[75] American Historical Magazine, IX, 275.
[76] “For, sir,” said he, “the day is not far distant, when, instead of scores of tons, there will be hundreds and thousands of tons, floating from the shores of Africa to every country upon the face of the habitable globe. Your report tells us that the agriculture of Liberia is already in a flourishing condition, and that manufactures, to some extent, are springing up in the country.” Annual Report of American Colonization Society for 1860, 28-9.
[77] Annual Report of the American Colonization Society for 1867, p. 56.
CHAPTER V
Religious and Social Aspects of Slavery
The Protestant churches in America approached the question of Christianizing the negro very cautiously. There were several reasons for this attitude.[1] It was generally believed that paganism was the basis of slavery, that a Christian slave was a paradox, that Christianizing the slave would destroy his humble qualities and lessen his economic value, that it would add an element in the cost of maintaining the institution, that an idea of equality prevailed in the slave’s attending church and participating in communion with the master, and that this idea would add to the difficulty of governing him. Of course, there was the social relation that came into the problem that was very obnoxious. It was unpleasant to commune with a freshly imported brother from Africa; even a Stowe, or a Garrison would likely have hesitated.
The church, being a human institution, could not disregard its environment. It worked its way out of all the complexities of the situation, its position varying somewhat as to section and as to sect. With the exception of the Friends, there was very little difference in the attitude of the Protestants toward slavery, until after the Revolution. They were, in general, anti-slavery in sentiment, were willing to baptize slaves and receive them into the church. The Friends in this early period were the only religious body in America that saw any inconsistency in Christians holding slaves.[2] There were a great many slave communicants in all the churches prior to the Revolution.[3]
The general background can be made a bit more specific for Tennessee by particular reference to the relation of the churches to slavery in Colonial North Carolina since this was the parent state of Tennessee. The Lord Proprietors in the Fundamental Constitution of 1663 declared that conversion did not free nor enfranchise the negro.[4] This provision was kept in the new constitution of 1698.[5] It is noticeable here that this was primarily a political question—a question of freedom and suffrage—a question of state, not of church. The state was declaring its right to state the effect of conversion on the slave. It is well to note this point in the beginning, because the splits and schisms in the various churches in the period immediately preceding the Civil War came up over this point. James Adams, a clergyman, of the Episcopal Church of North Carolina, declared in 1709 that the masters would “by no means permit (their slaves) to be baptized, having a false notion that a Christian slave is by law free.”[6]
This attitude of the slaveholders did not last long in North Carolina, because Rev. Marsden in 1735 speaks of baptizing at Cape Fear “about 1300 men, women, and children, besides some negro slaves.”[7] In 1742 a missionary speaks of baptizing nine negro slaves.[8] Through a series of missionary reports, it is noticeable that, as the idea becomes fixed, that baptism does not free the slaves nor give them the suffrage, the number of baptized blacks increases. In 1765, a report speaks of 40 blacks that were baptized[9]; another report, 46;[10] and a third, 51.[11] In 1771 a report states that 65 were taken into the church and in 1772 a Rev. Taylor states that in thirteen months he had baptized 174 whites and 168 blacks.
The attitude of the Protestant churches on slavery depended very largely on the strength of their organic connection with the South. All the churches that were strong in the South preserved a compromise policy so long as it was possible. The Congregational and Unitarian churches, being Northern only, could without friction readily become anti-slavery. The Episcopal church was primarily a Southern church and was made up of the slaveocracy of the South. It remained more indifferent toward slavery than any of the other churches.[12] It is my purpose now to make a study of the anti-slavery activities of these churches in Tennessee in the order of the effectiveness of their work.