The Bible Against American Slavery: Anglophone
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Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 11-15-2017 The iB ble Against American Slavery: Anglophone Transatlantic Evangelical Abolitionists' Use of Biblical Arguments, 1776-1865 Richard Rodriguez Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FIDC004052 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the African American Studies Commons, Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Rodriguez, Richard, "The iB ble Against American Slavery: Anglophone Transatlantic Evangelical Abolitionists' Use of Biblical Arguments, 1776-1865" (2017). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3511. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3511 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida THE BIBLE AGAINST AMERICAN SLAVERY: ANGLOPHONE TRANSATLANTIC EVANGELICAL ABOLITIONISTS’ USE OF BIBLICAL ARGUMENTS, 1776-1865 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY by Richard Rodriguez 2017 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs This dissertation, written by Richard Rodriguez, and entitled The Bible Against American Slavery: Anglophone Transatlantic Evangelical Abolitionists’ Use of Biblical Arguments, 1776-1865, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. _____________________________________________ Alexandra Cornelius _____________________________________________ Noble David Cook _____________________________________________ Erik Larson _____________________________________________ Jenna Gibbs, Major Professor Date of Defense: November 15, 2017 The dissertation of Richard Rodriguez is approved. ______________________________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs ______________________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2017 ii © Copyright 2017 by Richard Rodriguez All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION To my dear wife Debonaire, whose encouragement and patience was vital to my ability to finish this work. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful and blessed to have completed my graduate studies at Florida International University. From working on my master’s thesis to my dissertation, my understanding of abolitionism transformed from a narrowly-focused project on divine retribution for slavery, to how abolitionists used the Bible to challenge the whole system of American slavery. The evolution of this dissertation, and my studies, has been a profound learning experience. I appreciate the intellectual and moral support of Florida International University’s History Department. I owe so many people thanks for helping me along the way and encouraging my topic. Kenneth Lipartito and Alex Lichtenstein first saw my potential and encouraged me to apply for doctoral studies while I studied in the Miami-Dade Public Schools Teaching American History (TAH) master’s cohort. Alexandra Cornelius was first to help me understand that I had a viable topic. Josue Rey was a great example as a teaching assistant in the TAH program and a supportive friend. Elizabeth O’Kane Lipartito provided sound editing advice on writing graduate level papers. No dissertation can be attempted, however, without a rigorous study of the historiography of the field of chosen study. For that I can thank none other than my dissertation director, Jenna Gibbs. Her mentorship and commitment to the project and its improvement, and my growth as a scholar, will never be forgotten. I am also indebted to the other members of my committee, Alexandra Cornelius, Noble David Cook and Erik Larson. It has been my privilege to work with and learn from such a distinguished panel. I look forward to their continued advice to take this dissertation, and my work, to the next level. v I would like to thank my classmates in the Florida International University’s History Department. There is something about taking classes together, discussing big ideas, lending a helping hand and reading our papers to each other that sharpens the mind and humbles the heart. Fellow students like René Silva, Lindsey Maxwell, Sven Kube, and Tiffany West, are among others who I respected as fellow travelers willing to lend their help and support. I am particularly grateful to my Creator for the ability to write this dissertation. And I am indebted to my dear wife Debonaire, and my children: Jade, Daniel, Stephen, and Kris for cheering me on to complete the task. My physical and spiritual family provided any spark I needed to continue this journey and I will always be thankful for them. vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION THE BIBLE AGAINST AMERICAN SLAVERY: ANGLOPHONE TRANSATLANTIC EVANGELICAL ABOLITIONISTS’ USE OF BIBLICAL ARGUMENTS, 1776-1865 by Richard Rodriguez Florida International University, 2017 Miami, Florida Professor Jenna Gibbs, Major Professor This dissertation argues that transatlantic abolitionists used the Bible to condemn American slavery as a national sin that would be punished by God. In a chronological series of thematic chapters, it demonstrates how abolitionists developed a sustained critique of American slavery at its various developing stages from the American Revolution to the Civil War. In its analysis of abolitionist anti-slavery arguments, “The Bible Against Slavery” focuses on sources that abolitionists generated. In their books, sermons, and addresses they arraigned the oppressive aspects of American slavery. This study shows how American and British abolitionists applied biblical precepts to define the maltreatment of African Americans as sins not only against the enslaved, but also against God. The issues abolitionists exposed to biblical scrutiny, and that are analyzed in this dissertation, correlate with recent scholarly treatments of American slavery. American slavery evolved in the period bracketed by the American Revolution and the Civil War. From 1790 to 1808 American slavery transitioned from reliance on the international slave trade to a domestic market. Abolitionists’ anti-slavery arguments vii likewise transitioned from focusing on the maltreatment of the immigrant, widow and orphan, to a focus on the proliferation of the sexual exploitation of women and the destruction of African American families. Abolitionists challenged every evolutionary step of American slavery. They argued that slavery was responsible for the destruction of American cities and the split of the British Empire during the crisis of the Revolution. They also denounced the constitutional compromises that protected slavery for 78 years, they challenged its spread westward, decried its dehumanization and sexual exploitation of African Americans, and its destruction of African American families. They galvanized a generation of women anti-slavery activists that launched the feminist movement. Abolitionists’ prediction, meanwhile, that divine retribution would come remained constant. Abolitionists produced such a prodigious body of biblical anti-slavery literature that by the Civil War, their arguments were echoed among northern pastors and even President Abraham Lincoln. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION……………………………………… ...................................................1 CHAPTER I. The American Revolution as Divine Retribution for Slavery ....................11 CHAPTER II. American Slavery, the Constitution and the Bible .....................................53 CHAPTER III. American Slavery, the Bible and Westward Expansion ..........................81 CHAPTER IV. George Bourne, the Bible and the Roots of Nineteenth-Century Immediate Abolitionism………………………………………………………………. .105 CHAPTER V. The African American Voice, the Bible and American Slavery ............141 CHAPTER VI. Immediate Abolition, the Bible and Women ..........................................171 CONCLUSION. The Civil War as Divine Retribution for American Slavery................222 REFERENCES. ..............................................................................................................254 VITA…………………………………………………………………………………… 272 ix INTRODUCTION 150 years ago, as the Civil War drew to a close in March of 1865 and casualties surpassed 850,000 men and the war cost eclipsed the $1.4 trillion mark,1 Abraham Lincoln intimated to the American people that perhaps, “God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword…”2 In short, he feared that the war was divine retribution for slavery. Lincoln was not the first head of state to dread divine retribution for slavery; Thomas Jefferson had shared this premonition.3 Nor was the Civil War the first cataclysmic event that drove opponents