Born in 1713 of French Huguenot stock, Philadelphia Quaker Anthony Benezet was probably the most significant force in advancing the battle against slavery and the African slave trade in the eighteenth century. While the names of abolitionists like Granville Sharp, William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and John Wesley are familiar to many, the name Anthony Benezet is seldom recognized. And yet it was his work that reinforced Sharp's legal battles, his tracts that singularly influenced both Clarkson and Wesley to join the cause, and his friendship with Benjamin Franklin that encouraged Franklin to lead the American antislavery society after Benezet's death.