Anthony Benezet as an Abolitionist and His Influence on Benjamin Rush

Regarding to the contribution Benezet made to the antislavery movement in the eighteenth century Atlantic world, Rush highly praised him. In a letter to Sharp, Rush wrote: “Anthony Benezet stood alone a few years ago in opposing Negro slavery in Philadelphia and now 3/4ths of the province as well as the city cry out against it. I sometimes please myself with the hopes of living to see it abolished or put upon another footing in America.” Rush appreciated Benezet’s effort in helping “the poor Negroes” and hoped the slavery in North America could be abolished in one day. On 13 May 1774, in another letter to Sharp, Rush highly evaluated the contribution Benezet made for the African freedom:

The cause of African freedom in America continues to gain ground. Our worthy friend Mr. Benezet is still indefatigable in it. His letters I presume breathe a great deal of the true spirit of Christianity…… He is not only a good man, but a great man in the full import of those words. He appears in everything to be free from prejudices of all kinds, and talks and acts as if he believed all mankind however diversified by color — nation — or religion to be members of one grand family. His benevolence and liberality are unbounded? — I believe he has not spent an idle hour for these forty years.

Noticing the contribution Benezet made to the African slaves and Rush’s intellectual debt to him, Donald J. D’Elia assumes that “if there was any one person who inspired Rush's crusade against slavery, there was no doubt that it was Anthony Benezet.

Meanwhile, Benezet also appreciated Rush’s effort in abolishing slavery. On April 28, 1773, in a letter to John Fothergill, Benezet sent Rush’s antislavery tract to him and highly valued it. Benezet wrote, “I have also enclosed a number of copies of a pamphlet wrote at the time we presented the petition, in order to lay the weight of the matter briefly before the members of the assembly, and other active members of government in this and the neighbouring provinces. It was written by Benjamin Rush, a young physician of the Presbyterian communion, a person who I understand thou was acquainted with, when pursuing hi studies three or four years past with you.”