51. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, in The Enlightenment: A Comprehensive Anthology, ed. Peter Gay (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), 328; baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), in The Age of Enlightenment, ed. Lester G. Crocker (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 197–99.
52. David Hume, Of National Character (1748), quoted in Richard H. Popkin, “The Philosophical Basis of Eighteenth-Century Racism,” in Racism in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Harold E. Pagliaro, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1973), 245–46; Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764), in Kramnick, PER, 638; Carolus Linnaeus, A General System of Nature (1806), quoted in Popkin, “Philosophical Basis of Eighteenth-Century Racism,” 248.
53. Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 199. On the “different” races, see Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 85–86.
54. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787), 270, 239, 230–31. On Jefferson, see David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975), 171–84.
55. On “Enwhitenment,” see Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, ed., Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997), 4. See also Sabine Broeck, “When Light Becomes White: Reading Enlightenment Through Jamaica Kincaid’s Writing,” Callaloo 25, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 824.
56. Joanna Brooks, American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 21–49, 51–86; letter from Charles Brockwell to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Salem, Mass., February 18, 1742, quoted in David S. Lovejoy, Religious Enthusiasm and the Great Awakening (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 65.
57. Phillis Wheatley, “On Messrs. Hussy and Coffin,” NM, December 21, 1767; James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, Written by Himself (Newport: S. Southwick, 1774), iv; Samson Occom, Divine Hymns, or Spiritual Songs (Portland: Thomas Clark, 1803), 10; John Marrant, A Sermon Preached on the 24th Day of June 1789 (Boston: Thomas and John Fleet, 1789); Joanna Brooks and John Saillant, eds., “Face Zion Forward”: First Writers of the Black Atlantic, 1785–1798 (Boston: Northeastern University Press 2002). See also Philip Gould, “Early Black Atlantic Writing and the Cultures of Enlightenment,” in Beyond Douglass: New Perspectives on Early African-American Literature, ed. Michael J. Drexler and Ed White (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 2008), 107–21.
58. See Kenneth P. Minkema and Harry S. Stout, “The Edwardsean Tradition and the Antislavery Debate, 1740–1865,” Journal of American History 92, no. 1 (June 2005): 49–50; Kenneth P. Minkema, “Jonathan Edwards on Slavery and the Slave Trade,” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 4 (1997): 831–32. Edwards was influenced by Leviticus 25:44–45.
59. David Grimsted has suggested that Sarah Osborn may have harbored abolitionist sympathies during the 1760s—a claim that has been repeated by many other scholars. For one example see Benjamin L. Carp, Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 136. Grimsted claims that Osborn may have “forwarded the first antislavery article to appear in the paper [the Newport Mercury], a sermon of England’s bishop of Gloucester, bitterly critical that ‘rational creatures, possessing all our qualities but that of color’ should be treated precisely as ‘herds of cattle.’ The letter to the printer enclosing the sermon, much in Osborn’s style, lamented the writer’s inability to do much about the shame that blacks were not offered Christ’s easy yoke without ‘the cruel yoke of bondage,’ but hoped that the paper would show ‘the firmness of mind to oppose the Vox Populi’ so ‘that posterity may see that there are some in these days who publicly declared their abhorrence of so flagitious a commerce.’” Grimsted finds it significant that the phrase “yoke of bondage” appeared in Osborn’s diary a month earlier (entry for March 18, 1767). Grimsted’s argument is marred by several problems. First, he claims that Gloucester’s antislavery article appeared in the April 20, 1767, issue of NM at the same time as Osborn’s meetings for slaves, but the article did not appear until February 24, 1781. (If an extract from Gloucester’s writings also appeared in an earlier issue, I could not locate it.) In addition, the 1781 article was not accompanied by a letter, and I could find no article in NM matching Grimsted’s quotations. It is unlikely that Osborn could have written a letter to the newspaper in 1781 because by then she was nearly blind and rarely able to write. And finally, even if Gloucester’s antislavery writings appeared in NM sometime during the 1760s along with a letter, Grimsted’s quotations from it do not sound like Osborn’s style. She did not use Latin phrasing (“Vox Populi”), and I have not found the word flagitious in any of her extant writings. The “yoke of bondage” was a common phrase in early America. An electronic search of Early American Imprints, Series 1: Evans, 1639–1800 (a database that includes almost all of the works published in America before 1800) yielded 236 hits (accessed July 7, 2010). See David Grimsted, “Anglo-American Racism and Phillis Wheatley’s ‘Sable Veil,’ ‘Lengthned Chain,’ and ‘Knitted Heart,’” in Women in the Age of the American Revolution, ed. Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989), 379–80.
60. SO, Diary, July 19, 1764.
61. SO to JF, June 12, 1766, AAS; SH, Memoirs, 77. The law was first passed in 1704 and reenacted in 1750 and 1770. See Samuel Greene Arnold, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (New York: Appleton, 1860), 2: 15, and John Russell Bartlett, Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England (Providence: A. C. Greene and Brothers, 1858), 3: 492.
62. SO, Diary, January 11, 1767; SO to JF, undated letter, AAS; SO, Diary, May 10, 1767; SH, Memoirs, 77.
63. Norton, “‘My Resting Reaping Times,’” 524.
64. The “free Ethiopian” may have been Primos Leandrow, who had been admitted to Osborn’s church on March 20, 1757 (see FCCR-BM, 60); SO to JF, June 12, 1766, AAS; Akeia A. F. Benard, “The Free African American Cultural Landscape: Newport, R.I., 1774–1826” (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 2008), 218.
65. For “negro,” see SO, Diary, November 30, 1761; for “Ethiopians,” see SO to JF, April 21, 1765, AAS; SO to JF, June 12, 1766, AAS.
66. Norton, “‘My Resting Reaping Times,’” 523; Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 266.
67. NM, December 13, 1762. The newspaper reported that Captain John Gardner had lost 38 of his 153 slaves on the journey from Africa. On Newport’s slave trade, see Sarah Deutsch, “The Elusive Guineamen: Newport Slavers, 1735–1774,” New England Quarterly 55, no. 2 (1982): 229–53; Jay Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade, 1700–1807 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981).
68. Benard, “Free African American Cultural Landscape,” 103; Linda France Stine, Melanie A. Cabak, and Mark D. Groove, “Blue Beads as African-American Cultural Symbols,” Historical Archaeology 30, no. 3 (1996): 49–75.
69. Norton, “‘My Resting Reaping Times,’” 524.
70. Ibid.; SO to JF, September 4, 1765, AAS.
71. On “kissing the rod,” see SO to “Mrs. Noice” [Abigail Noyes], January 16, 1767, AAS. For Gardner’s words about idolatry, see The Works of Samuel Hopkins, ed. Edwards Amasa Park (Boston: Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, 1852), 154n. William Henry Robinson, ed., The Proceedings of the Free African Union Society and the African Benevolent Society, Newport, Rhode Island, 1780–1824 (Providence: Urban League of Rhode Island, 1976), 25.
72. Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” in her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London: A. Bell, 1773), 18.
73. Hezekiah Smith, quoted
in Carp, Rebels Rising, 138. Smith’s text was Luke 14:22.
74. SO to JF, December 7, 1767, AAS; SO to JF, April 28, 1768, AAS; Norton, “‘My Resting Reaping Times,’” 520.
75. FCCR-BM records the names of eight black members admitted between 1765 and 1774: Quamenee Church (1765), Bristol Coggeshall (1768), Obour Tanner (1768), Phillis Hammond (1771), Phillis Morrison (1771), Jenny Folgier (1771), Cato Coggeshall (1771), and Wishee Buckmaster (1774). Using James N. Arnold, Vital Record of Rhode Island 1636–1850. First Series: Births, Marriages and Deaths, vol. 8 (Providence: Narragansett Historical Publishing, 1896), Benard also lists several other slaves as members, but their names appear in the list of baptisms, not full membership. They were probably the children of black members. She lists Abraham Coggeshall (1771), Isaac Coggeshall (1771), Sarah Coggeshall (1771), Pompey Stevens (1771), and Phyllis Coggeshall (1774). See Appendix to Benard, “Free African American Cultural Landscape.” According to Ezra Stiles, there were 6 or 7 black members in the First Church of Christ in 1772 There were 364 members total in 1771. (LD 1: 214, 144). Scipio Tanner and Arthur (“Tikey”) Flagg were baptized and admitted into full membership in the Seventh-day Baptist Church in 1771. See “The Seventh-day Baptist Church at Newport, Rhode Island,” Seventh-day Baptist Memorial 2 (January and April 1853): 77.
76. See SO to JF, April 21, 1765, AAS, in which Osborn mentioned “some considerable ingathering” at Mr. Thurston’s church. On baptism, see Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 132–33.
77. SO, Diary, January 31, 1767.
78. NM, September 5, 1763; SO, Diary, January 31, 1767; SO to Susanna Bannister, April 7, 1767, AAS.
79. FCCR-BM, September 12, September 21, 1768.
80. Letter to William Vinal, tentatively dated 1771–74, in FCCR-418, Folder 9. The RIHS does not list the author of this letter, but it is in Sarah Osborn’s handwriting. It was probably written in the fall of 1768 or the winter or spring of 1769. She mentioned that it had been in “August” that she had first heard that the Church Council would hold a meeting about Vinal’s intemperance.
81. Ibid.
82. SO to JF, July 9, 1769, AAS; SO to JF, April 28, 1768, AAS; SH, Memoirs, 342.
83. “Sermon notes, August 1768 –August 1770,” in FCCR-418, Folder 9; SO to JF, June 18, 1769, AAS. See also SO to JF, July 9, 1769, AAS.
84. Letter from Thomas M. Vinson to E. A. Park, August 11, 1851, Vinson Family Papers, 1789–1929, MHS; Channing, Early Recollections, 90.
85. William Hart, Brief Remarks on a Number of False Propositions, and Dangerous Errors, Which Are Spreading in This Country (New-London: Timothy Green, 1769), 30, advertised in NM, October 30, 1769. On Hopkins, see William Breitenbach, “Unregenerate Doings: Selflessness and Selfishness in New Divinity Theology,” American Quarterly 34, no. 5 (1982): 479–502; Joseph A. Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement: Calvinism, the Congregational Ministry, and Reform in New England Between the Great Awakenings (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981); Peter Dan Jauhiainen, “An Enlightenment Calvinist: Samuel Hopkins and the Pursuit of Benevolence” (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1997); William Breitenbach, “The Consistent Calvinism of the New Divinity Movement,” William and Mary Quarterly 41, no. 2 (1984): 241–64.
86. SO to SH, January 22, 1770, in Sarah Osborn, 5 Letters, 1769–70, Gratz Collection. Hopkins had an extensive correspondence with both Osborn and Anthony. See Susanna Anthony, 34 Letters, 1749–1776, Gratz Collection, and Sarah Osborn, 5 Letters, 1769–70, Gratz Collection.
87. LD 1: 41, 44. The estimate of the women’s society comes from SH, Memoirs, 71. On Hopkins’s farewell sermon, see Stephen West, ed., Sketches of the Life of the Late Rev. Samuel Hopkins (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin 1805), 72–74. Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement, 103–6.
88. FCCR-CB, March 23, 1770, Vault A, no. 836b. For members of the women’s society, see SO, Diary, November 21, 1760, January 28, 1762.
89. FCCR-BM, August 3, 1770; SO to Mary Fish Noyes, September 1, 1770, AAS.
90. LD 1: 33, 36, 213. Ezra Stiles’s meetings began in 1770.
91. SO, Diary, November 25, 1759. Osborn mentions Stiles’s participation in her meetings in SO to SH, July 29, 1769, in Sarah Osborn, 5 Letters, 1769–70, Gratz Collection.
92. Hopkins notes that Yamma and Quamine had attended Osborn’s meetings in the 1760s (SH, Memoirs, 78n); LD 1: 367.
93. On Yamma, see SH to Philip Quaque, December 10, 1773, Gratz Collection: American Colonial Clergy, Case 9/Box 16. On Quamine, see Benard, “Free African American Cultural Landscape,” 212. Benard lists three children born before 1773, but since two were named “Bettey,” it seems likely that the first one died. The couple had another child in 1777. Stiles baptized Quamine and Duchess Channing’s infant Charles in January 1772 (LD 1: 207). See also Ezra Stiles, “Members of the Second Congregational Church in Newport, 1728–1770,” Gratz Collection.
94. On Duchess as a cake maker, see Channing, Early Recollections, 170–71n. William Ellery Channing wrote the description of her as “intelligent, industrious,” etc., for her gravestone; see Charles Timothy Brooks, William Ellery Channing: A Centennial Memory (Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880), 56.
95. Samuel Hopkins, Extract from a letter written by the Rev. Philip Quaque to Hopkins about John Quamine, August 30, 1773, Joseph Bellamy Papers, CHS. Philip Quaque was the first African to be ordained as an Anglican priest.
96. Hopkins, Extract from a letter written by the Rev. Philip Quaque; Phillis Wheatley to SH, February 9, 1774, Gratz Collection: American Poets, Case 7/Box 10. See also Phillis Wheatley to SH, May 6, 1774, Ms.Ch.A. 6.20, BPL.
97. Obour Tanner was baptized and admitted to the First Church of Christ in 1768. FCCR-BM, July 10, 1768. For more on Wheatley’s relationship with her, see their correspondence in Phillis Wheatley: Complete Writings, ed. Vincent Caretta (New York: Penguin, 2001).
98. Letter from Ezra Stiles and Samuel Hopkins, “To all who are desirous to promote the kingdom of Christ on earth, in the salvation of sinners,” August 31, 1773, Joseph Bellamy Papers, CHS; Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement, 145; Ezra Stiles and Samuel Hopkins, To the Public (Newport: n.p., 1776).
99. LD 1: 489, 486; Stiles and Hopkins, To the Public, 4; Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement, 144–46.
100. Arnold, Vital Record, First Series, vol. 8, p. 404; “Admissions, 1744–1796,” FCCR-BM; First Congregational Church of Newport Records, MSS 418, Folder 4: Contribution Book, 1763–75.
101. For the history of this episode, see FCCR-BM for the following dates: June 29, 1770; September 6, 1771; June 23, 1773; August 17, 1773; April 29, 1774; July 1, 1774; and December 5, 1774. Letter from William Vinal, to the First Church of Christ, November 30, 1774, First Congregational Church of Newport Records, Vault A, Box 169, Folder 6, NHS. See also the letter from Susanna Anthony to Samuel Hopkins, no date, Ms.Ch.A.4.16, BPL.
102. See Jauhiainen, “Enlightenment Calvinist,” 290. Hopkins wrote a letter to Levi Hart in January 1775 arguing for immediate abolition: SH to Levi Hart, January 25, 1775, CHS. This is the earliest evidence we have of his antislavery position according to Jonathan D. Sassi, “‘This Whole Country Have Their Hands Full of Blood This Day’: Transcription and Introduction of an Antislavery Sermon Manuscript Attributed to the Reverend Samuel Hopkins,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 112, no. 1 (2004): 60. It is not clear when Hopkins began to preach against slavery. Stanley K. Schultz argues that it may have been in January 1770 (“The Making of a Reformer: The Reverend Samuel Hopkins as an Eighteenth-Century Abolitionist,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 115, no. 5 [1971]: 356n). His evidence is that Hopkins wrote in his diary, “Have been worried about my preaching yesterday. I believe it was the truth, but perhaps I had better not preached it then.” It seems likely that Hopkins was concerned about alienating the First Church either because of his controvers
ies with William Hart or his strict stance on infant baptism and church membership. During the same month that Hopkins made this entry in his diary, Susanna Anthony sent him a letter alluding to his argument with William Hart (SA to SH, January 22, 1770, in Susanna Anthony, 34 Letters, 1749–1776, HSP). Hopkins was not appointed pastor of the church until April 11, 1770, and it is doubtful that he would have been elected if he had preached an antislavery sermon during his probation.
103. Julia A. Stern, The Plight of Feeling: Sympathy and Dissent in the Early American Novel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 218; Sassi, “‘This Whole Country Have Their Hands Full of Blood,’” 87.
104. NM, October 21, 1765, June 17, 1771, January 4 –January 11, 1768.
105. Thomas L. Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1”; Thomas L. Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 2”; David Brion Davis, “Reflections on Abolitionism and Ideological Hegemony,” all in Thomas Bender, ed. The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 107–79.
106. John Woolman, The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman, ed. Phillips P. Moulton (Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1971), 92; Philip Gould, Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003); Sassi, “‘This Whole Country Have Their Hands Full of Blood,’” 68–69.
107. The First Congregational Church of Newport Records include a list of books purchased for the First Congregational Society during Hopkins’s tenure (1770–75), including a copy of Phillis Wheatley’s poems (FCCR-DRC, April 15, 1774). The ad appeared in NM, August 22, 1774.
108. Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 234; Samuel Hopkins to Philip Quaque, December 10, 1773, Gratz Collection: American Colonial Clergy, Case 9/Box 16.
Sarah Osborn's World Page 52
