Edwardsian Anxieties: Racism

It is both very hard and very easy to believe that Jonathan Edwards once wrote a defense of slavery. In 1741 the townspeople of Northfield, Massachusetts were attempting to remove their pastor on the grounds that he owned a slave. On behalf of this minister and the Hampshire Association, Edwards wrote a defense of owning human property. It’s hard to believe because, after all, Edwards was such a quality theologian in many other respects. Yet even the inimitable Jonathan Edwards was a product of his time, and his was a time of slave labor. Students of Edwards must seriously wrestle with the fact that he was a racist.

In 1731 a young Edwards spent 40% of his annual salary to purchase his first slave, a young girl, roughly fourteen-years old, named Venus. The bill of sale listed Venus’ price at 80 pounds. Titus, another of Edwards’ slaves, was valued at 30 pounds. At one level Edwards had no problem with owning another human being. In his 1741 defense he argued that the institution of racial slavery was God’s punishment of the African peoples. At the core of his ease with slavery was the fact that he was a product of his culture, and his was a culture of obvious racism. Whether speaking of Africans or of Natives there was a common condescending and hateful rhetoric in use. So early on Edwards had called the Natives “the devil’s people,” even asserting that the “devils sucked their blood.” The rhetoric often applied to the Natives referred to them as “beasts” or “creatures,” not as a humans. There was even discussion and debate among New Englanders as to just how intelligent these “creatures of color” were. Edwards, in his own mind, was convinced that Satan had prevented them from understanding the gospel by means of a “heathenish barbarous brutish education.” It was in this context that Edwards bought his first slave, and most likely followed the protocol and practice of his day in doing so. Richard Bailey reflects on what Edwards would have done if he had followed common practice. He writes:

As the twenty-seven-year-old Edwards saw his potential property for the first time, his mind certainly raced with the anxiety that accompanies such a major purchase. He knew he must be scrupulous in his efforts to ascertain whether this teenage African girl would prove a wise investment. If he were going to devote 40 percent of his annual salary to this transaction, the young minister had to make certain that the girl was worth the cost. So, as he poked and prodded the young girl’s nearly naked body, Edwards hoped to catch any telltale signs of malnutrition or disease, which [the owner] might have conveniently failed to mention. (Race and Redemption in Puritan New England, 62)

Whether Edwards’ experience in the slave market was exactly like this or not we may expect that he was still very much a product of his culture. But he was not always at ease with this culture.

Though he wrote in defense of slavery, there were many related areas where Edwards was not at home in his slavery-embracing context. He wrote against the slave trade in the very same defense of slavery for the Hampshire Association. He argued vigorously for the evangelizing of the Natives and of slaves. He even, at times, sought to remind himself of the humanity of his property. Commenting in his “Blank Bible” we find this remarks:

In these two things are contained the most forceable reasons against the master’s abuse of his servant, i.e., in that both have one maker & that their maker made ’em alike or with the same nature.

Edwards even welcomed into full membership in the church a few slaves and Natives, converted during the First Great Awakening in Northampton. Such realities do not undermine the racism of Edwards, but they do note a hint of dis-ease with the subject. There should have been far more dis-ease.

The reality that Edwards was a racist is far too often over-looked. It is rarely discussed and even more infrequently distressing to Edwards-lovers. I do love Jonathan Edwards. I have benefited greatly from studying his theology, and yet, the more I study the area of his sins and weaknesses the more uncomfortable with Edwards I become. His racism should raise great concern for students of Edwards. How can we learn from a man who sinned so boldly? How can we appreciate one who bought and sold other human beings. As was pointed out to me this week, few if any Evangelical Christians today would support and love a quality theologian who also happened to be a strong advocate of abortion. It would be an outrage to churches, and yet, many of us in the church love and applaud pastors who owned slaves. We need to wrestle seriously with the reality of Jonathan Edwards racism. I know I am.