#benjamin lay

I didn’t learn of Benjamin Lay until I was thirty-one years old. This is important, because I myself have dwarfism.

There is a shameful absence of books documenting the lives of important historical figures with dwarfism. Just as Game of Thrones and Tyrion Lannister alone cannot compensate—as many people of average height seem to think he does—for centuries of ridicule and abuse, so Marcus Rediker and The Fearless Benjamin Lay cannot make up for this dearth of representation, but the book is a significant step forward.

Who was Benjamin Lay? Born in England in 1682, Lay was one of the first white radical abolitionists. An autodidact, he was a sailor, glove maker, bookseller, and author. He wrote one of the world’s first abolitionist texts, All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates.

A devout Quaker, Lay loudly called for the church to cast out slave owners. He boycotted slave-produced commodities.

His time at sea, and particularly his experiences in Barbados, fueled his hatred of slavery, and he later became notorious for theatrical protests at Quaker meetings. In one spectacular demonstration, in 1738 at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, he hid a bladder filled with red juice inside a book, then ran his sword through the text, spattering “blood” on the stunned slave owners present.

At the time, many Quakers resisted Lay’s abolitionist views. Just as Lay had called for slave keepers to be cast out of the church, they cast him out of his. They disowned him. They denounced his book. They stopped him speaking at meetings—often physically removing him from the premises. They even withheld his marriage certificate to his wife, Sarah.

While talking and tweeting about Lay’s life, I encountered those who—in good will, I’m sure—thought it best to celebrate Lay’s achievements without mentioning his dwarfism. Such views take shape in a world where so many are taught that dwarfism is at best undesirable and at worst to be feared or loathed. To erase Lay’s dwarfism would be, some might think, to “make him normal.”

But life in a dwarf body shaped Lay’s beliefs. At times he struggled to be considered equal—a battle many dwarf people still face today.

In one incident, Rediker records how a man of average height tried to humiliate Lay by approaching him and announcing: “I am your servant.” With razor-sharp repartee, Lay stuck out his foot and replied, “Then clean my shoe,” embarrassing the bully.

To erase his dwarfism would limit our view of his life. It would sever a connection between Lay and his wife, Sarah, herself a dwarf person. And it was life in a dwarf body that led some historians, Rediker notes, to dismiss Lay as “a little hunchback,” sustaining his obscurity.

There is another vital reason why we must keep Lay’s dwarfism at the heart of discussions about him: because pernicious stereotypes dominate representations of dwarf people. A film about Lay’s life is yet to be made, but movies like Austin Powers and Wolf of Wall Street—which sustain the spectacle of dwarf bodies and condone violence toward them (violence then reenacted in real life)—gross hundreds of millions of dollars. Growing up as a dwarf person myself, by ten I had heard of the Seven Dwarfs, by thirteen the vile Mini-Me character had hit our screens, and three decades went by before I learned of Benjamin Lay.

One of the defining features of Rediker’s book is how he addresses Lay’s dwarfism. Other authors of historical biographies of defiant, gentle, and inspiring dwarf people have claimed to celebrate their subjects’ lives while simultaneously insulting their bodies and diminishing their extraordinary struggles—without reviewers noticing or caring.

Rediker does no such thing, seeking advice from the excellent Little People of America organization and explicitly acknowledging the “discrimination based on size and an often tyrannical normative image of the human body” our community experiences on a daily basis. As a proud and conscious dwarf person, as I finished reading that passage, I felt like a corset had been removed and oxygen filled my lungs.

Benjamin Lay, history’s first abolitionist in slavery, animal rights, gender equality and more (and also a little person, 4 feet tall) Refused to wear dyed clothes, because indigo was from slave labor and red from crushed beetles. He also only wore linen he spun himself, because he refused to use sheep, incidentally also walked everywhere because he would not exploit horses. Basically i love this guy.

But im chuckling at this 300 year old tradition of struggle. Just imagine my guy trying to buy a sock and just: WHY SHOULD THERE BE THE LABOUR OF SLAVES WROUGHT HERE, OR THE SPOIL OF GOD’S SWEET CREATURES??!

Preach little Benjamin, preach

Benjamin Lay, born in England in 1682, was one the the first known white radical abolitionists* - but was one of the many people with dwarfism that history left behind.

Avid protestor and author of All Slave Keepers that Keep the Innocent in Bondage Apostates, Benjamin Lay was shunned by his community after calling the church to cast out slave owners*.

"His time at sea, and particularly his experiences in Barbados, fueled his hatred of slavery and he later became notorious for theatrical protests at Quaker meetings. In one spectacular demonstration, in 1738 at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, he hid a bladder, filled with red juice, inside a book, before running his sword through the text and spattering ‘blood’ on the stunned slave-keepers present." *

Not only was Benjamin Lay penalized in life - shunned by his community, denied access to community meetings and his right to marriage* - but he was yet another disabled person history books left out. You can read more about him in Marcus Rediker's The Fearless Benjamin Lay (2017).

*Reference: The Fearless Benjamin Lay: Activist, Abolitionist, Dwarf Person by Eugene Grant (2018)