Discovery of 178-Year-Old Baptist Antislavery Document Elates Faith Leaders
Posted on Wed 09 July 2025 in Theology
Aishvarya Kavi of the New York Times reports:
The scroll was handwritten in 1847, just two years after Baptists in the United States split, with the Southern congregations breaking off over their Northern counterparts’ condemnation of slavery.
Using forceful language, 116 Baptist ministers in Massachusetts had signed their name to what they called “A Resolution and Protest Against Slavery,” condemning the system as “entirely repugnant.”
...
At the height of slavery in the South, the Baptist ministers declared, “Under these circumstances we can no longer be silent.” Slavery, they said, was “an outrage upon the rights and happiness of our fellow men, for which there is no valid justification or apology.”