The Journal of John Woolman

With Other Writings

John Woolman 1774

A Quaker's journal and essays trace his religious life and opposition to slavery in colonial America. His travels bring him into the homes of slaveholders, where he argues against keeping people enslaved.

301 pages 5h 50m reading time

One of the earliest and most admired spiritual autobiographies written in America, still read as a classic of Quaker writing.
Argues that keeping people enslaved goes against God's love and harms the souls of the enslavers as well as the lives of the enslaved.
Argues that a simple life, free from love of money and luxury, lets people see how their comfort can depend on the suffering of others.
Helped persuade American Quakers to free the people they held and to bar slaveholding among their members, years before any wider abolition movement.
Inspired later reformers and writers, including the abolitionist poet John Greenleaf Whittier and the English writer Charles Lamb, who praised it as a model of plain, honest writing.

Published after his death

It first appeared two years after he died of smallpox while visiting Quakers in England.
Begun in middle age

He started writing it at about age thirty-six and kept adding to it until his final journey.
Edited by Quaker leaders

Philadelphia Quaker leaders edited it before printing, changing his wording and cutting some passages.
His own words restored

His handwritten drafts survived, and later scholars used them to bring back what he actually wrote.