THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

In 1835, New York Quaker Charles Marriott published a collection of essays and
letters he had authored on the duty of abstinence from slave-labor products. A proponent
of abstinence since childhood, Marriott examined traditional Quaker testimony against
slave-labor products. 28 He urged women to instill free-produce principles in their
children believing that habits developed in childhood would ultimately break the slave’s
bonds. Marriott warned Friends the time had come for the Society to either actively
pursue its anti-slavery testimony or forgo any abolitionist statements. Marriott concluded
his tract with excerpts from the minutes of New York Yearly Meeting, which he believed
demonstrated the progress of New York Friends in declining slave-labor products. 29
Marriott brought the publication before the Meeting for Sufferings, New York Yearly
Meeting (Orthodox). Collectively, the Meeting rejected the pamphlet. Several
individuals within the Meeting, however, encouraged Marriott to proceed on his own
responsibility. 30
28 In a memorial to Marriott, his co-religionists noted that Marriott “scrupulously abstained from
partaking of the fruit of [slaves’] unrequited toil, and even when a very small boy, was known, on that
account to refuse confectionary, though so tempting to the palate of a child. This testimony against
oppression, he faithfully observed through the whole course of his life.” Testimony of the New-York
Association of Friends for the Relief of Those Held in Slavery, &c. Concerning Charles Marriott, Deceased
(New York: New-York Association of Friends for the Relief of Those Held in Slavery, &c., 1844), 4.
29 Charles Marriott, An Address to the Members of the Religious Society of Friends, on the Duty of
Declining the Use of the Products of Slave Labour (New York: Isaac T. Hopper, 1835), 17.
30 Testimony of the New-York Association of Friends for the Relief of Those Held in Slavery, &c.
Concerning Charles Marriott, Deceased, 6-7. See also Nuermberger, The Free Produce Movement, 23
n33. Nuermberger suggests Marriott, as well as his publisher Isaac T. Hopper and James S. Gibbons, were
disowned for publishing Marriott’s Address. While the Meeting for Sufferings refused to sanction
Marriott’s pamphlet, its subsequent publication was not the sole reason for Marriott’s disownment.
Marriott, Hopper, and Gibbons were disowned in 1842 after the National Anti-Slavery Standard published
an editorial defending abolitionists and attacking Quaker George Fox White. See “Rare Specimen of a
Quaker Preacher,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, March 25, 1841. George Fox White is discussed in
chapter 6.
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