Finding Right Relations: Quakers, Native Americans, and Settler Colonialism

Finding Right Relations explores the contradictory position of Quaker colonists as both egalitarian, pacifist people and settler colonists, highlighting their failure to prevent settler colonial violence and perpetuate it. It provides historical examples of colonialism's power to corrupt even those with a belief system rooted in social justice and offers a path to truth-telling essential to the healing process.

Format: Hardback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2022
Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Quakers were among the earliest settler colonist groups to establish themselves in northeastern North America. William Penn embarked on a mission to create a "Holy Experiment" or utopian colony in what is now Pennsylvania, where he envisioned his settler colonists living in harmony with the Indigenous Lenape and other settler colonists. "Finding Right Relations" delves into the complex relationship between Quaker colonists and the Lenape people, examining the paradoxical nature of the Quakers as both egalitarian and pacifist individuals and as settlers who engaged in colonialism. The book explores significant challenges to Quaker beliefs and the resulting relationships with American Indians from the mid-seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. It highlights how the Quakers not only failed to prevent settler colonial violence against American Indians but also perpetuated it. Through historical examples such as the French and Indian War, the massacre of the Conestoga Indians, and the American Indian boarding schools, the authors demonstrate the power of colonialism to corrupt even those with a belief system rooted in social justice. While this truth may clash with Quaker identity as pacifists and socially conscious individuals, the authors address how confronting these truths can provide pathways for achieving restitution for the harms of the past. This book offers a vital path to truth-telling that is essential for the healing process.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780816544097