Christianity in Early America: Leading the Cause for Abolition

In studying the importance of Christianity on the early history of the United States, you cannot ignore the connection Christianity had with the cause of abolition of slavery. Many leading religious figures, pastors, academics, and orators brought their deeply-held faith into the political realm and controversy of slavery. We tend to recognize names like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglass. We may recall the Beecher family, or at least recognize Harriet Beecher Stowe as the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. There are other names less-known by the mainstream of America. Morgan Godwin, an Anglican preacher to Virginia and Barbados, and Presbyterian ministers Samuel Davies, Charles Finney, and Albert Barnes were other names impacting American Christian views on the cause of abolition. Even the most controversial abolitionist John Brown based his entire beliefs on abolition through his Christian faith.

One of the greatest examples of the role that Christians played in the abolitionist movement is the Underground Railroad. This system or network of activists helping slaves escape to free Northern states was predominantly run by pastors and other religious leaders in Northern and border states.[1] And this effort was not a homogeneous effort on the part of a few Christians. Quakers worked with Presbyterians who worked with Methodists who worked with Congregationalists. Denominational differences were set aside as a unified purpose of helping slaves gain freedom became the mission. The scope of this mission included feeding, housing, clothing, and educating the new recipients of freedom. Many of these same people even remained within the movement to train, educate, and help integrate others like them into society.[2]

One of the names I mentioned has a significance to me as a family connection in my own genealogical research. Morgan Godwin was an Anglican minister educated at Oxford College in England. Godwin traveled to Bermuda and colonial Virginia to expand missions efforts originally intended for Native Americans. On his journeys, he witnessed the horrors of slavery, noting how the law considered slaves as property. Seeing them as a perfect focus for missions effort he began ministering to many in early Virginia settlements. The trouble he found himself in was on the issue of baptism. Church and government policy at the time forbade baptizing slaves. The reason given was that in doing so, slaves would be considered children of God equal to White Christians. This would undermine the whole concept of chattel slavery by using Biblical principles for justifying slaves’ humanity. Godwin continued his efforts for outreach, ministering to the slaves regardless of how the law viewed them. His efforts were seen as a challenge to authority in civil government. The Anglican Church did not quite see this as heavy a crime as the civil government did. Because his ministry posed a risk to the order of society and the outcry of local plantation owners, the colonial government in Williamsburg ordered him removed and banished from the colony. Insisting on continuing this new cause and focus, Godwin moved to a hub of the transactions of slavery in Barbados. He saw this move as a method of being able to get a message of the Gospel into the colonies but through the efforts of slaves he ministered to in Barbados. Using the template of Paul in the early church, he sought to be the hub of the Gospel in the hub of slavery. His efforts were greeted with hostility in Barbados. The traders and plantation owners had greater control over access, which neutralized Godwin’s mission efforts there in Barbados. Facing failure and the possibility of jail, he chose to return to England to begin writing several texts in hopes of educating other religious and political leaders of his cause.[3] [4]

Godwin’s efforts didn’t necessarily attack the institution of slavery itself or call for abolition. His efforts were seen as a first step and the earliest case of addressing the issue of slavery from a Christian viewpoint. His works and deeds were noticeable enough that they made it into mention by abolitionist leaders William Wilberforce and Frederick Douglass. Godwin’s acknowledgement of seeing slaves as people deserving of the Gospel counter to civil and Church law became a foundation in an effort that grew in colonial America and later the United States of America. Soon, other Christian leaders would look at the issue from a Biblical perspective and lead the charge in an effort to promote freedom in the earthly sense as much as in a spiritual and eternal sense. Soon, pastors were preaching fiery sermons to their flock that brought the cause of abolition to a greater scale. The names I mentioned earlier became a voice to the voiceless in projecting the cry for freedom.

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[1] Alden T. Vaughn, "The Origins Debate: Slavery and Racism in Seventeenth-Century Virginia." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 97, no. 3 (1989): 311-54. 

[2] Junius P. Rodriguez and Sharpe Reference (Firm). Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 2007;2015;. doi:10.4324/9781315704753

[3] Philip D. Morgan. "Religious Diversity in Colonial Virginia: Red, Black, and White." In From Jamestown to Jefferson: The Evolution of Religious Freedom in Virginia, edited by Rasor Paul and Bond Richard E., 74-107. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011. 

[4] Jon Sensbach. "Slaves to Intolerance: African American Christianity and Religious Freedom in Early America." In The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America, edited by Beneke Chris and Grenda Christopher S., 195-217. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.