"The Practice that Prevails": Jonathan Edwards, Slavery, and Race

During the seventeenth century, and for the better part of the eighteenth century, the majority of New England Christianity did not concern itself with slavery or racial issues, nor was it at the main point of clerical discussion. Its primary debates were over theological and ecclesiastical issues. Moreover, the sheer lack of discussion of slavery and the racial divide in Jonathan Edwards’ writings indicate how little concern it was in the early eighteenth century. But for his followers, the tension between Whites and Africans had become the forefront of both political and religious conversation. Antislavery sentiment combined with ideas of reform and revolution gave way to a new theological movement that would favor abolitionism. Unlike Edwards himself who was proslavery, the New Divinity, including his student Samuel Hopkins, and son, Jonathan Edwards, Jr., published sermons in full opposition to both slavery and the slave trade—making him and his theological heirs quite different. Scholars have generally characterized the New England Theology as continuous, and any changes being consistent with Edwards’s own intentions. However, recent studies have discovered discontinuity, and its development within the tradition as a departure from Edwards himself. This dissertation focuses on that discontinuity. It first considers the historical and theological context in which Edwards emerged. By Edwards’s time, there were competing antislavery and proslavery ideas, as well preconceived notions of race. Second, this dissertation examines Edwards’s conception of race, specifically during his time with Native Americans on the Massachusetts frontier. Living among the Natives influenced how he thought of race, and eventually the oncoming millennium. Third, it explores Edwards’s ideas on slavery and the slave trade. Peculiar, but not a novel idea, Edwards was against the slave trade, but advocated slavery as a God-ordained institution. Finally, this dissertation compares Edwards and his theological heirs. Although they were his direct theological descendants, the New Divinity became ardent abolitionists. This chapter investigates how Edwards’s followers used his teachings to move from a traditional, Calvinist standpoint on slavery to become abolitionists. In doing so, it challenges previous scholarly assumptions of the New England theological tradition.