Quakers
A Quaker wedding (1800's in England)
In 1648 AD, some people
in England felt unhappy with the way Puritan Christians
were praying to God, and they started to do things their own way. One early
Quaker was a man named George Fox, but generally the Quakers (who call themselves
the Friends) had no leaders, priests, or ministers, because they thought
everyone ought to decide for himself or herself how to worship God, and
they should worship directly, not through another person. So different Quakers
might believe very different things about God.
By 1677, these ideas led to many Quakers being arrested
and sent to jail in England. Some of them, led by William Penn, decided
to leave for North America, where they
settled the state of Pennsylvania (where many Quakers still live today).
There were also many Quakers in New Jersey, Rhode Island and North Carolina.
Most Quakers lived by two main principles. They went
to Quaker meetings, where people sat in silence, thinking and praying, and
spoke if they felt God wanted them to. Both men and women could speak in
meeting. Quakers showed their religion by action, trying to help the poor
or make peace where there was war. Quakers also campaigned for women's rights
and for the rights of the Native Americans.
A Quaker meeting in the 1700's
Because Quakers were very careful never to be dishonest
in any way, people knew they could trust them, and so many Quakers did very
well in business and banking and shipping, and became rich.
This idea of taking action led the Quakers who had moved
to North America to refuse to take sides in the American
Revolutionary War in the 1700's. They did not believe that it was right
to fight, no matter what the reason was. Some people thought that Quakers
were traitors.
Although in the 1700's some Quakers had owned African
people as slaves, by the 1800's most Quakers decided that slavery was wrong,
and so they helped many hundreds of people to escape to freedom on the Underground
Railway. Because this was against the law, some Quakers went to jail or
paid big fines for helping men and women escape from slavery. During World
War I, again Quakers refused to fight, and some went to jail for it. In
World War II, a few Quakers agreed to fight, while others worked in emergency
medicine for wounded or sick soldiers. Many Quakers refused to pay some
of their taxes, so that their money
wouldn't be spent on fighting.
Ghost Dancers
Mormons
Back to main North American religion page
Back to main North America page (after 1500)
Tell a friend about this page
Did Kidipede answer your question?
Yes, thanks! / No, can you help me?
