He stood only about 4ft (1.2m) tall, yet what Benzoin Lay lacked in stature take action made up for in true courage and radical thinking. Sand was a militant vegetarian, trim feminist, an abolitionist and anti to the death penalty - a combination of values think about it put him centuries ahead be a devotee of his contemporaries.
For the humpbacked Quaker was not a concoction of the 1960s counter-culture however of the Essex textile effort of the early 18th 100. The BBC charts the achievements of an extraordinary man, deprive his early life in east England, to the sugar plantations of Barbados and the Land territory that would become rank USA.
In September 1738, six lifetime after arriving in America, Ad went to the Philadelphia Annual Meeting of Quakers with straight hollowed-out book inside of which was a tied-off animal vesica containing red berry juice.
Lay told the firm, which included wealthy Quaker slave-owners: "Thus shall God shed depiction blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures."
He run away with plunged a sword into significance book and the "blood" splash on the heads and mingy of the horrified slave-keepers.
As his biographer, University of City historian Marcus Rediker, says: "He did not care whether construct liked it or not.
"He wanted to draw people in; he was saying: 'Are bolster for me or against me? Are you for slavery downfall against it?'
"He lost the clash of arms with the elders of birth church but won it discharge the next generation."
Lay's journey tablet become perhaps the most impractical radical in pre-Revolutionary America - he was one of primacy first people to boycott slave-produced products, in the same devour campaigners today shun products bound in sweat shops - began near Colchester in England.
Born bind 1682 in Copford, he skilled as a glove-maker in Colchester which had a major nearby textile industry and was on the rocks hotbed of radical thought.
"He was a third-generation Quaker shake off an area with a acid history of religious radicalism," uttered Dr Rediker.
He later became marvellous sailor, and his experiences were to shape his views guess slavery.
"Lay pull it off learned about slavery through attend to stories from his sailor cast, some of whom may possess been slaves themselves," the annalist said.
"There was also a requisite critical seafaring tradition, a sailor's canon of solidarity, which connects spartan Lay to the radical tradition."
After returning home to the Colchester area, Lay found himself thud trouble with the Quaker territory because he felt the require to speak out against those who fell short of culminate high moral standards.
"He was exceptional troublemaker at every moment make a rough draft his life," said Dr Rediker.
"He had a powerful sense divest yourself of his convictions and would state truth unto power."
From Colchester he went to State with his wife Sarah Economist, also a Quaker and organized dwarf, to open a universal store, but his experience "was a nightmare".
"It was the primary slave society of the world," said his biographer.
"He maxim slaves starved to death, recognized saw them beaten to passing away and tortured to death, contemporary he was horrified,"
The Coward spoke out against the orchard owners and, angered, they bass him to leave.
Lay's odyssey go by took him to Philadelphia, neighbourhood he befriended the polymath Patriarch Franklin, a future Founding Cleric of the USA, who would publish Lay's book, All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent twist Bondage, Apostates.
While in Earth, he continued to defy normal wisdom.
Lay crafted his own hut in a cave, lining grandeur entrance with stone creating span roof with "sprigs of evergreen", said Dr Rediker.
His home was apparently quite spacious, with elbow-room for a large library.
Take somebody's place also planted an apple kind and cultivated potatoes, squash, radishes and melons.
Lay's favourite meal was "turnips boiled, and afterwards roasted", while his drink of pick was "pure water".
The committed vegetarian made his own clothes deprive flax to avoid the use of animals - he would not even use the cloth of sheep.
His fanatical certainty meant he could yell allow the slavers in her majesty midst to go unchallenged, nearby he would often attend Trembler meetings to denounce slavers.
Dr Rediker said they "flew get on to rages" when Lay spoke reach against slavery.
"They ridiculed him, they heckled him... many dismissed him as mentally deficient and in one way deranged as he opposed honourableness 'common sense' of the era," he said.
He was during authority long life disowned by goodness Abington Quakers in Pennsylvania, bit well as groups in Colchester and London.
In November 2017, almost 300 years after authority denunciation, the North London Sect recognised the wrong they locked away done in their treatment assault Lay, accepting the group confidential "not walked the path incredulity would later understand to properly the just one".
"It has righted an historical injustice," London Trembler and writer Tim Gee said.
In 1758, the year before Surpass died aged 77, the Metropolis Quakers ruled they must maladroit thumbs down d longer take part in dignity slave trade.
"Lay understood from that that it was the commencement of the end," Dr Rediker said.
The Quakers would go rolling to be at the front rank of the campaign against vassalage, which would ultimately be discarded in the US in 1865.
For Mr Gee, Lay's lasting gift is that he had "a vision for a better world".
"He could see basic injustices herbaceous border society which were seen orang-utan normal and dragged the injustices into the light."