Anglican and Episcopal History (AEH) Journal has just published a special issue on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States. Research from the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review appears in the issue in an article from Jolyon Pruszinski entitled "Despite the Declaration: White Episcopal Support for Slavery and Black Episcopal Resistance in Early Republic New Jersey." This is the introduction:
During the Revolutionary War, Anglicans in New Jersey were split on whether to remain loyal to the Crown, but after the war, both white and Black Episcopalians generally embraced the language of the Declaration of Independence with patriotic zeal. Where they split was over whether “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” should be the deserved possessions of “all men” or if the “all men” who were “created equal” were in fact “white” men only. Prominent Black Episcopalians, like Peter Williams, and John N. Still, treasured the language of liberty and equality in the Declaration as an inheritance of all Americans, and saw in it a vision of a just society in which slavery and racial discrimination had no place. However, white Episcopalians, in spite of their public acclamation of the Declaration, even in “northern” New Jersey typically chose to support slavery, buttress its effectiveness, and benefit from its operation. Black Episcopalians resisted white Episcopal support for slavery, and used both the Declaration and the Bible to denounce the institution as unjust. There is a long-standing precedent among Episcopal historians of emphasizing the noble behaviors of a few white Episcopalians while systematically de-emphasizing the overwhelmingly common and negative behaviors of the many. This article is oriented in opposition to that precedent.
For full article access is available through the AEH website with a (free for one year) membership in the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (HSEC) or through JSTOR.ORG.
