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The '''Religious Society of Friends,''' or '''Quakers,''' is a Protestant religious denomination founded in England by [[George Fox]] in the 1650s. They have always been a small, radical, Protestant denomination with enormous political and social influence far beyond their small numbers. The Society formed during the religious upheaval in 17th century [[England]] seeking the recovery of original Christianity. They earned the name "Quakers" for how members shook, or "quaked", reflecting their struggle against their inner motives "under the Light."<ref>Barbour and Frost (1988) p.28</ref>  Many migrated to America, especially to Philadelphia in the colony of Pennsylvania, which was owned by Quaker leader [[William Penn]]. Others went to [[New Jersey]], [[North Carolina]] and especially [[Rhode Island]], where they controlled the colonial government for a while. Quakers were active leaders of many American reform movements past and present, especially abolition of slavery, Indians' rights, prohibition, women's rights, civil rights, prison reform, hospital reform, and world peace. Other famous Quakers include founder [[George Fox]], feminist [[Lucretia Mott]], and presidents [[Herbert Hoover]] and [[Richard Nixon]].

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There are about 100,000 Quakers in the United States today.  Hamm (2003) identifies seven currently contested issues--the centrality of Christ, leadership, religious authority, sexuality, identity, unity, and growth. The Quakers are heavily involved with the Peace Testimony, support for "People of Color," the American Friends Service Committee, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. They are well known for their support of liberal arts colleges including Haverford and Swarthmore (near Philadelphia) and Earlham (in Richmond, Indiana). A majority are affiliated with the Society of Friends (Five Years Meeting); others belong to the smaller Religious Society of Friends (General Conference), the Religious Society of Friends (Conservative), and the more fundamentalist Association of Evangelical Friends. The denomination has a special appeal to disaffected liberals, who often join for a while (then usually move on). Politically, the Quakers in the Midwest are mostly conservative Republicans, while those in the East are more liberal Republicans.

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About 20,000 Quakers now live in Britain, and several thousand in Canada. Overseas missions, starting in 1903, were most successful in Africa, especially Kenya, which has 300,000 Quakers in 15 Yearly Meetings.<ref> See [http://fwccafrica.org/Demographics/Kenya/Kenya.html] Rasmussen, (1995) and Smuck, (1987)</ref>

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[[Image:Georgefox.jpg|right|thumb|250px|George Fox, drawing c.1834]]

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The origin of the Friends can be traced to the mid-17th century in England. When [[Henry VIII]] severed ties with the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and formed the [[anglicanism|Anglican Church]] in 1534, it instigated a new era of religious dissent. [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s victory in the [[English Civil War]] gave the [[Puritans]] control of Parliament and furthered the atmosphere of dissent. The Quakers emerged from the radical fringe of the [[Puritan]] movement. Although impossible to link the formation of the Quakers to any one person,  George Fox is seen as the driving force behind the movement. Fox, who was raised in the Anglican Church until the age of 19, set out to find a greater spiritual understanding of God in 1643. He wandered the countryside for three years meeting with religious leaders in search of this understanding, but did not find the answers he was seeking. This led him to become disillusioned by these external teachings and he began seeking answers inside himself.   In 1647, he believed to have heard the voice of God, which said to him "there is one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition". It redefined his beliefs on the nature of the relationship between God and man, such as the idea that Christ lived inside all men and women, a church was a meeting of fellowship instead of a building, and that academics was not important to be a minister. These new ideas were radically different from the elaborate ceremony of the Church of England and the belief in Biblical authority of the Puritans. Fox spent the next several years preaching throughout the northwest, experiencing great success in convincing (converting) new followers to his cause. His followers took the name  "Friends of Truth", based off of the Bible verse John 5:15 in which Jesus stated "I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."  Although there is no official founding date for the Quaker movement, it is often attributed to 1652 Fox's trip to Pendle Hill in which he received a vision that let him "see in what places he had a great people to be gathered."

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Small groups of Quakers (who were known as the "Camp of the Lord in England," and later the "First Publishers of Truth" and "the valiant sixty") began preaching their message across the entire country in the 1650's. They were a disruptive group, frequently interrupting church services to spread their message. They taught heretical ideas that minimized the importance of the historic Jesus in lieu of the Spirit and the rejection of the Trinity. The refused to play tithes, take oaths, or treat the aristocracy with customary social respects. This led to persecution in the forms of jailing, beatings, and loss of employment. Margaret Fell began organizing "Monthly Meetings" in order to assist persecuted Quakers, which were their first "formal" gatherings. In 1655, [[James Nayler]], an early leader, brought unwanted attention to the Quaker movement when he rode into Bristol in a reenactment of Jesus' ride into Jerusalem. He was arrested, tried before Parliament, tortured, and imprisoned and the event led to greater levels of persecution among the Friends.  This led to the need for more organizational control and Fox called for group confirmation to support individual "leadings" (messages from the Spirit) and advised more experienced Friends to be watchful over the actions of others.

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In 1660 the Church of England was reestablished as the official church which led to further persecution of the Quakers. The [[Restoration]] of [[Charles II]] to the throne in 1660 was met shortly afterward with [[Venner's Rising]] in 1661, which was a failed attempt to overthrow the monarch. Many Friends were suspected as collaborators and by March over 5,000 per imprisoned. Fox and other Quaker leaders petitioned Charles with their ''Declaration Concerning Wars and Fighting'' by declaring that "All bloody principles and practices, as to our own particulars, we utterly- deny; with all outward wars and strife, and fighting with - outward weapons, for any end, or under an pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world."<ref>{{cite web

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|url=http://www.qhpress.org/quakerpages/qwhp/dec1660.htm

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|title=Fox, George, and others, ''Declaration Concerning Wars and Fighting''

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|accessdate=2007-08-30

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}}</ref>  Persecution continued in England until the passage of the [[Religious Toleration Act]] in 1689 which allowed them to practice their religion openly.

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By 1690 there were about 50,000 Friends in 700 congregations in England and Wales. The center was London, with about 10,000.

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Starting in 1656 the Quaker missionaries arrived in the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]], a Puritan controlled colony which took a hard line against dissenting views. The authorities seized the new arrivals immediately, imprisoned them, burnt their literature, and expelled them from the colony. Laws were also passed fining ship captains who brought Friends to the colony, as well as people who defended the Friends or owned Quaker literature; the colonial leadership was more concerned with the Quaker beliefs they considered seditious, rather than their religious dissent.<ref>Barbour and Frost (1988) p.51</ref>  The missionaries were undaunted, however, and began sneaking into the colony, disregarding the persecution handed down to them. In an effort to maintain control, the colonial government enacted the death penalty for any Quaker who had been expelled from the colony three times; in August of 1659 Quaker missionaries William Robinson, John Stephenson, and Mary Dyer defied the law and were executed in Boston. In 1661 the General Assembly passed a "Cart and Whip" bill, which led to arresting Friends and transporting them to [[Rhode Island]] while whipping them in each town they passed through.

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The Quakers found Rhode Island to be much more welcoming, as it was a colony founded by the Massachusetts religious exiles [[Roger Williams]] and [[Anne Hutchinson]]. There was a high rate of conversion in the colony, for Williams and Hutchinson did not try to organize their own church.<ref>Barbour and Frost (1988) p.53</ref>  By the 1670's the Quakers emerged as the dominant political and religious faction in the colony. Quakers for a while controlled West Jersey, where they created landed estates<ref> It was a separate colony that later merged with East Jersey to form New Jersey.</ref>. They established prosperous farming settlements in Virginia and North Carolina.

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One of their most radical innovations was a more nearly equal role for women. Despite the survival of strong patriarchal elements, they believed in the spiritual equality of women, who were allowed to take a far more active role than had ordinarily existed before the emergence of radical civil war sects. Early Quaker defenses of their female members were sometimes equivocal, however, and after the Restoration of 1660 the Quakers became increasingly unwilling to publicly defend women when they adopted tactics such as disrupting services. Women's meetings were organized as a means to involve women in more modest, feminine pursuits. Some Quaker men sought to exclude them from church public concerns with which they had some powers and responsibilities, such as allocating poor relief and in ensuring that Quaker marriages could not be attacked as immoral. The Quakers continued to meet openly, even in the dangerous year of 1683. Heavy fines were exacted and, as in earlier years, women were treated as severely as men by the authorities.<ref>Kay S. Taylor, "The Role of Quaker Women in the Seventeenth Century, and the Experiences of the Wiltshire Friends." ''Southern History'' 2001 23: 10-29. Issn: 0142-4688, not online  </ref>  

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The '''Religious Society of Friends,''' or '''Quakers,''' is a Protestant religious denomination founded in England by [[George Fox]] in the 1650s. They  as allocating poor relief and in ensuring that Quaker marriages could not be attacked as immoral. The Quakers continued to meet openly, even in the dangerous year of 1683. Heavy fines were exacted and, as in earlier years, women were treated as severely as men by the authorities.<ref>Kay S. Taylor, "The Role of Quaker Women in the Seventeenth Century, and the Experiences of the Wiltshire Friends." ''Southern History'' 2001 23: 10-29. Issn: 0142-4688, not online  </ref>  

Friends were among the first women to petition Parliament, the monarchy, and the Anglican Church hierarchy. The Quaker women, exhibiting agency or self-sufficiency, entered into a larger political debate with these religious and secular authorities as they petitioned for the restoration of the monarchy and protested injunctions, the payment of tithes, [[forfeiture]] of property, the tendering of oaths and imprisonment, on behalf of themselves and their spiritual sisters and brothers. This shared dialectic--centering on ideas of subjugation and resistance, obedience and punishment, coercion and subversion--demonstrates how the women used their positions of spiritual authority to actively negotiate for power and to gain legal redress. From the emergence of the sect in the 1640s until the mid-1670s, the body of the Quaker woman became a site of legal and political contest as female Friends sought to display the detrimental physical and emotional effects caused by official harassment, imprisonment, and the anti-Quaker legislation. They deliberately reminded authority figures that as handmaidens selected by God, no earthly authority could gainsay their claims. From the 1670s to the end of the century, as the Society of Friends grew more institutionalized, a shift occurred as Quaker women gradually adopted intelligent and logical arguments based on carefully culled biblical examples and legal precedents. Using reasoned and calm voices, they aimed their publications at a court of public opinion to persuade their readers, as well as the authorities they opposed, of the legitimacy of their ideals and beliefs. In a period when the monarchy and Parliament fought a civil war, Quaker women recognized and positioned themselves within these larger contests of power--physically, spiritually, and intellectually--allowing them to participate in the political community in ways that women usually could not in the late Stuart Era.<ref>Susanna Catherine Calkins, "Prophecy and Polemic: Quaker Women and English Political Culture, 1650-1700."  PhD dissertation Purdue U. 2001. 318 pp.  DAI 2002 62(12): 4294-A. DA3037546  Fulltext at [[ProQuest Dissertations & Theses]] </ref>

Friends were among the first women to petition Parliament, the monarchy, and the Anglican Church hierarchy. The Quaker women, exhibiting agency or self-sufficiency, entered into a larger political debate with these religious and secular authorities as they petitioned for the restoration of the monarchy and protested injunctions, the payment of tithes, [[forfeiture]] of property, the tendering of oaths and imprisonment, on behalf of themselves and their spiritual sisters and brothers. This shared dialectic--centering on ideas of subjugation and resistance, obedience and punishment, coercion and subversion--demonstrates how the women used their positions of spiritual authority to actively negotiate for power and to gain legal redress. From the emergence of the sect in the 1640s until the mid-1670s, the body of the Quaker woman became a site of legal and political contest as female Friends sought to display the detrimental physical and emotional effects caused by official harassment, imprisonment, and the anti-Quaker legislation. They deliberately reminded authority figures that as handmaidens selected by God, no earthly authority could gainsay their claims. From the 1670s to the end of the century, as the Society of Friends grew more institutionalized, a shift occurred as Quaker women gradually adopted intelligent and logical arguments based on carefully culled biblical examples and legal precedents. Using reasoned and calm voices, they aimed their publications at a court of public opinion to persuade their readers, as well as the authorities they opposed, of the legitimacy of their ideals and beliefs. In a period when the monarchy and Parliament fought a civil war, Quaker women recognized and positioned themselves within these larger contests of power--physically, spiritually, and intellectually--allowing them to participate in the political community in ways that women usually could not in the late Stuart Era.<ref>Susanna Catherine Calkins, "Prophecy and Polemic: Quaker Women and English Political Culture, 1650-1700."  PhD dissertation Purdue U. 2001. 318 pp.  DAI 2002 62(12): 4294-A. DA3037546  Fulltext at [[ProQuest Dissertations & Theses]] </ref>