Nantucket Quakers and Negotiating the Politics of the Atlantic World

The changing nature of the Atlantic world in the eighteenth century is analysed in this chapter with particular reference to the ways in which Anthony Benezet and the Nantucket Quaker-whalers negotiated the shifting political climate and cultural landscape. It explores personal liberty, pacifism and humanitarianism, as well as revolution, migration and survival. The study considers how these American Quakers, especially the Rotch family, had to navigate their way through periods of upheaval, and carefully negotiate with the British, French and American governments. It reviews the economic networks they created and had to re-establish in the late-eighteenth century, and the challenge to long-held Quaker principles and the continuance of transatlantic trade.