Part 2 (2/2)

Antedating this movement in Pennsylvania were the efforts of Reverend Dr Thomas Bray In 1696 he was sent to Maryland by the Bishop of London on an ecclesiastical roes and the education of their children[1]

Bray's most influential supporter was M D'Alone, the private secretary of King Williaave for the maintenance of the cause a fund, the proceeds of which were first used for the employment of colored catechists, and later for the support of the Thoive satisfaction At the death of this ood man, known as the ”associates of Doctor Bray”[2] They extended their work beyond the confines of Maryland In 1760 two schools for the education of Negroes were maintained in Philadelphia by these benefactors It was the aid obtained from the Dr Bray fund that enabled the abolitionists to establish in that city a permanent school which continued for almost a hundred years[3] About the close of the French and Indian War, Rev Mr Stewart, a missionary in North Carolina, found there a school for the education of Indians and free Negroes, conducted by Dr Bray's associates The exa to him as a wise policy, he directed to it the attention of the clergy at home[4]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_, p 252; Smyth, _Works of Franklin_, vol iv, p

23; and vol v, p 431]

[Footnote 2: Smyth, _Works of Franklin_, vol v, p 431]

[Footnote 3: Wickersham, _History of Education in Pennsylvania_, p

249]

[Footnote 4: Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in North Carolina_, Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol xv, p 226]

Notthe Puritans, but the nu the question of their instruction before these colonists alht in the case of the land Despite the fact that the Puritans developed from the Calvinists, believers in the doctrine of election which swept away all class distinction, this sect did not, like the Quakers, attack slavery as an institution Yet if the Quakers were the first of the Protestants to protest against the buying and selling of souls, New England divines were a the first to devote attention to the roes[1] In 1675 John Eliot objected to the Indian slave trade, not because of the social degradation, but for the reason that he desired that his countryne in thisthem He further said: ”For to sell Souls for Money seeerous Merchandise, to sell away from all Means of Grace whom Christ hath provided Means of Grace for you is the Way for us to be active in destroying their Souls when they are highly obliged to seek their Conversion and Salvation” Eliot bore it grievously that the souls of the slaves were ”exposed by their Masters to a destroying Ignorancethe Benefit of their Vassalage”[2]

[Footnote 1: _Pennsylvania Magazine of History_, vol xiii, p 265]

[Footnote 2: Locke, _Anti-slavery Before 1808_, p 15; Mather, _Life of John Eliot_, p 14; _New Plymouth Colony Records_, vol x, p

452]

Further interest in the as manifested by Cotton Mather He showed his liberality in his professions published in 1693 in a set of _Rules for the Society of Negroes_, intended to present the claiious instruction[1] Mather believed that servants were in a sense like one's children, and that their masters should train and furnish theious books for which they should be given time to read He ious exercises of the fa to employ such of them as were co directly to the issue of the day, Mather deplored the fact that the several plantations which lived upon the labor of their Negroes were guilty of the ”prodigious Wickedness of deriding, neglecting, and opposing all due Means of bringing the poor Negroes unto God” He hoped that the masters, of whom God would one day require the souls of slaves committed to their care, would see to it that like Abrahaine that the ”Alhty Godbut only to serve the lusts of Epicures, or the Gains of Mammonists”[2]

[Footnote 1: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, etc, p 15]

[Footnote 2: Meade, _Sermons of Thoy of this epoch was more directly expressed by Richard Baxter, the noted Nonconforn Plantations,” incorporated as rules into the _Christian Directory_[1] Baxter believed in natural liberty and the equality of round of ”necessitated consent” or captivity in laar For these reasons he felt that they that buy slaves and ”use them as Beasts for their lect their Souls are fitter to be called incarnate Devils than Christians, though they be no Christians whom they so abuse”[2] His aim here, however, is not to abolish the institution of slavery but to enlighten the Africans and bring them into the Church[3] Exactly what effect Baxter had on this ured out The fact, however, that his creed was extensively adhered to by the Protestant colonists a whom his works idely read, leads us to think that he influenced soe their attitude toward their slaves

[Footnote 1: Baxter, _Practical Works_, vol i, p 438]

[Footnote 2: Baxter, _Practical Works_, vol i, p 438-40]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_, p 440]

The next Puritan of pro the helpers of the African slaves was Chief Justice Sewall, of Massachusetts In 1701 he stirred his section by publishi+ng his _Selling of Joseph_, a distinctly anti-slavery paht of every man to be free[1] The appearance of this publication roes It was the first direct attack on slavery in New England The Puritan clergy had formerly winked at the continuation of the institution, provided the ious instruction In the _Selling of Joseph_ Sewall had little to say about their mental and moral improvement, but in the _Athenian Oracle_, which expressed his sentiments so well that he had it republished in 1705,[2] he ro race Taking up this question, Sewall said: ”There's yet less doubt that those who are of Age to answer for theht be taught the Obligation of the Vow they made in Baptism, and there's little Doubt but Abrahae to learn, the Nature of Circumcision before he circumcised them; nor can we conclude much less from God's own noble Testimony of him, 'I know him that he will command his Children and his Household, and they shall keep the Way of the Lord'”[3]

Sewall believed that the ee Negroes to become Christians He could not understand how any Christian could hinder or discourage theion and e the faith

[Footnote 1: Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts_, p 91]

[Footnote 2: Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts_, p 92; Locke, _Anti-slavery_, etc, p 31]

[Footnote 3: Moore, _Notes on Slavery_, etc, p 91; _The Athenian Oracle_, vol ii, pp 460 _et seq_]

This interest shown in the Negro race was in no sense general a the Puritans of that day Many of their sect could not favor such proselyting,[1] which, according to their systeovernment, would have meant the extension to the slaves of social and political privileges It was not until the French provided that masters should take their slaves to church and have them indoctrinated in the Catholic faith, that the proposition was seriously considered by licans, felt sufficient compunction of conscience to take steps to Christianize the slaves, lest the Catholics, whom they had derided as undesirable churchmen, should put the Protestants to shame[2] The publication of the Code Noir probably influenced the instructions sent out fro them ”with the assistance of our council to find out the best roes and Indians to the Christian Religion” Everly subsequentlyof a resolution by the Council Board at Windsor or Whitehall, reco that the blacks in plantations be baptized, andout severe censure to those who opposed this policy[3]

[Footnote 1: Moore, _Notes on Slavery_, etc, p 79]

[Footnote 2: This good example of the Catholics was in later years often referred to by Bishop Porteus _Works of Bishop Porteus_, vol