George Keith's Anti-Slavery Sermon of 1693

George Keith was an influential Quaker in the early days of the colonies of East and West Jersey when he served as the chief surveyor of East Jersey. After several years in the Jerseys he converted to the Church of England, became a missionary priest under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), and ministered to a number of nascent congregations in the region (including at Perth Amboy, Elizabeth, Piscataway, Woodbridge, Shrewsbury, Burlington, Colestown, and Freehold) before finally settling in England.

George Keith (c. 1638 – 1716) (cropped), unknown artist, 
marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons

            Before he converted to Anglicanism, however, he penned in 1693 what was perhaps the earliest North American anti-slavery tract entitled “An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes.” At the time, the permissibility of slavery was not nearly as decided an issue among Quakers as it became over the following century. It was however, a very decided issue in the Anglican Church, but decidedly in favor of the institution. This fact did not prevent Keith from becoming Anglican not long after writing. Neither did the funding of the SPG, and by extension his salary, through slavery profits from the Codrington Plantation in Barbados prevent his affiliation. Neither did whatever remained of his anti-slavery convictions prevent his friendship with prolific enslavers who supported and endowed his churches, such as, for instance, Thomas Boels of St. Peter’s Church in Freehold.[1]

            Thus the sentiments expressed in Keith’s tract, though appearing salutary to modern eyes, seem to have had a limited effect on Keith’s relationships. Perhaps he did not view disagreement over the issue of slavery to require the kind of response he seems to intimate in his tract (e.g. to “Come out” of those relationships). He himself was disavowed in Quaker fellowships soon after publishing the tract and this rejection may have affected his willingness to press the issue in the Anglican circles he came to inhabit. At the very least, the tract indicates that the often-repeated argument that enslavers of the time didn't or couldn't have known any better is preposterous.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

 

 The text[2] of Keith's tract is as follows:

“An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes.” By George Keith 

 

[Seeing] our Lord Jesus Christ hath tasted Death for every Man, and given himself a Ransom for all, to be testified in due time, and that his Gospel of Peace, Liberty and Redemption from Sin, Bondage and all Oppression, is freely to be preached unto all, without Exception, and that Negroes, Blacks and Taunies are a real part of Mankind, for whom Christ hath shed his precious Blood, and are capable of Salvation, as well as White Men; and Christ the Light of the World hath (in measure) enlightened them, and every Man that cometh into the World; and that all such who are sincere Christians and true Believers in Christ Jesus, and Followers of him, bear his Image, and are made conformable unto him in Love, Mercy, Goodness and Compassion, who came not to destroy men’s Lives, but to save them, nor to bring any part of Mankind into outward Bondage, Slavery or Misery, nor yet to detain them, or hold them therein, but to ease and deliver the Oppressed and Distressed, and bring into Liberty both inward and outward.

            Therefore we judge it necessary that all faithful Friends should discover themselves to be true Christians by having the Fruits of the Spirit of Christ, which are Love, Mercy, Goodness, and Compassion towards all in Misery, and that suffer Oppression and severe Usage, so far as in them is possible to ease and relieve them, and set them free of their hard Bondage, whereby it may be hoped, that many of them will be gained by their beholding these good Works of sincere Christians, and prepared thereby, through the Preaching the Gospel of Christ, to [embrace] the true Faith of Christ. And for this cause it is, as we judge, that in some places in Europe Negroes cannot be bought and sold for Money, or detained to be Slaves, because it suits not with the Mercy, Love & Clemency that is essential to Christianity, nor to the Doctrine of Christ, nor to the Liberty the Gospel calleth all men unto, to whom it is preached. And to buy Souls and Bodies of men for Money, to enslave them and their Posterity to the end of the World, we judge is a great hinderance to the spreading of the Gospel, and is occasion of much War, Violence, Cruelty and Oppression, and Theft & [Robbery] of the highest Nature; for commonly the Negroes that are sold to white Men, are either [stolen] away or robbed from their Kindred, and to buy such is the way to continue these evil Practices of Man-stealing, and transgresseth that Golden Rule and Law, “To do to others what we would have others do to us.”

            Therefore, in true Christian Love, we earnestly recommend it to all our Friends and Brethren, Not to buy any Negroes, unless it were on purpose to set them free, and that such who have bought any, and have them at present, after some reasonable time of moderate Service they have had of them, or may have of them, that may reasonably answer to the Charge of what they have laid out, especially in keeping Negroes’ Children born in their House, or taken into their House, when under Age, that after a reasonable time of service to answer that Charge, they may set them at Liberty, and during the time they have them, to teach them to read, and give them a Christian Education.

 

Some Reasons and Causes of our being against keeping of Negroes for Term of Life:

            First, Because it is contrary to the Principles and Practice of the Christian Quakers to buy Prize or [stolen] Goods, which we bore a faithful Testimony against in our Native Country; and therefore it is our Duty to come forth in a Testimony against [stolen] Slaves, it being accounted a far greater Crime under Moses's Law than the stealing of Goods: for such were only to restore four fold, “but he that stealeth a Man and selleth him, if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to Death,” (Exod. 21:16). Therefore as we are not to buy [stolen] Goods, (but if at unawares it should happen through Ignorance, we are to restore them to the Owners, and seek our Remedy of the Thief) no more are we to buy [stolen] Slaves; neither should such as have them keep them and their Posterity in perpetual Bondage and Slavery, as is usually done, to the great scandal of the Christian Profession.

            Secondly, Because Christ commanded, saying, “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.” Therefore as we and our Children would not be kept in perpetual Bondage and Slavery against our Consent, neither should we keep them in perpetual Bondage and Slavery against their Consent, it being such [intolerable] Punishment to their Bodies and Minds, that none but notorious Criminal [Offenders] deserve the same. But these have done us no [harm]; therefore how inhumane is it in us so grievously to oppress them and their Children from one Generation to another.

            Thirdly, Because the Lord hath commanded, saying, “Thou shalt not deliver unto his Master the Servant that is escaped from his Master unto thee, he shall dwell with thee, even amongst you in that place which he shall [choose] in one of thy Gates, where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him,” (Deut. 23:15-16). By which it appeareth, that those which are at Liberty and freed from their Bondage, should not by us be delivered into Bondage again, neither by us should they be oppressed, but being escaped from his Master, should have the liberty to dwell amongst us, where it liketh him best. Therefore, if God extend such Mercy under the legal Ministration and Dispensation to poor Servants, he doth and will extend much more of his Grace and Mercy to them under the clear Gospel Ministration; so that instead of punishing them and their Posterity with cruel Bondage and perpetual Slavery, he will cause the Everlasting Gospel to be preached effectually to all Nations, to them as well as others; “And the Lord will extend Peace to his People like a River, and the Glory of the Gentiles like a flowing Stream; And it shall come to pass, saith the Lord, that I will gather all Nations and Tongues, and they shall come and see my Glory, and I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the Nations, to Tarshish, Pull and Lud that draw the Bow to Tuball and Javan, to the Isles afar off that have not heard my Fame, neither have seen my Glory, and they shall declare my Glory among the Gentiles,” (Isa. 66:12, 18).

            Fourthly, Because the Lord hath commanded, saying, “Thou shalt not oppress [a] hired Servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy Brethren, or of the Strangers that are in thy Land within thy Gates, [lest] he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee; Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the Land of [Egypt],” (Deut. 24:14-15. Exod. 12:21). But what greater Oppression can there be inflicted upon our Fellow Creatures, than is inflicted on the poor Negroes! they being brought from their own Country against their Wills, some of them being [stolen], others taken for payment of Debt owing by their Parents, and others taken Captive in War, and sold to Merchants, who bring them to the American Plantations, and sell them for Bond-Slaves to them that will give most for them; the Husband from the Wife, and the Children from the Parents; and many that buy them do exceedingly afflict them and oppress them, not only by continual hard [Labor], but by cruel Whippings; and other cruel Punishments, and by short allowance of Food, some Planters in [Barbados] and Jamaica, 'tis said, keeping one hundred of them, and some more, and some less, and giving them hardly [anything] more than they raise on a little piece of Ground appointed them, on which they work for themselves the seventh [days] of the Week in the [afternoon], and on the first days, to raise their own Provisions, to wit, Corn and Potatoes, and other Roots, &c. the remainder of their time being spent in their Masters service; which doubtless is far worse usage than is [practiced] by the Turks and Moors upon their Slaves. Which tends to the great Reproach of the Christian Profession; therefore it would be better for all such as fall short of the Practice of those Infidels, to refuse the Name of a Christian, that those Heathen and Infidels may not be provoked to blaspheme against the blessed Name of Christ, by reason of the [unparalleled] Cruelty of these cruel and hard hearted pretended Christians: Surely the Lord doth behold their Oppressions & Afflictions, and will further visit for the same by his righteous and just Judgments, except they break off their sins by Repentance, and their Iniquity by [showing] Mercy to these poor afflicted, tormented miserable Slaves!

            Fifthly, Because Slaves and Souls of Men are some of the “[Merchandise] of Babylon” by which “the Merchants of the Earth are made Rich;” but those Riches which they have heaped together, through the cruel Oppression of these miserable Creatures, will be a means to draw God’s Judgments upon them; therefore, Brethren, let us hearken to the Voice of the Lord, who saith, “Come out of Babylon, my People, that ye be not partakers of her Sins, and that ye receive not her [Plagues]; for her Sins have reached unto Heaven, and God hath [remembered] her Iniquities; for he that leads into Captivity shall go into Captivity,” (Rev. 18:4-5 & 13:10).

 

Given forth by our [Monthly] Meeting in Philadelphia, the 13th day of the 8th [Month], 1693, and recommended to all our Friends and Brethren, who are one with us in our Testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ, and to all others professing Christianity.

 

THE END.

 

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[1] See Nelson Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1954), 498.

Among the records showing this is the “Inventory of the personal estate” accompanying his will (recorded as “Boell, Thomas, of Freehold, Monmouth Co.”) which included multiple “nigrose [sic]” as reproduced in “Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey,” Volume XXLII, Calendar of New Jersey Wills, Vol. 1. 1670-1730 (William Nelson, 1901).

[2] Edited by Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski. The transcription of the tract has been edited for clarity according to modern language conventions. Spelling alterations to the original text made for the sake of clarity appear 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. Text is based on the Text Creation Partnership edition hosted by the University of Michigan Library System (George Keith, An exhortation & caution to Friends concerning buying or keeping of Negroes [New York: Printed by William Bradford, 1693; Ann Arbor, Text Creation Partnership, 2011], http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A47141.0001.001) with reference to the edition printed in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XIII (Philadelphia: 1889), 265-70.

Rev. John Sharpe’s Account of the 1712 New York City Slave Revolt

The Rev. John Sharpe served as an Anglican priest in New Jersey at the behest of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) at various points between 1704 and 1717 (to congregations including those at Perth Amboy, Burlington, Woodbridge, Maidenhead, and Hopewell), but in the latter portion of this time served primarily as the Chaplain to the British forces in New York City.[1] In the summer of 1712[2] he wrote a letter[3] to the Secretary of the Society which dealt largely with a recent rebellion[4] by enslaved persons that had occurred in the City on April 6 of that year. The text[5] of the letter pertaining to the revolt is as follows: 

By the Clergy’s Address you will see what new Obstacles are in the way of converting the Heathen, and [though] it has given the greatest offence, I hope it may be at least for the advancement of the good work. Some Negro Slaves here of the Nations of Carmantee & Pappa plotted to destroy all the white in order to obtain their freedom, and kept their Conspiracy Secret that there was not the least Suspicion of it (as formerly there had often been) till it come to the Execution. It was agreed to on New Year’s day, the Conspirators tying themselves to Secrecy by Sucking ye blood of each other’s hand. And to make them invulnerable, as they believed, a free [negro] who pretends Sorcery gave them a powder to rub on their [Clothes] which made them so confident that on Sunday night après about 2 [o’]clock, [at] about the going down of the moon, they Set fire to a house which, [alarming] the town, they stood in the Streets & Shot down and Stabbed as many as they could [until] a great Gun from the [fort] called up the Inhabitants in Arms who soon [scattered] them. They murdered about 8 and wounded about 12 more who are Since recovered. Some of them in their flight shot themselves. One shot first his wife and then himself and some who had hid themselves in Town, when they went to apprehend them, [cut] their own throats. Many were Convicted and about 18 have [suffered] death. This barbarous Conspiracy of the [Negroes] which was first thought to be general, [opened] the mouths of many against negroes being made Christians. Mr. Neau durst hardly appear. His school was [blamed] as the main [occasion] of it, and a Petition had like to have been presented if the Governor had not Stood to his Cause. Amongst all those that suffered Here none but two that had been of his School, one of which only was baptized and he was condemned on slender Evidence in the heat of the People’s resentment. I saw him suffer and heard him declare his [innocence] with his dying breath and then but too late for him he was pitied and proclaimed innocent by the Generality of the People. The other of the [Catechumens] was Slave to an eminent merchant, one Hendrich Hooghlandt who was murdered. He had for two years solicited his master for leave to be baptized but could not obtain it. He was certainly in the Conspiracy, but was hanged in Chains for the murder of his Master. After his hanging three days I went to him and exhorted him to confession. He said he knew of the Conspiracy but was not guilty of any bloodshed in the tumult. The cry against [Catechizing] the negroes continued [until], upon conviction, they were found to be Such as never frequented Mr. Neau’s School, and what is very observable, the Persons whose Negros have been found guilty are such as are declared opposers of Christianizing Negroes.

The Spanish Indians were at first most Suspected as having most understanding to carry on a plot & being Christians. There was no Evidence against any but two, and that was presumptive, however they were condemned. I visited them in prison, & went with them to the gallows where after they were [tied] up they declared their [innocence] of what was laid to their charge & behaved themselves as became Christians. While I was at prayers with them, interest was made with the Governor for their reprieve: Upon the whole, as ye Christian Religion has been much Blasphemed, and the Society’s Pious design has been much obstructed. By this bloody attempt of the Negroes, I am [hopeful] that both shall be promoted since it appear, on [trial], that those are Innocent who have been Seasoned with principles of Religion and those are but a small number that come to School in comparison of the many hundred that are in this place. I believe not above a tenth.

Figure 1: Elias Neau, French Huguenot imprisoned prior to his emigration to New York, from 
A Short Account of the Life and Sufferings of Elias Neau (London, 1749), Unknown artist,
marked as public domain (Artworks-8oFdzu6gvND7aoUU-1bHNWA-t500x500), more details on Wikimedia Commons.

Sharpe’s account of the revolt is revealing for a number of reasons. It indicates an awareness of the reality that punishments of Blacks were often not the result of law-breaking on an individual level. White anxiety frequently led to unjust verdicts which included torture and capital punishment for innocent Blacks. The letter describes some of the early stages of White crackdown following the revolt, which in the ensuing years would expand in scope to the passing of even more draconian laws in New York and New Jersey in 1712-14. Furthermore, Sharpe himself is involved in the cross-examination of some of those who were accused, showing that priests participated hand-in-glove in the system of legal authority in the colonies that embraced slavery. 

The letter also shows that attempts to Christianize the enslaved were controversial at the time, and certainly not exhaustive or widespread. Sharpe mentions that no more than one tenth of the enslaved in the city had ever attended Mr. Neau’s School, which was oriented to this purpose. It is possible that Sharpe is attempting to de-emphasize the danger posed by Christianizing enslaved persons, but various studies support the conclusion that outreach efforts to the enslaved were quite limited. 

Perhaps most significantly, the interrogations yielded a particular conviction for Sharpe which he passed along as salutary: that Christian instruction made enslaved persons more obedient and less likely to revolt. Thus the letter shows a key moment in the concretization of this ecclesial policy toward slavery. The interpretive work done by Sharpe as a minister of the Church of England assumes the legitimacy of slavery, and highlights the value of the Christianization of the enslaved in the Church of England as a useful buttress of the institution of slavery. The SPG supported and broadly promulgated this conclusion.[6]

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] Nelson Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1954), 639-640.

[2] Dated from New York to June 23, 1712.

[3] Courtesy of the British Online Archives, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.) Correspondence Collection: “American in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1635-1928” A Series Letter Book Vol. 7, pages 214-217. Manuscript copy scans at: 

https://microform.digital/boa/collections/11/volumes/37/the-a-series-letter-books-1702-1737

[4] A number of recent books have recounted some aspects of this event including Graham Russell Hodges, Root and Branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613-1863 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 64-65; Travis Glasson, Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 82-82; Katharine Gerbner, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 120-123. Anne-Claire Fauquez, “‘A Bloody Conspiracy’: Race, Power and Religion in New York’s 1712 Slave Insurrection,” pages 204-225 in L. Henneton and L. Roper, eds., Fear and the Shaping of Early American Societies (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

[5] Transcription edited for clarity according to modern language conventions. Alterations to the original text made for the sake of clarity appear in [brackets]. Of these alterations, spelling changes appear as [plain text], while slightly altered or added language for the sake of clarity appear in [italics]. Punctuation changes, expansions of abbreviations, and updated archaisms (e.g. substitutions of “you” for “thee” or “thou”) are not noted.

[6] Gerbner, Christian Slavery, 123.

Interview with Kathleen Montgomery Edwards (1924-2000) of Trinity Church, Princeton

The following excerpt of an interview with Kathleen Montgomery Edwards (1924-2000) of Trinity Church, Princeton appears in Kathryn Watterson’s I Hear My People Singing: Voices of African American Princeton.[1] Kathleen, "known as Kappy, Kathy, Katie, and Mommy Kappy, was born in Marion, South Carolina, to George and Mattie Johnson Montgomery. She came to Princeton with her parents in 1929 and graduated from Princeton High School in 1942. She worked in civil service for fifty-six-and-a-half years and was an administrator at the 305th Medical Group Walson Air Force Clinic at Fort Dix up until her death after a brief illness in October 2000. A member of Trinity Episcopal Church and the Committee for Social Justice, she was active in housing advocacy and civil rights groups in Princeton. During the 1960s, she was the first black female elected to Princeton’s Board of Education. She and her husband, Richard E. Edwards, had five children. Micah Carr interviewed Edwards at her home in Princeton in November 1999.”[2]

When I came back to Princeton in 1960, it was a brand-new Princeton. They were going through a HUD [Housing and Urban Development], a relocation of all blacks. This whole area, they were getting ready to wipe it out. They didn’t care if we hadn’t anyplace to go or not, because they wanted it, just like they want it now. I said to Brian [Van Zant Moore, an African American attorney in Princeton], “I can’t understand you all just sitting here and not doing anything. I haven’t been home ten days and I can see that things are not going right.” I said, “You lazy people get up off it, because we are going to stop this thing dead in the water.” I said, “Let’s get up off it. Let’s do it!” 

But people were afraid. I said, “Well, look. I don’t work for none of them chancellors. I don’t owe any of you my job, okay. I will tell [the mayor] exactly how I feel about it.” I said, “But I want you all, even if you don’t talk, at least stand there behind me.” 

And we marched on City Hall. Certainly did. We made that march. That is just why there is a black woman sitting right here right now. Henry Patterson [the mayor] came in ’63. I know that ’cause I went up there to see him and wanted to know how come they didn’t have a black face up there working. And he is the one that hired that one [pointing to Penney, her daughter, who was the first African American borough clerk in Princeton and the first in Mercer County]. He told me, “I hired her ’cause she had on that pink suit. She’s so cute.” I said, “What you telling me for, I know she’s cute.” 

We did that march in 1960, just before we did the one for the schools. They wanted to turn around and integrate the schools. They wanted to take John Witherspoon School and make it a township school. We had just finished paying for that school. They were trying to regionalize the schools. Well, why should I turn around and pay your bill, when I’ve already paid mine? But if you don’t like something bad enough, and you scream loud enough, they’ll get up and do it because they want to shut you up. 

The only thing that I don’t like about Princeton is that the cost of property is just too high. I       think a person should be able to live wherever they want to live without the undue hardship. I like living here now. Then I didn’t. I wanted to see what was on the other side, and I couldn’t go out there. I was too young. Otherwise, it’s a pretty good place. We just want our children—and you are our children, too—we want you to be better than we were.

           

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[1] Kathryn Watterson, I Hear My People Singing: Voices of African American Princeton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 183-184. .

[2] “Edwards, Kathleen Montgomery (1924–2000)," in Watterson, I Hear My People Singing, 311-312

Bishop William H. Stokes on Racism, Slavery, and Reparations in the Church

Bishop Stokes (seated center-right) at the Diocesan Stations of Reparations Service,
St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Freehold, New Jersey, March 25, 2023 (photo Jolyon Pruszinski)

The Rt. Rev. William H. Stokes, recently retired Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey, made it a special emphasis of the final years of his episcopate to highlight both the historic ties of the Diocese to slavery, and present racism that requires continued redress. His influential support for the work of identifying these problems, repenting, and working to repair them has led, in part, to the creation of the current Diocesan Reparations Commission and to the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review. Below are links to many of his public communications from the concluding years of his episcopate on these topics:

March 16, 2021: “New Jersey, it’s time to tell the truth” – NJ.com

June 25, 2021: "A Call for the Establishment of a Reparations Task Force in the State of New Jersey

Opening Remarks and Invocation" published in the “Bishop’s Weekly Message – June 25, 2021” 

October 1, 2021: “House of Bishops, Reparations, and Racial Justice” 

 

February 11, 2022: “Absalom Jones and the Legacy of Black Churches” 

March 11, 2022: “Strengthening Disciples for the [God’s] Future (Bishop’s Address to the Diocesan Convention, March 5, 2022” 

June 17, 2022: “June 17 – The Legacy of Juneteenth”

October 7, 2022: “Honoring Indigenous People’s Day”

October 14, 2022: “Affordable Housing is a Gospel Justice Issue”

October 21, 2022: “Oct. 21 – Faith Allies and Darnella Frazier”

February 3, 2023: “Black History Month & Jemar Tisby” 

February 17, 2023: “Confronting the Church’s Complicity with Racism”

March 17, 2023: “Notes on the House of Bishops Meeting”

June 16, 2023: “Juneteenth Observances”

NEWS: Diocese of Long Island "Uncovering Parish Histories" Initiative

A recent ENS article by Caleb Galaraga describes a new initiative in the Diocese of Long Island to facilitate research into parish histories regarding "slavery and the slavery economy." The initiative, which has been dubbed "Uncovering Parish Histories" is "an anti-racism project" at its core and is spear-headed by Rev. Dr. Craig Townsend, the Historian in Residence for Racial Justice in the Diocese and author of Faith in Their Own Color: Black Episcopalians in Antebellum New York City (Columbia University Press, 2005). Check out the Uncovering Parish Histories website for more information, details about the research and findings, anti-racism resources, and information on reparative justice.