Were major strains of American evangelicalism opposed to slavery?

Lateknight

Banned
The driving force behind the ablotion movement was religion people like John brown and Thaddeus Stevens used religion to justify what there opption to slavery. However there were slaver evangelicals as well when the main church disagreed with this they broke of to form the own denomination that's how the southern baptist and others got there start.
 
The driving force behind the ablotion movement was religion people like John brown and Thaddeus Stevens used religion to justify what there opption to slavery. However there were slaver evangelicals as well when the main church disagreed with this they broke of to form the own denomination that's how the southern baptist and others got there start.

This, US religious sects had schisms over slavery. Not just the Baptists but the Methodists too, and quite likely others.
 

It might be doable, but you would have to have a fairly substantial POD for it. On another thread, I'd suggested the possibility that James Oglethorpe, early anti-slavery figure, might have moved North after the Georgia colony failed to remain non-slave.

The driving force behind the ablotion movement was religion people like John brown and Thaddeus Stevens used religion to justify what there opption to slavery. However there were slaver evangelicals as well when the main church disagreed with this they broke of to form the own denomination that's how the southern baptist and others got there start.

They were *one* of the driving forces.....but not the only one, by any stretch.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Much of the most extreme of the abolitionists were basically very religious evangelicals. Moral opposition to slavery was often couched in religious language and rhetoric. Besides the Enlightenment period where the Upper Classes appealed to reason as an opposition to slavery (see John Adams and Robert Morris in particular), religion became the basis for opposition to slavery among both white and black writers.

Moral support of slavery was often voiced in more scientific language about the inherent inferiority of the black race and Darwinism was appealed to frequently. There were also evangelical arguments in support, but they tended to be downplayed in favor of philosophical and natural arguments.
 
This, US religious sects had schisms over slavery. Not just the Baptists but the Methodists too, and quite likely others.

Basically ALL the Protestant churches split over the issue. Or at least ones that had enough members in the other half of the country.

The only nationwide Protestant church that DIDN'T was the Episcopals. (And some of us argue the 'protestant' label. :))
 
I think there was a large revival movement in the colonies about 50 years before the Revolution.

I'm pretty sure this was the Great Awakening with the "old lights" and "new lights."
 
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So, maybe the "new lights" and "old lights" compete, and not on who has the most purist position, but on who can do the most practical good in removing opportunities to sin, as well as extending the blessings of the Christian life to those currently caught in slavery.

So then you have various schemes proposed: slavery does not extend to children born to slave parents, Christians can buy the freedom of slaves at fair market value which Christian owners are duty-bound to accept, and/or at 10 years it's considered that a slave has given the owner more than enough return on investment, etc., etc.
 
Religious opposition to slavery just about did what was politically possible. I'm not sure the South would ever agree to children of slaves being born free or mandated manumission like Brazil for example.
 
if it worked in Brazil, why couldn't it work in the south?

Good question. Why did English colonies fail to create a comparable mestizo culture like the Spanish and Portuguese? Rigid definitions of race entrenched the mentality that denied African slaves their humanity. Slavery in Latin America was often viewed of more as a condition a person was placed in, instead say the natural state of things.

All of this is things I actually can't answer. :eek:
 
I kind of like all the above reasons. Yes, it certainly was a challenge in the American South.

In addition, as an intermediate poker player, I know that a 70% chance often doesn't come in, happens all the time, whereas a 30% chance sometimes does come in. Meaning, plain old luck has a big influence.

So, I wonder if a southern politician might skillfully present (1740?): to be really ready for the future we need to move away from slavery, which is more in keeping with our Christian duties anyway, (plus this phased abolition plan has the benefit of making northerners put their money where their mouth is!). Two reasons which dovetail, and the third added as the kicker.
 
As part of the Great Awakening in America:

http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/hall-of-biography/george-whitefield

' . . . Whitefield took his first trip to America in 1738 and there founded his famed orphanage, “Bethesda,” just outside Savannah, Georgia–subsequent preaching tours would all raise funds for this enterprise over the years. Whitefield’s second American preaching tour of 1739-1741 was a smash success, gaining strength as he travelled from the South northwards through Philadelphia. . . '
And the fact that George Whitefield[slave owner]* started the orphanage in Georgia plays to strength.

So, what I have in mind for this pretty-quick abolition of slavery takes place around this time and well before the French and Indian War.


*which really takes the air out of the balloon
 
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George Whitefield, M.A., Field Preacher, James Paterson Gledstone, New York: American Tract Society, 1901, pages 135-36:

https://goo.gl/d5BHuR <-- short url to this page on google books

" . . . Whitefield's kind heart was busy with another good work while he was gathering the orphans to his house. That month's ride through Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina had brought him near slavery and all its revolting accessories ; and he was pained at the heart. It would not do to be silent about the wrongs of such as had no helper ; he took pen in hand, and wrote to the inhabitants of those three states, expostulating with them on their cruel treatment of their slaves. But Whitefield was absolutely blind to the wickedness of slavery as slavery ; it was only the brutal conduct of some of the masters that appeared wrong to him. At his first visit to Georgia he expressed his persuasion that the colony must always continue feeble, if the people were denied the use of rum and slaves ; and he afterwards dishonoured himself by becoming a slave-owner, and working his slaves for the good of the orphanage. There is little or nothing to be said in extenuation of his conduct ; for though it was a popular notion in his day, that slavery was permissible, it was not the notion of every one ; and he might have come to a better understanding of the subject had he pondered it. Among his Quaker and Moravian friends there were some who could have led him into the light, had he spend time conferring with them ; but his incessant preaching gave him no opportunity for thinking and forming an independent conclusion. He had only one thought, and cared nothing for a second, because the first was paramount. It might have been impossible for him to preach, and at the same time plead for the freedom of the Negroes ; but at least he might have kept his own hands clean, and have given a practical rebuke to his neighbours' sins. One sentence in his letter shows that his mind might have arrived at a just conclusion but for the hurry which called him away to other things: 'Whether it be lawful for Christians to buy slaves, and thereby encourage the nations from whence they are brought to be at perpetual war with each other, I shall not take upon me to determine.' But that was just the thing he was bound to determine ; and if his convictions on the unlawfulness of war for religious ends had any depth in them, which hardly appears to have been the case, he must have concluded that war for enslaving men who were of the same flesh as their captors and buyers, and of equal value in the sight of God, must be much less justifiable than religious wars. . . "
So, at best George Whitefield can be viewed as a "moderate" on the question of slavery.
 
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