Still pursuing, that God will be revenged on those that punish wrongfully such poor Negroes, I shall insert what the above mentioned Mr. George Whitefield says in a letter to the inhabitants of Virginia, &c. “We have,” says he, “a remarkable instance of God’s taking cognizance of, and avenging the quarrel of poor Slaves, 2 Sam. xxi. 1. There was a famine in the days of David, three years, year after year, and David enquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, it is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. Two things are here very remarkable, 1st. These Gibeonites were only hewers of wood and drawers of water; or in other words, Slaves like yours. 2d. That this plague was sent by God many years after the injury (the cause of the plague) was committed. And for what end were this and such like examples recorded in holy Scripture? Without doubt for our learning. For God is the same to-day as he was yesterday, and will continue the same for ever. He does not reject the prayer of the poor and destitute, nor disregard the cry of the meanest Negro.” When speaking of the oppression and unchristian usage these poor Negroes meet with from the Ship-masters in their passage, and from the Masters they are sold to in the south parts of America and the West-Indies, he adds, “The blood of the Negroes spilt for these many years in your respective Provinces will rise up to Heaven against you,” together with that lost in Africa, occasioned by the Traders that go thither. It may not be improper to observe here, that this plague was sent by God on Saul and his bloody house many years after the slaughter of the Gibeonites; so may these men reasonably expect, that have occasioned and still continue to be the cause of spilling so much innocent blood in Africa and the different Provinces, to have a plague or curse come upon them, many years after the perpetrating these wicked deeds.
I will insert a few questions, for which I am indebted to Mr. Postlethwayt, by way of argument or persuasion to give up this enslaving of Men to those people who will be ready to defend this scandalous Trade to Africa, and of keeping these people in ignorance, who are brought into a country where the gospel is preached on all sides of them.
1st. “Whether the people of this country notwithstanding their colour, are not capable of being civilized and brought into the Christian religion, as well as great numbers of the Indians of America and Asia have been; and whether the primitive inhabitants of all countries so far as we have been able to trace them were not once as savage and inhuman as the people in Africa, and whether the ancient Britons themselves of our country were not once upon a level with the Africans?
2d. “Whether therefore, there is not a probability that those people might in time, by proper management in the Europeans, become as wise, as industrious, as humane, and as good Christians, as the people of any other country?
3d. “Whether their rational faculties are not in general equal to those of any other of the human species; and whether they are not, from experience, as capable for mechanical and manufactural arts and trades, as even the Bulk of the Europeans?
4th. “Whether it would not be more to the interest of all the European Nations concerned in the Trade to Africa, rather to endeavour to cultivate a friendly and humane Commerce with these people, into the very centure of their extended country, than to content themselves only with skimming a trifling portion of Trade upon the Coast of Africa?
5th. “Whether the greatest hinderance and obstruction to the European’s cultivating a Christian-like and humane Commerce with those populous countries has not wholly proceeded from that unjust Traffick called the Slave Trade, which is carried on by the Europeans Americans, &c.
6th. “Whether this Trade and this only was not the primary cause, and still continues to be the chief cause of these eternal and incessant broils, quarrels, and animosities which subsist between the Negro Princes and Chiefs; and consequently of those endless wars which abide among them, and which they are induced to carry on in order to make prisoners of one another for the sake of the Slave Trade?
7th. “Whether, if trade was carried on with them for a series of years, as it has been with most other savage countries, and the Europeans gave no incouragement whatever to the Slave Trade, those cruel wars among the Blacks would not cease, and a fair and honourable Commerce in time take place throughout the whole country?
8th. “Whether the example of the Dutch in the East-Indies, who have civilized innumerable of the natives, and brought them to the European way of cloathing, &c. does not give reasonable hopes that these suggestions are not visionary, but founded on experience as well as on humane and Christian principles?