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“WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS FREEDOM” : BLACK SPIRITUALITY AND THE RISE OF THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT, 1740-1841 A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Dianne Wheaton Cappiello August 2011 © 2011 Dianne Wheaton Cappiello “WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS FREEDOM ”: BLACK SPIRITUALITY AND THE RISE OF THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT, 1740-1841 Dianne Wheaton Cappiello, Ph.D. Cornell University 2011 This dissertation traces the evolution of black abolitionism in colonial North America and the United States from 1740 to 1841. Focusing primarily on reformers, theologians, and activists, it examines specifically the ways in which spiritual beliefs shaped black opposition to slavery. It places black abolitionists in an international context and analyzes the transatlantic connections they developed and maintained in their battle against slavery and prejudice. Inspired by eighteenth-century pietistic revival, a West African cosmological heritage, and the Enlightenment emphasis on natural rights, men and women of African descent began protesting slavery publicly during the colonial era. With the onset of the American Revolution, they located republican egalitarianism within a sacred framework and underscored the contradiction inherent in a slaveholding polity allegedly predicated on Protestant Christianity. After 1800, many black activists adapted the pietistic model of itinerancy and evangelism to agitate against both slavery and racial discrimination. During the 1820s, black antislavery reformers, disillusioned by the nation’s rejection of abolition and angered by the American Colonization Society’s 1817 plan to send free blacks to Africa, embraced more radical measures. By 1829, they demanded immediate emancipation and after 1830 consolidated their strategies into a full-fledged radical movement. This study relies on three investigative methods. First, it employs untapped or underutilized archival and textual sources that uncover a biracial transatlantic network of activism as early as the 1780s. Second, it contextualizes familiar documents including newspaper reports, fugitive slave advertisements, conversion narratives, and public orations more finely. Finally, it draws on black intellectual productions rarely used in discussions of abolitionism. This dissertation intervenes in the historiography of African American history and culture, abolitionist literature, and transatlantic intellectual history. By placing people of African descent central to the emergence of abolitionism, it offers an important interpretation for how one of the most significant social reform movements in American history developed. The dissertation argues that the call for immediate emancipation that gained currency after 1830 originated in black reformers’ collective efforts to put into practice their spiritual convictions. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Dianne Wheaton Cappiello, a native of Binghamton, New York, received a Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management from Empire State College of the State University of New York in 2001. She graduated with a Master of Arts in American history from Binghamton University in 2004 and pursued doctoral studies in American history at Cornell University from 2006 to 2011, receiving her Doctor of Philosophy in 2011. iii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my husband, Ron Cappiello, whose love and support made this project possible. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Words seem insufficient to express my gratitude for all the support and encouragement I have received over the past several years. My advisor, Margaret Washington, was the best mentor any graduate student could imagine. Her tough love made my dissertation what it is today. She is a consummate professional and a fantastic human being. The other members of my committee, Robert L. Harris, Jr. and Eric Cheyfitz, offered insightful comments and pushed me to think critically about my terms and my sources. Eric was always ready to shore up my confidence when I was feeling incompetent. I am grateful to my advisors at Binghamton University who first heard my proposal for this project and recognized its importance. Brendan McConville, David Hacker, and Sarah Elbert listened patiently to my ideas and believed in my ability to complete the project. I also would like to thank the participants of the Americas Colloquium at Cornell University and the Early American History Workshop at Binghamton University for reading and commenting on papers I presented. Research is never a solitary project. My own research was made possible by short-term research fellowships at the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York. In addition, Cornell University generously bestowed two Sage Fellowships, a DAR Fellowship, and an American Studies travel grant, all of which facilitated the completion of my dissertation. Historians cannot properly do their work without librarians and archivists. I am grateful to the many I met through my research at the Connecticut Historical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the New York Historical Society, the Newport Historical Society, and the Presbyterian Historical Society. I would especially like to recognize the staff at the Phillips Library for their help in locating obscure sources. Cynthia v Alcorn, the librarian at the Samuel Crocker Library of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in Boston went out of her way to assist me very early in my project. Laura Linke at Cornell’s Kroch Library and Diana Yount at the Franklin Trask Library at Andover-Newton Theological School both helped me find valuable materials. I can never thank Suzanne Schwartz in Olin Library’s Media Center enough for her patience with my questions as I dealt with microfilm, microfiche, and microprint. Writing a dissertation can be an isolating experience, and it is only possible through the love and support of friends and family. When I first started down this path, I made two wonderful friends, Mary Weikum and Mira Kofkin. We met during orientation week at Binghamton University in 2002 and they have been there for me throughout this entire process, listening to my concerns, my failures, and my successes. Mary talked me out of quitting more times than I can count, and Mira proofread the entire dissertation. My many friends at Bethel Baptist Church in Vestal, New York, and Bible Baptist Church in Cortland, New York, prayed for me. The Bethel church family has stood by me steadfastly since I decided to return to college as a nontraditional student in 1999. A special thank you goes out to Russ, Lorie, RJ, and Krystal Avery for continually reminding me what life is really about. Finally, the Lord has blessed me with the love of an incredible family. My mother-in-law, Lynn Cappiello, accompanied me on numerous research trips. My sister and brother-in-law, Deborah and Erik Hemdal, Cornellians to the core, never faltered in their belief that I could accomplish great things. My wonderful husband, Ron, kept me sane and encouraged me every day to keep going. I regret that my parents could not live to see this day. My father raised me to believe that there is no such word as “can’t.” I try to live with the confidence that through Christ all things are possible. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Dedication iv Acknowledgments v Introduction 1 I “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free”: Evangelical Pietism and the Meaning of Black Freedom, 1740-1770 21 II “Let the oppressed Africans be liberated”: A Black Public Voice in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1787 61 III “Laboring together in the same vineyard”: Black Networking in the Cause of Freedom, 1787-1800 104 IV “We would insist on the universality of freedom”: Building the Antislavery Movement through Evangelism, 1800-1816 140 V “We love this country, but we do detest the principle of holding slaves”: A Divine Mission, Self-Determination, and the Emergence of Radical Abolitionism, 1817-1829 174 VI “To drive these ‘abominations of desolation’ from the church and the world”: Black Activists and the Sacred War for Radical Abolition, 1829-1841 213 Epilogue 251 Bibliography 256 vii Introduction In 1841, a thirty-four year old black Congregationalist minister in Hartford, Connecticut, published a book in which he denounced the assumption held in many white circles that God endorsed and blessed slavery. James W.C. Pennington asked his readers, “Who is a blasphemer but he who wrests the holy word of the Holy God from its proper meaning, and makes it to sanction iniquity?” 1 By the time Pennington penned these words, slavery in the northern states had for the most part ceased to exist while in the South it had become entrenched. Pennington argued that neither slavery nor prejudice deserved a place among a self-professed Christian people, a common position held by black reformers in antebellum America. Although such public opposition appears natural, just a century earlier another black theologian, an African- born Dutch Reformed minister, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein, proclaimed “that slavery and Christianity are not antithetical.” 2 This dissertation traces the development of black abolitionist activism from Capitein’s 1742 affirmation to Pennington’s 1841 denunciation. How some people