empire express the duality of Woolman's spiritual journey and all-too-earthly place in a British colony where American Quakers had close but conflicted ties to British Quakers. Woolman believed in an ocean-spanning religious movement and Britain as a spiritual home, but he saw exploitive maritime trade and industry miring British Quakers “in impure channels” (198). Woolman was critical of British Quakers but also oblivious to contemporary British politics.
Plank synthesizes a remarkable amount of archival material into a coherent narrative. He demonstrates how Woolman's ministry matured and how his understanding of slavery became more systematic. He did not want to violate the Quaker meeting's norms, unlike the controversial Benjamin Lay, who alienated his Quaker neighbors. Woolman and his fellow reformers came to believe that they could influence the global slave trade more than any government could. Woolman rose to speak at the yearly meeting of 1754, was “publicly opposed” (108) then resumed his seat and wept. Plank observes that Woolman had “the ability to personalize issues” (108) and he may have seen his own sensitivity as a weakness. While attending that yearly meeting, his and his wife Sarah's infant son William died at three months, an event about which little is written, but which deeply affected Woolman and caused him to re-evaluate his responsibilities.
Plank makes excellent use of the Woolmans' account books, as well as journals written by Abner Woolman, John Churchman, Joshua Evans, Elizabeth Wilkinson, and others. Woolman's work writing legal documents shaped his understanding of slavery and the entanglements of the wealthy. For years Woolman worked as an executor of the estate of Thomas Shinn, a complex case in which he was involved with distributing wealth within the community and determining decisions about the lives of enslaved persons.
To understand Woolman's dangerous journey in 1763 to visit the Indians in northern Pennsylvania, it is helpful to learn more about the Indian chief Papunhank (or Papunehang in Woolman's Journal), who was well known in Philadelphia. The Quakers projected their own beliefs into written interpretations of what Papunhank said, and the London Yearly Meeting warned them not to be naive about the Indians. Woolman's primary concern during the journey north was to show the “all sufficiency of God” (166) and to achieve “full resignation” (111) to God's will. Plank uses passages such as this to emphasize Woolman's profound trust in providence. The Quaker reformers' idea of historical change may have undermined their desire to help the Indians, because, according to Plank, they were anxious to retain God's favor during a time of crisis, and turned their attention away from the Indians to inward concerns, such as the regulation of marriage, or, in Woolman's case, the controversies around slavery.
Woolman reduced his diet almost entirely to bread and milk, and on the voyage across the Atlantic, in May 1772, further reduced this to bread alone. It is little wonder that his weakened condition was aggravated by the time he arrived in England. Four months later in York, those who attended Woolman, as he was dying of smallpox, expected him to offer insights that accompany a good death. A non-Quaker apothecary had given Woolman an ineffective medicine, after which Woolman vomited. The apothecary asked, “What shall I do now?” Woolman answered, “Rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks,” and then added, perhaps with a touch of humor, “This is sometimes hard to come at” (221).
Plank discusses not only differences in the early editions of Woolman's writings but also how they were received. One British edition excised numerous passages from the Journal, such as his objections to paying war taxes and to wearing dyed clothing, and his criticism of British maritime culture. Interestingly, this abridged British edition was thought at the time to have achieved a sharper focus. Regardless, Woolman's Journal was an immediate success in America and Britain.
Woolman, like other Quaker ministers, valued insights derived from dreams and waking visions, and trusted the approval process for what was of value. The American Overseers of the Press did not omit all such visions, as is sometimes claimed, but retained several of them. When Woolman was dying of smallpox, he felt an obligation to record a dream told to him by another dying person. Plank tells us this was his brother Abner who died in November 1771.
Woolman was a keeper of values. For non-Quaker readers, Plank states that Woolman's program for reform might appear both naive and commonsensical. This very readable book offers much insight into Woolman's evolving and complex world.
