After leaving the Cape Coast, Thompson wrote a very influential treatise defending the slave trade, which he dedicated to the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, the primary British company operating the trade. He does not in the tract argue that the trade is useful for the project of Christianization, and, somewhat incredibly, he acknowledges that there would appear to be many reasons for qualms regarding the slave trade, including its obvious horrors. He goes on, however, to dismiss these qualms with a few scriptural prooftexts, an insistence that the trade is necessary for England’s success, remarks that the trade accords with the laws of the African nations involved, and a few other cursory comments including some regarding the nature of trade itself.
In spite of how unconvincing the arguments may appear to modern readers, the text was influential upon its publishing, including in New Jersey, even as Thompson had not been resident in the colony for over twenty years. This can be seen by the fact that published rebuttals of Thompson’s tract appeared quickly among colonial Quakers.[3] The arguments Thompson made continued to be used by Anglicans and Episcopalians in the United States for over one hundred years. Slavery would be outlawed in Scotland only six years after Thompson’s tract was published, indicating that the qualms he was dismissing were widespread even then, but it would be thirty-five years before the British Parliament abolished the Atlantic slave trade, and ninety-three years before ratification of the 13th amendment to the United States’ constitution imposed the end of slavery upon the state of New Jersey.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
The text[4] of Thompson’s tract is as follows:
The African Trade for Negro Slaves, Shewn to be Consistent with Principles of Humanity, and with the Laws of Revealed Religion.
By Tho. Thompson, M.A., Sometime Fellow of C.C.C.
To the Worshipful Committee of the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa: In Particular, to his much-esteemed friend, William Devaines, Esq; One of the Committee; This Treatise is Addressed by Their Obedient Humble Servant, Tho. Thompson.
As the happy, free constitution of this kingdom may, in some degree, account for the bravery of its people who are a terror to their enemies in every time of war, so its excellent religion, as distinguished from the merciless system of the church of Rome, has that influence upon the temper which does [honor] to the subjects of the British crown.
Hence, it is that the trade for negro slaves, which took its rise from a necessity of supplying our West [Indian] and American colonies with the fittest hands for plantation-work, is generally considered with feelings of tenderness, and but seldom spoken of without great humanity.
Though use inures men to certain businesses which are never practiced, for some time at first, without strong emotions of natural aversion, in the slave trade it is otherwise; and several of our countrymen I have known abroad, who, after a long seasoning to it, have ingenuously owned, they could never well reconcile themselves to it.
It must be said there is something very affecting and disagreeable in the appearance and notion of human creatures, even the lowest of such, being treated like mere beasts or cattle.
For the negroes so to misuse one another —this passes in detail without any special remark made upon it. And though more of that be said by a great deal than is true, yet, considering them as pagans, and of as dark a mind as complexion, one does not much admire at the monstrous things which are reported of them. But that Christians maintain a commerce with those people for the numberless poor wretches which they enslave and drive down from the country to the factories and landing-places on the coast to be sold like bullocks at a fair —this is a fact that seems hardly capable of a [defense], notwithstanding the impossibility that our plantations can be cultivated without them.
Mr. Sandys, in his travels,[5] speaks of some charitable Turks that buy birds out of their cages to let them fly again. But how would the spirit of our benevolent religion shine forth in the nobler purchase of poor negroes, were it to ransom them to their lost liberty, and not to transport them to a slavery more oppressive and rigorous than what they have suffered in their own country! Fair as this seems in theory, it would exhaust the treasure of any kingdom to reduce it into practice. We must endeavor then to make the best of what we have: and it may be sufficient, if a lawful trade can be proved, where we cannot [show] a boasted virtue.
This subject will grow more serious upon our hands, when we consider the buying and selling negroes, not as a clandestine or piratical business, but as an open, public trade, encouraged and promoted by acts of parliament. For so, if being contrary to religion, it must be deemed a national sin; and as such may have a consequence, that would be always to be dreaded. But as ill a face as it seems to carry and as strong as the objections may be thought to be, which are commonly made against it, it is really as vindicable as any species of trade whatever.
The Jewish institution permitted the use of bond-servants. In Leviticus 25:39, etc.:
If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant: but as [a] hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with this and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee. And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are my servants, which I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as bond-men. Thou shalt not rule over him with [rigor], but shalt fear thy God. Both thy bond-men and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession: and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them for a possession: they shall be your bond-men [forever].
The latter part of this statute affords us these three observables:
1: An Allowance, or permission, granted to the Jews to have and to use slaves for any such work as they might have occasion to employ them in.
2: That these were to be such as they might buy from the nations which bordered upon their land, or of the heathen, called strangers, that dwelt among them.
3: That the same should be parcel of their goods and chattels, to insure to their heirs, and thus to be a succession of bond-servants to their families [forever]. And we further observe that there is no precept for the release of bond-servants in case of their turning and becoming proselytes to the law.
From these premises this conclusion may be drawn: that the buying and selling of slaves is not contrary to the law of nature. For the Jewish constitutions were strictly therewith consistent in all points. And these are, in certain cases, the rule by which is determined by learned lawyers and casuists what is, or is not, contrary to nature.
That there were bond-servants or slaves in Christian families, even in the apostolic age, appears clearly from St. Paul’s 1st epistle to the Corinthians 7:20, etc. “Let every man,” says he:
abide in the same calling, wherein he was called. Art thou called, being a servant? Care not for it. But if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. For he that is called of the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price, be not ye the servants of men.
The sense of the words it this: whoever is called by divine grace to the possession of the gospel, if being a bond-servant let him content himself to remain in that state, his new and sacred relation by no means releasing him from it. For you, though being in bond-service, [are] nevertheless capable of the blessings and the interests of Christianity, which puts no difference [between] bond and free.[6] Therefore urge not to have your freedom, much less insist on or make a demand of, nor even so much as wish for it; but accept it as a [favor], if perchance an offer of it should be made you.
The words of the apostle, now cited, afford an argument à fortiori to the lawfulness of purchasing and using heathen slaves, they being evidently addressed to bond-servants, which had been brought into the Christian religion. For if those might be lawfully retained in servitude after their conversion, then were they lawfully slaves before.
The epistle of Paul to Philemon gives yet further light into this matter, which is a letter of intercession and request in behalf of one Onesimus, a bond-man, who had fled away from his master. Whom Paul, happening to meet with and having converted, sends him back with this epistle. The purport of which is not to assert this man’s freedom, now become a Christian, but is only to entreat Philemon to pardon his fault, and that taking him in his former capacity, he would use him kindly.
With respect to the subject now before us, here are three particulars to be considered:
I. What is the case of slavery, abstracted from circumstances, and as it is simply itself.
II. What the general nature of trade is. And
III. Whether slaves are proper subjects of trade.
First, Slavery, as it differs from free service, is the subjection of one person to another as a servant for life. Justinian defines it, a constitution of the law of nations, by which, contrary to nature (or the natural freedom of mankind) one person is subject to the dominion of another.[7] And slaves were called Servi he says for the reason that generals of armies did use to sell those whom they took captive, and thus saved them from being put to the sword.[8]
The word “Slave” some derive from Sclavus, the name of a people in Scythia. Skinner gives its etymology from the nation or country Sclava, Sclavona, Sclavonica, a vast number of which people formerly were taken captives in war, partly by the Germans, partly by the Venetians, and sold away for servants.[9] But it seems rather that the word is a corruption of Salvus, from which comes “Salvage,” a term signifying the [recompense] allowed by the statute and civil law, to such persons as have assisted in saving merchandizes, ships, etc. perishing in wrecks, or by pirates, or enemies.[10]
Slavery then had its origin from a principle of humanity, and averseness to shedding blood. Conquerors, rather than flay those whom they took in war, chose to dispose of them in a milder way, and sold them into servitude.
The condition of a slave, and that of a free servant, differ chiefly in these respects: the latter has a power to [choose] whom he will serve, which the other has not. And a free servant has wages; a slave, none. But the serving without wages is not serving for nothing, for there is his keeping, and all necessaries found him.
The state of servitude, simply considered, is nothing shocking, though circumstances too often make it so. The stress of [labor] that is endured by many, the mean diet, and scantiness of their provisions, the severity inflicted on them for their faults and offences, and other hard usage with which they are often treated, these miseries arise not from the nature of their case, considered merely as slaves, but from the injustice and cruelty of their owners. The proper work of slaves is nothing above their strength, and every real hardship that is imposed on them is an abuse of power.
By the law of nature, all persons are free. But absolute freedom is incompatible with civil establishments. Every man’s liberty is restricted by national laws, and natural [privilege] does rightly yield to legal constitutions, which are designed and enacted for the public weal.
The Africans are generally held to be a savage people, committing all kinds of violence upon one another. And it is not uncommonly thought that most of the negroes which are brought from the [Guinea] coast have been forced into slavery by their stronger [neighbors], or betrayed by them into the merchant’s hands; and they are said to sell their wives and children, and steal others where they can pick them up, to make merchandize of them. But though these practices are not without example, yet frequent they are not and cannot be, for every negro nation has its form of government. And by their public customs, which are statutory, the rights and properties of individuals are ascertained and those outrages in a great measure prevented which people living in a state of anarchy would commit. The customs of the blacks are many of them good rules of policy such as would not disgrace a more regular constitution.
The grand source whence the marts are supplied with negroes at all the trading places of the coast is war, which is carried on and waged by the contending nations with as little slaughter as possible, it being the business of the field not to kill, but make captives. Slavery therefore does not accrue by might overcoming right, but by the fortune of war, and partly from national customs of equal authority with laws as the selling of criminals, and insolvent debtors.
Secondly, What the general nature of trade is, this is next to be said, and that both with reference to the subject or thing dealt for and the manner of dealing. [Anything] being made a subject of trade, which to sell is not contrary to godliness, to moral virtue, to humanity, to legal right and justice, nor to the laws in being, is lawful trade; and what is not consistent with these is unlawful. Offences against godliness, in the way of commerce are, when things sacred are prostituted to sale. Against moral virtue, are all bargains that subserve to vitious purposes of turpitude and naughtiness. Against humanity, is the selling off any goods whereby distress is caused to persons, which have a family-right to them; as where a man puts off the most necessary of his [household] goods, or sells the [clothes] that would cover his children or wife, and this only to raise money to serve his own extravagancy. Against right and justice, is the making sale of another’s property without his knowledge or consent. Against the laws in being, is all that is called illicit trade. In these several kinds, nothing can qualify the transgression of the parties so as to render it lawful where neither side is ignorant of the unfitness of the subject that is [negotiated], it being evident that nothing is lawfully sold or bought which ought not to be sold at all. Next, of the manner of dealing: what, as to the subject of commerce, is lawful trade may, in respect to the conduct, not be fair trade. But this is clear, and needs no explaining.
Thirdly, Whether slaves be proper subjects of trade. In denial hereof it is [alleged], that the setting to sale human creatures is violating the natural distinction of the species, and levelling men with beasts. But to this it may be answered, that every person is treated as a human being, who is treated according to his lawful state and condition. The buying of a slave is taking him as what he is, and the sale does but signify that his owner is willing to part with, and another has a mind to have him. Here then is no violation of humanity, and the property in such individual is transferable like all other property.
Another argument is that whatever is sold, all that is natural to and [inseparable] from it, is included in the purchase. Consequently, the life of a slave is sold and bought. But to this the answer is that nothing can be deemed as sold which was not intended to be bought, and the matter of the purchase is nothing more than the [labor] and service of the slave.
The seizing and carrying off of negroes from the coast, which is called panyaring, is what the masters of ships in the African trade are sometimes obliged to, and is done by way of reprisal for theft or damage committed by the natives. If this method were not taken, there could be no trading with them. Every long-boat that goes with goods [ashore] would be in danger of being cut off. But the practice is established use among the natives themselves, so that they are only dealt with in this according to their own laws.
Our traders have been represented as spiriting up the blacks to war, which if true, and that any means are used to set those nations one against another in order to make a trading advantage by it, were a thing to be detested. But as the trade is conducted upon true mercantile principles, it is no more chargeable with this consequence than trade in general is, with the vices and luxury which are fed by the wealth and affluence it produces.
FINIS.
Originally published in 1772 in “Canterbury: Printed and Sold by Simmons and Kirkby. Sold also by Robert Baldwin, Bookseller in Pater-noster Row, London.” This edition edited by Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, with reference to that included in Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926. The transcription of the tract has been edited for clarity according to modern language conventions with spelling alterations appearing as [plain text in brackets]. Punctuation changes, expansions of abbreviations, and updated archaisms (e.g. substitutions of “you” for “thee” or “thou”) are not noted.
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