Fear and violence: Lessons from John Woolman

Today I co-taught the sixth of seven classes I’m committed to teaching to the second- and third-graders in our Quaker meeting’s First Day School (Sunday school.) My co-teacher, Linda Goldstein, and I had done some pretty good things with the kids in the earlier classes, but we hadn’t fixed on a firm plan for today’s class till half-way through the week, when a light went off in my head and I told Linda, “Hey, we really should do at least one session on John Woolman!” She agreed.
So we have four seven- and eight-year-olds in our class. One has pretty severe autism, so a teenage member of the meeting sits with him, which is great.
There is so much of interest about John Woolman’s life and writings that all American kids– not just the relatively small number of Quaker kids– shoulkd know about and understand. Since the unit we’re teaching is on peace and peacemaking, I decided to focus primarily on the incident when, during the big war of the 1760s between, on the one hand, the Anglo settlers in North America and on the other, the French settlers and some of their allies among the Native Americans, when John Woolman decided to head out west from Philadelphia to try to actually meet with, and understand the viewpoint of some of the “Indians” there…
And then– but let’s let John Woolman tell this in the words of his own journal (p.272-3 from the e-text here):

On reaching the Indian settlement at Wyoming [this is a place in Central Pennsylvania– not in the state of Wyoming!], we were told that an Indian runner had been at that place a day or two before us, and brought news of the Indians having taken an English fort westward, and destroyed the people, and that they were endeavoring to take another; also that another Indian runner came there about the middle of the previous night from a town about ten miles from Wehaloosing, and brought the news that some Indian warriors from distant parts came to that town with two English scalps, and told the people that it was war with the English.
Our guides took us to the house of a very ancient man. Soon after we had put in our baggage there came a man from another Indian house some distance off. Perceiving there was a man near the door I went out; the man had a tomahawk wrapped under his match-coat out of sight. As I approached him he took it in his hand; I went forward, and, speaking to him in a friendly way, perceived he understood some English. My companion joining me, we had some talk with him concerning the nature of our visit in these parts; he then went into the house with us, and, talking with our guides, soon appeared friendly, sat down and smoked his pipe. Though taking his hatchet in his hand at the instant I drew near to him had a disagreeable appearance, I believe he had no other intent than to be in readiness in case any violence were offered to him…

I always find this to be an amazingly powerful story.
We talked with the kids a little about John Woolman, what his family and community were like as he grew up in New Jersey, and then why he had decided to try to go and meet some Indians. A fear-stoked war-fever was running pretty high in Philadelphia and the rest of the Anglo settlements of the eastern seaboard at the time, so what John Woolman decided to do was very gutsy. (I’m thinking Jimmy Carter here.)
We talked a little about how scary it must have been for JW, traveling in an area with people whose language he did not speak. (Though I also found this page, that has downloadable audio clips of some common phrases in the Lenape language, which the kids found pretty interesting.) And we talked about how, for the Lenape people there, JW’s arrival might have seemed pretty scary, too.
We did a great little role-play– though unfortunately I got one of the key details wrong, in that I had misremembered it as being the Lenape man who was in the house, and JW who was approaching it, though from the journal it was clearly the other way round… But still, the essence of the story was the same: the two men had many reasons to be wary or even fearful of each other. The Lenape man had a weapon, and on seeing JW, pulled it out from under his coat. JW had to decided pretty quickly how to try to defuse the tension, and this is what he did: “I went forward, and, speaking to him in a friendly way, perceived he understood some English. My companion joining me, we had some talk with him concerning the nature of our visit in these parts; he then went into the house with us, and, talking with our guides, soon appeared friendly, sat down and smoked his pipe…”
Moreover, JW was at pains to attribute a non-hostile motivation to the other man’s baring of his weapon: “I believe he had no other intent than to be in readiness in case any violence were offered to him.”
We talked a little bit about other choices JW could have made. Or what if he himself has also had a weapon? Might he then have reacted differently? What role does fear play in stoking violence, etc?
Of course, there is also much, much more in John Woolman’s testimony that is worth exploring. He had such a broad, indeed, “systemic” analysis of the relationshiop between the Native Americans and the white settlers. Read the last paragraph of p.271 and the first paragraph of p.272 there. He also, in other chapters of his journal, shows a very sophisticated understanding of the terrible ills and wrongs of slavery, the relationship between slavery and warmaking, the relationship between greed and violence, and so on…
Much more to think about, write about, and discuss.
… The kids in our Quaker meeting are such a blessing! Ever since 9/11 we’ve had a steady flow of new young families coming into our meeting. The parents, in general, seem eager to find a place where they can help raise their kids in a way that helps them resist the pressures of the violence-laden society all around us. We also have lots of great Quaker elders, including half a dozen who are active Friends in their 90s… Today, we sang John McCutcheon’s great “Happy Birthday” song to Dieta Raisig, to mark her upcoming 92nd birthday. “It makes me think of the good old days… ”