Religion and Black Abolitionism in the Era of the American Revolution

In January 1773, Massachusetts slaves submitted the first of four petitions that decade to the legislature of the colony requesting their release from bondage. Around the same time writers such as Phillis Wheatley and Caesar Sarter began to attack both slavery and the slave trade in print.

Many scholars have discussed these individual writers and the petitioning campaign of Boston’s blacks as an example of the ways in which subordinate groups used the rhetoric of Revolution to advance their own claims. In this talk, Christopher Cameron located the origins of their political thought even further back in puritan religious ideology and discussed the advent of black petitioning and other forms of antislavery writing in the colony, which represented the beginning of the organized abolitionist movement in America.


You can find the New England's Hidden Histories project online at https://congregationallibrary.org/nehh

A Research Guide with guidance for finding records of Black and Indigenous people in the Congregational Library & Archives' collections is available at https://congregationallibrary.org/bla...

You can visit the Congregational Library & Archives' digital exhibition, "Religion of Revolution: Congregational Voices on Liberty" online at https://congregationallibrary.quartex...

You can purchase Dr. Cameron's book, "To Plead Our Own Cause: African Americans in Massachusetts and the Making of the Antislavery Movement" here: https://www.kentstateuniversitypress....


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CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome and Introductions
3:54 Summary of Arguments in "To Plead Our Own Cause"
8:42 Impact of Puritan Thought on Early Black Antislavery Petitions
12:24 Beginnings of Black Abolitionism in Massachusetts
19:44 Impact of Caesar Sarter's Rhetoric
26:39 Growing Organization of Abolitionist Groups
30:20 The Religious Basis of Organized Black Abolitionism
33:51 Dissemination of Black Antislavery Petitions
39:29 Impact of Early Black Abolitionist Groups in Massachusetts
42:02 Q: How can we read church records to find Black voices and understand Black experiences in 18th-century Massachusetts?
46:08 Q: What was the importance of Black Freemasonry in this period?
47:46 Q: What else do we know about Caesar Sarter's life?
49:02 Q: Were any Black abolitionists affiliated with the liberal Congregationalism in Massachusetts during this period?
52:33 Q: What mediums were Black abolitionists using to spread their arguments?
53:53 Q: Can you share more about the society Cotton Mather founded in 1693?
54:38 Q: Do you think people suing their enslavers were inspired by this religious discourse?
55:52 Final Thoughts and Thanks


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