“All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny” – so pronounced a small band of the first English Quakers in 1660, renouncing wars, fighting, and weapons and enunciating principles of peace called the “peace testimony.” The deceptively simple words of the peace testimony conceal the complexity of the task facing each Quaker as he worked out their precise meaning and the restraints and the actions they required in his own life. Quakers in early New England had to translate peace principles into practice during King Philip's War between settlers and Indians in 1675–76. In a time of terr ... More

“All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny” – so pronounced a small band of the first English Quakers in 1660, renouncing wars, fighting, and weapons and enunciating principles of peace called the “peace testimony.” The deceptively simple words of the peace testimony conceal the complexity of the task facing each Quaker as he worked out their precise meaning and the restraints and the actions they required in his own life. Quakers in early New England had to translate peace principles into practice during King Philip's War between settlers and Indians in 1675–76. In a time of terror, individual Quakers had to decide whether the peace testimony allowed service in militias, standing watch, seeking safety in garrison houses, and paying taxes. Their decisions covered a broad range and resulted in a pacifist continuum of interpretation and behavior.