Jonathan Edwards on Slavery and the Slave Trade

Abstract

A MONG the unpublished manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards is a newly discovered letter draft that treats the issue of slavery and, more specifcally, the importation of African slaves into the American colonies.1 The letter draft is remarkable for several reasons. It is the only known instance of Edwards's writing, however abstrusely, about slavery. Also, it discloses differing views on slavery at the local level (apparently in the vicinity of Northampton, Massachusetts), divided along lay-clerical lines. Dating from I738 to I742, the draft reveals an undercurrent of popular antislavery sentiment existing considerably earlier than scholars have depicted.2 The draft is typical of Edwards's habits of letter writing. In preparing many of his letters, particularly those of an important nature, Edwards first sketched out major points and transitions in an elliptical, stream-ofconsciousness manner on scrap paper and then wrote the letter in full on good foolscap. Often his full meaning is obscured by this method of composition. In addition, he struck some passages through with vertical lines. These marks can be taken either as deletions or as use lines, indicators that Edwards customarily employed in letter drafts and notebook entries to show that he had already utilized certain passages in writing out a fuller version. Unfortunately, no record of a sent copy of the draft presented here has been found, nor, for that matter, has any reference to the incident that prompted its composition.