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

Quakers’ reluctance to take collective measures against slavery led Philadelphia
Hicksites to organize the Association of Friends for Advocating the Cause of the Slave,
and Improving the Condition of the Free People of Colour in May 1837. The group had
more than one hundred charter members. Organized as a Quaker anti-slavery society, the
association was an attempt by Friends to provide their co-religionists an opportunity to
work within the abolitionist movement without joining secular societies. However, the
presence of James and Lucretia Mott, Caleb Clothier, Daniell Neal, Daniel Miller, Jr.,
and Emmor Kimber gave the organization a decidedly abolitionist slant.
Though not strictly a free-produce association, the group made abstention a
central tenet of their activism. The association created a “Committee on Requited
Labor,” which met for the first time on September 12, 1837. Caleb Clothier, Lydia
White, Priscilla Hensey, and William C. Betts formed the core of the committee. The
Committee on Requited Labor compiled a list of free-labor grocers, supported the
American Free Produce Association after its establishment in 1838, and wrote addresses
for the Association. 31 Most likely the Committee was responsible for the pamphlet, An
Address to the Members of the Religious Society of Friends, on the Propriety of
Abstaining from the Use of the Produce of Slave Labour issued by the Association in its
first year. In the Address, the Association urged Friends to consider the issue of
abstinence and adopt it as part of their abolitionist testimony. According to the Address,
31 1837-1839, Minutes of the Committee on Requited Labor, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of
Friends, Reel 31, Pennsylvania Abolition Society, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, hereafter cited as
CRL, HSP. The microfilm guide and the catalog record associate the Committee on Requited Labor with
the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends. The minutes, however, indicate this committee was affiliated
with the Association of Friends for Advocating the Cause of the Slave, and Improving the Condition of the
Free People of Colour. Priscilla Hensey is also listed in the minutes as Priscilla Henszey.
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