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Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are 

good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. 

Biblical Underpinning for Slavery 

Early Christianity and Slavery 

Slavery in Medieval Christendom 

The Portuguese Slave Trade 

Spanish Slavery 

The British Slave Trade 

Slavery in North America 

1 Peter 2:18 (NIV) 

Frederick Douglass on Slavery and 

Christianity 

Abolition of Slavery 

Christian Slavery in Africa 

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Maintaining Deceptions 

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Re-branding a Sky-God 

Making One God out of Many 

How Mary keeps her Virginity 

Fabricating the Nativity Story 

Managing Inconvenient Texts 

Biblical Underpinning for Slavery 

For many centuries slavery was perfectly acceptable to Christians. Christians had no doubt that it 

was divinely sanctioned, and they used a number of Old and New Testament quotations to prove 

their case. Looking at the relevant passages it is clear that the Bible does indeed endorse 

slavery. In the Old Testament God approved the practice and laid down rules for buyers and 

sellers (Exodus 21:1-11, Leviticus 25:44). Men are at liberty to sell their own daughters (Exodus 

21:7). Slaves can be inherited (Leviticus 25:45-6). It is acceptable to beat slaves, since they are 

property — a master who beats his slave to death is not to be punished as long as the slave 

stays alive for a day or two, as the loss of the master's property is punishment enough: 

And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; 

he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall 

not be punished: for he is his money. Exodus 21:20-21 1 

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Christianity & Science 

Traditional Battlegrounds 

Modern Battlegrounds 

Rational Explanations 

Religion in General

Christianity in Particular 

Divine Human Beings 

Ease of Creating Religions 

Arguments for and Against 

Popular Arguments 

Philosophical Arguments 

Moral Arguments 

Supernatural Arguments 

Miracles 

Revelation 

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Slavery 

Racism 

Capital Punishment 

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Physical Abuse 

Treatment of Women 

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If a slave is gored by a bull, it is the 

master, not the slave, who is to be 

compensated (Exodus 21:32). 

Time and time again the Old 

Testament confirms that slaves are 

property and their lives are of little 

consequence. To prove the 

strength of Job's faith, God sends 

Satan to test him by visiting 

disasters upon him. Amongst these 

disasters is the killing of Job's 

numerous slaves (Job 1). Neither 

God, nor Satan, nor the story's 

narrator finds it at all odd that 

people should be killed just to 

prove a point: they are only Job's 

property and their destruction is 

naturally bracketed with the loss of 

his livestock and vineyards. 

The New Testament also regards slavery as acceptable. It instructs slaves to accept their position 

with humility (Ephesians 6:5-8) and to please their masters in everything (Titus 2:9, cf. Colossians 

3:22). They are commanded to serve Christian slave owners better than other masters (1 Timothy 

6:1-2) "so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed". Even oppressive 

masters are to be obeyed according to 1 Peter 2:18. Jesus himself mentioned slavery more than 

once according to the New Testament, but never with the slightest hint of criticism of it. He even 

glorified the master-slave relationship as a model of the relationship between God and 

humankind (Matthew 18:23ff and 25:14ff). Christians naturally interpreted this as not merely 

acceptance, but approval. If Jesus had opposed slavery he would, they claimed, surely have said 

so. . 

Early Christianity and Slavery 

In pre-Christian times and in non-Christian countries people expressed doubts about slavery and 

sought to improve the lot of slaves — the Stoic philosophers provide a notable example. In pagan 

times slaves who escaped and sought sanctuary at a holy temple would not be returned to their 

masters if they had a justifiable complaint. When the Empire became Christian, escaped slaves 

could seek refuge in a church, but they would always be returned to their masters, whether they 

had a justifiable complaint or not. When Christian slaves in the early Asian Church suggested that 

community funds might be used to purchase their freedom, they were soon disabused of their 

hopes, a line supported by one of the greatest Church Fathers (Ignatius of Antioch.). He declared 

that their ambition should be to become better slaves, and they should not expect the Church to 

gain their liberty for them 2 . His orthodox approach followed the words of St Paul: "Each one 

should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you 

were called? Don't let it trouble you — although if you can gain your freedom, do so." (1 

Corinthians 7:20-21 NIV). 

The Slave Market (c1882) by Gustave Boulanger (1824 – 1888) 

A Roman slave market - the older man sitting on the platform is the auctioneer. 

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Church & State 

Symbiosis 

Meddling in Governance 

Interference in Politics 

Abuse of Power 

Church Law and Justice 

Exemption from the Law 

Unofficial Exemption 

Financial Privileges 

Control Over Education 

Human Rights 

Freedom of Belief 

Religious Toleration 

Freedom of Expression 

Freedom of Enjoyment 

Attitudes to Sex 

Celibacy 

Sex Within Marriage 

Sex Outside Marriage 

Incest 

Rape 

Homosexuality 

Transvestism 

Prostitution 

Pederasty 

Bestiality 

Sadomasochism 

Necrophilia 

Consequences 

Science & Medicine 

Ancient Times 

Dark and Middle Ages 

Sixteenth Century 

Seventeenth Century 

Eighteenth Century 

Nineteenth Century 

20th and 21st Centuries 

Medical Records Compared 

Violence & Warfare 

Crusades 

God's Wars 

Churches' Wars 

Christian Atrocities 

Cultural Vandalism 

The Classical World 

Europe 

The Wider Modern World 

Possible Explanations 

Summing up 

When the Roman Empire became Christian under the 

Emperor Constantine, the institution of slavery 

remained unaltered, except for superficial changes. 

For example, ceremonies of manumission were 

transferred from temples to Christian Churches, and 

places of sanctuary were restricted to Christian sites. 

Church Fathers instructed the faithful not to let slaves 

get above themselves, and the Church endorsed 

Saint Augustine's view that slavery was ordained by 

God as a punishment for sin 3 . Augustine called on the 

free to give thanks because Christ and his Church did 

not make slaves free, but rather made bad slaves into 

good slaves. St. Augustine teaching that the 

institution of slavery derives from God and is 

beneficial to both slaves and masters would be cited 

by many later Popes as evidence, indeed proof, of the 

acceptability of slavery. It was an integral part of the 

Christian "Tradition" one of the main sources of authority in the Church. 

In 362 AD a Church Council at Gangra in Asia Minor excommunicated anyone encouraging a 

slave to despise his master or to withdraw from his service. This would in time be incorporated 

into Church Law, where it would remain from the 13th to the 20th century. 

Soon the Church would become the largest slave 

owner in the Roman Empire. Bishops themselves 

owned slaves and accepted the usual conventions. 

So did other churchmen. Slave collars dating from 

around AD 500 have been found in Sardinia, stamped 

with the sign of the cross. One mentions the name 

"Felix the Archdeacon" 4 . "I am a slave of Felix the 

archdeacon: hold me lest I run away". Some 40 

collars (or slave pendants) survive from antiquity, 

almost all of them from the fourth century, from Rome, 

Africa and Sardinia. Many of the collars feature 

Christian symbols such the chi-rho christogram or a 

Christian cross, showing that the slave owners were 

Christians. We know of other slave owning Christians 

in various ways, for example one, Ausonius ,recorded having tattooed his recaptured runaway 

slave on the forehead 5 (the significance seems to have been guilt about tattooing, because 

tattooing was banned by the bible) 

Pagan slaves who wanted to become Christians required permission from their masters. For 

many centuries, indeed right up to recent times, servile birth was a bar to Christian ordination, 

and the Church confirmed the acceptability of slavery in many other ways. The Christian Emperor 

Constantine (or possibly his predecessor Licinius) issued a law requiring slaves caught fleeing

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Continuing Damage 

Religious Discrimination 

Christian Discrimination 

Moral Dangers 

Abuse of Power 

A Final Summing Up 

Bibliography 

into barbarian territories to be sent to the mines, or to have a foot amputated 6 . This law was not 

rescinded by the string of Christian Emperors, who headed the Christian Church under the 

system of caesaropapalism. The Christian Roman Empire actively helped slave owners to 

recover fugitive slaves, and punished anyone giving them shelter. 7 . Priests and bishops were 

required by Cannon Law to return to their masters any Christians seeking sanctuary in churches 8 . 

Even slaves who sought refuge in monasteries were to be returned. 9 . Ecclesiastical networks 

were employed in the identification and recovery of fugitive slaves. 10 . Saint Jerome was one 

who shopped a fugitive slave of one of his friends 11 

Around 600, Pope Gregory the Great approved of 

forcing Jewish slaves to convert by "lashes and 

tortures" 12 . When he needed Anglian slaves he wrote 

to a Church official to procure them for him 13 . On 

another occasion he had slaves procured from 

Sardinia. 14 . In 650 Pope Martin I condemned anyone 

teaching slaves about freedom or encouraging them to 

escape their bonds. 

Slavery in Medieval Christendom 

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A Church Council of Châlons in 813 decreed that 

slaves belonging to different owners could not marry 

without their owners' consent. It had been common for 

pagan Greeks and Romans to emancipate their slaves, 

but the emancipation of the Church's slaves was 

declared impossible, on the grounds that the slaves were owned not by the clergy but by God 

himself, and only the slave owner could legally dispose of his goods. Church slaves were thus 

inalienable property. (This principle would be enshrined in canon law in respect of monastic 

slaves under the Decretum gratiani c.1140.) Church law contained other provisions regulating the 

marriage of slaves 15 . Here are a few examples: 

To eject a slave girl from one's bed and take one free to become a wife does not 

produce a second marriage but advances decency. (Decretum gratiani, Case 32, 

q II, C11) 

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It is lawful matrimony when a woman is given to a man with a concubine. 

Not every woman joined to a man is his wife, just as not every son is his father's 

heir. The bonds of marriage between free persons and between co-equals are 

lawful, and the Lord established them long before the beginnings of the Roman 

law. Thus, a wife is different from a concubine, just as the slave girl was different 

from the free woman [cf. Gal. 4:30]. (Decretum gratiani, Case 32, q II, C12) 

[on the question of who has the right to agree a marriage of the daughter of a 

slave if she has a free uncle, with reference to a specific case where the father 

was a slave of the church]: A girl should obey the decision of her free uncle 

concerning her marriage, not that of her slave father. The girl's father was clearly 

your church's slave, and her uncle was of free stock. We therefore decree that the 

choice of the niece's husband belongs to her uncle, rather than to her father, 

because his will is not free. 

Gratian: So this approves her marrying her uncle's choice, and clearly shows that 

she is lawfully joined. (Decretum gratiani, Case 32, q III, C1) 

Gratian: That one may seek children from 

a slave girl if one's wife is sterile, is shown 

by the example of Abraham [Gen. 16:2-3], 

who, because of his wife Sarai's sterility, 

went in to Hagar the Egyptian to have 

children from her. Also, Jacob [Gen. 30:1- 

5], when he could not have children from 

Rachel, raised them up from his slave girl. 

This was not merely because of her 

sterility, for one reads that he also went in 

to Leah's slave girl and sired children 

from her because of Leah's declining 

fertility. This indicates that, on account of 

a wife's sterility, one can lawfully seek 

children from a slave girl or some other 

woman. Otherwise, Abraham and Jacob 

would be guilty of adultery. (Decretum 

gratiani, Case 32, q IV, Part 1) 

Abraham, who had sons by a slave girl while his wife was alive, was not guilty of 

adultery. (Decretum gratiani, Case 32, q IV, C3)

Children inherit their parents' status. They are free who issue from a free 

marriage. The children of a free man and a slave girl are of servile condition. 

Those born always follow the worse part. (Decretum gratiani, Case 32, q IV, C15) 

A slave manumitted on condition that he become a monk or serve a monastery 

should be compelled to obey the desire of the one manumitting, or should be 

returned to servility if he prefers that. (Decretals of Gregory IX, Book Four, 

Conditions Set in Betrothals or Other Contracts, C. 2.) 

If a free man has unknowingly contracted with a slave girl, and did not consent 

when he discovered this, the matrimony may be put asunder, and he can contract 

with another (Decretals of Gregory IX, Book Four, Title VIII, C. 4). 16 

The Church found new reasons to take people into slavery. The Third Synod of Toledo in 589 

decreed that women found in the houses of a clergyman in suspicious circumstances should be 

sold into slavery by the clergyman's bishop 17 . Another synod of 655 declared that priests' 

children should be treated as slaves — an idea ratified in 1022 at Pavia and around 1140 by the 

Decretum gratiani. In attempting to enforce clerical celibacy popes revived the idea of taking the 

wives and concubines of churchmen into slavery 18 . Leo IX (Pope 1049-1054) had priests' wives 

taken into slavery for service at the Lateran Palace 19 . At the Synod of Melfi, in 1089, Pope Urban 

II tried the idea against subdeacons' wives 20 . In 1095 wives of priests were sold into slavery — 

presumably the Lateran had a full complement of female slaves by then. Saints, popes and 

Church officials approved the practice of slavery for centuries. The Church's greatest scholastic 

authorities, such as Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus concurred. As Aquinas 

explained, a slave was merely an "inspired tool of his master" and a "non-member of society", 

just like any other beast of burden. Slaves were listed in inventories under "Church property". He 

defended slavery as having been instituted by God as punishment for sin. He justified it as being 

part of the 'right of nations' and of natural law. He confirmed the view that children of a slave 

mother become slaves even though they have not committed personal sin, a view cited and 

confirmed by later Popes. 

Popes sentenced millions to slavery, although the 

sentences could not always be carried out. The Third 

Lateran Council 1179 imposed slavery on those 

helping the Saracens. The same council also imposed 

slavery on anyone who opposed the papacy. The 

citizens of Venice were condemned to slavery in 1309, 

1482, and again in 1506. The same thing happened to 

the whole of England in 1508. Papal galleys went on 

slave-hunting expeditions along the coast of Africa. 

In 1226 the legitimacy of slavery was confirmed in the 

Corpus Iuris Canonici, promulgated by Pope Gregory 

IX. This would remain part of Church the law until 

1913. Canon lawyers worked out four "just titles" for 

holding slaves: 

slaves 

captured 

in war, 

persons 

condemned 

to slavery for a crime; 

persons selling themselves into slavery, including a father selling his child; 

children of a mother who is a slave. 

Slavery was a major trade in Christendom. Until the early tenth century the main Venetian export 

was slaves from central Europe. The English word Slav is derived from the Middle English word 

sclave, borrowed from Medieval Latin sclavus meaning slave - a reminder of the European 

Christian slave trade of the day in central Europe. This was not the only Christian slave trade in 

Christendom. During the Crusades a large Mediterranean slave trade was concentrated in 

Christian hands — the hands of the military monks and men like Pelius, a papal legate. Later the 

Genoese developed another major Mediterranean slave trade 21 .

The Portuguese Slave Trade 

In 1493 (the year after Columbus discovered the America) Pope Alexander VI made explicit the 

rights of Catholics in the Americas. He authorised the King of Spain to enslave non-Christians of 

the Americas at war with Catholic powers - in other words anyone who resisted the invasion and 

Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum diversas 

on 18 June, 1452. It authorised King Alfonso V of 

Portugal to reduce any "Saracens (Muslims) and 

pagans and any other unbelievers to perpetual 

slavery. He issued another bull Romanus pontifex on 

January 5, 1455 also addressed to King Alfonso. It 

extended dominion over newly discovered lands to 

the Catholic nations of Europe. It sanctified the 

seizure of non-Christian lands, and encouraged the 

enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples 

throughout the World: 

We, weighing all and singular the premises 

with due meditation, and noting that since we 

had formerly by other letters of ours granted 

among other things free and ample faculty to 

the aforesaid King Alfonso -- to invade, search 

out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all 

Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever 

placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and 

all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and 

to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to 

himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, 

dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and 

profit -- by having secured the said faculty, the said King Alfonso, or, by his 

authority, the aforesaid infante, justly and lawfully has acquired and possessed, 

and doth possess, these islands, lands, harbors, and seas, and they do of right 

belong and pertain to the said King Alfonso and his successors. 

Slaves being brought to Brazil in a Portuguese Caravel 

Benedictine monks still owned slaves in Brazil as late as 1864, around the same time that 

clergymen in the southern states of the USA were obliged to give up their slaves. 

Spanish Slavery 

The Spanish Inquisition were keen slavers. A single inquisitor, Torquemada, had 97,371 people 

condemned to slavery. The practice was not restricted to mainland Spain. Spain also ruled an 

empire. Pope Nicholas V, in his bull Romanus pontifex of 1455, had given his blessing to the 

enslavement of conquered native people, by Catholics, whether Portuguese or Spanish.

seizure of their land. 

Like other bishops, the popes themselves owned slaves — Pope Innocent VIII accepted the gift 

of numerous slaves from Malaga, given by the exceptionally devout Queen Isabella of Castile in 

1487. 

To clear up any doubt about who was entitled to own slaves, Pope Paul III confirmed in 1548 that 

all Christian men and all members of the clergy had the right to own slaves. 

The British Slave Trade 

The record of the Anglican Church was no better 

than that of the Roman Church. It was the universal 

opinion of churchmen that God had ordained slavery, 

and clergymen had no qualms about owning slaves 

themselves. Anglican slave traders were often 

extremely devout, and widely respected by their 

fellow Christians. It never occurred to them, or to 

their priests or ministers, that slave trading might be 

immoral. The most famous English slave trader, Sir 

John Hawkins, named his slave ships Angel, Jesus 

and Grace of God. 

Hawkins, a cousin of Sir Francis Drake, had been 

granted permission from Queen Elizabeth for his first 

voyage in 1562. He was allowed to carry Africans to 

the Americas "with their own free consent". He agreed 

to this condition, and set sail in the Jesus, a ship lent 

by the Queen, which her father had bought as Jesus of 

Lubeck from the Hanseatic League. 

Hawkins had a reputation for being a religious man 

who required his crew to "serve God daily". Sir Francis 

Drake, who accompanied Hawkins, was also devoutly 

religious. Services were held on board twice a day. 

Hawkins sold most of the slaves in what is now the 

Dominican Republic. He came home with ships laden 

with ivory, hides, and sugar. Queen Elizabeth, livid that 

slaves had been acquired without their free consent, 

assailed Hawkins for his detestable behaviour, but 

soon changed her opinion. When she learned of the 

profits, the devout Elizabeth joined in partnership with 

Hawkins to organise fresh expeditions. So began the 

British slave trade. Hawkins was granted a coat of arms with a crest consisting of a slave ("a 

bound negro issuant proper.") 

Packing slaves onto a deck of a slave ship called The Brookes.. 

The iconic Brookes print, designed in Plymouth, UK, in 1788 depicted the conditions on board the slave ship The 

image portrayed slaves arranged in accordance with the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788. The Brookes was 

reportedly allowed to stow 454 African slaves, by allowing a space of 6 feet (1.8 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to 

each man; 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each women, and 5 feet (1.5 m) by 1 foot 2 inches 

(0.36 m) to each child. 

Churchmen owned slaves and were not particularly notable as good masters. Indeed some of the 

worst masters were clergymen. In the court of St Ann's in Jamaica in 1829, the Rev. G. W. 

Bridges was charged with maltreating a female slave. For a trivial mistake he had stripped her, 

tied her by the hands to the ceiling so that her toes hardly touched the ground, then flogged her 

with a bamboo rod until she was a "mass of lacerated flesh and gore" from her shoulders to her 

calves. Cases like this rarely came to court, but when they did they generally ended in acquital, 

as in this case, so the Reverend gentleman walked free. 

The Reverend Richard Fuller summed up the Church's position in 1845: “What God sanctioned in

the Old Testament, and permitted in the New, cannot be a sin” 22 . 

Enslaved men, women and children 

Only one Christian leader of any note was opposed to slavery, John Wesley. Here are a few of his 

observations on slaves and their treatment. 

As to the punishments inflicted on them, says Sir Hans Sloan, "They frequently 

geld them, or chop off half a foot: After they are whipped till they are raw all over, 

some put pepper and salt upon them: Some drop melted wax upon their skin. 

Others cut off their ears, and constrain them to broil and eat them. "For Rebellion," 

(that is, asserting their native Liberty, which they have as much right to as the air 

they breathe) "they fasten them down to the ground with crooked sticks on every 

limb, and then applying fire by degrees, to the feet and hands, they burn them 

gradually upward to the head." 

(John Wesley: Tracts and Letters on Various Subjects, New York, 1827, vol X, 

p496-7) 

And again, an account of Christian sadism: 

The author of the history of Jamaica, 

wrote about the year 1740, in his 

account of the sufferings of the 

negroes, says, The people of that 

island have indeed the severest ways 

of punishing; no country exceeds them 

in a barbarous treatment of their 

slaves, or in the cruel methods by 

which they are put to death. After 

confirming what is before said he 

adds, "They starve them to death, with 

a loaf hanging over their mouths. I 

have seen these unfortunate wretches 

gnaw the flesh off their shoulders, and 

expire in all the frightful agonies of one 

under the most horrible tortures. He 

adds, I incline to touch the hardship 

which these poor creatures suffer in 

the tenderest manner, from a particular 

regard which I have to many of their 

masters; but I cannot conceal their sad 

circumstances entirely: the most trivial 

error is punished with terrible 

whipping. I have seen some of them treated in that cruel manner, for no other 

reason but to satisfy the brutish pleasure of an overseer, who has their 

punishment mostly at his discretion. I have seen their bodies all in a gore of blood, 

the skin torn off their backs with the cruel whip, beaten pepper and salt rubbed in 

the wounds, and a large slick of sealing-wax dropped leisurely upon them. It is no 

wonder, (adds this author) if the horrid pain of such inhuman tortures incline them 

to rebel." 

(John Wesley, A. M., Thoughts Upon Slavery, London: Re-printed in Philadelphia, 

with notes, and sold by Joseph Crookshank, 1778, p 25)

On the Law of Barbados, which imposed a light 

penalty for killing a slave: 

.... "If any negro under punishment, by his 

master, or his order, for running away, or any 

other crime or misdemeanor, shall suffer in life 

or member, no person whatever shall be liable 

to any fine therefore. But if any man of 

WANTONNESS, or only of BLOODY- 

MINDEDNESS OR CRUEL INTENTION, 

wilfully kill a Negro of his own" (Now observe 

the severe punishment!) "He shall pay into the 

public treasury fifteen pounds sterling! And not 

be liable to any other punishment or forfeiture 

for the same!" 

(John Wesley, A. M., Thoughts Upon Slavery, 

London: Re-printed in Philadelphia, with 

notes, and sold by Joseph Crookshank, 1778, 

p 32) 

Detail of the above. This man has his hands tied behind his back, and is hanging from a gibbet by a metal hook, 

hooked around a single rib. 

In Jamaica the killing of a slave appears to have been unremarkable: 

Another instance fell under the immediate notice of a person of credit, when in the 

island of Jamaica, now residing in this city. Hearing a grievous cry, he went to the 

place from whence it came, where he saw a young Negro woman of about 

eighteen years of age, swung by her hands, with heavy weights at her feet, and a 

man lashing her naked body with a hard whip; making pauses from time to time, 

and flinging pickle or salt and water on the wounds, the whip had made. The sight 

was so horrible, that he turned from it and came home. Sometime after, looking 

out, he saw this same young woman carried dead on a board: She had been 

cruelly whipped to death; neither did he observe that this pitious spectacle drew 

the concern or hardly attention of the people. 

(John Wesley, A. M., Thoughts Upon Slavery, London: Re-printed in Philadelphia, 

with notes, and sold by Joseph Crookshank, 1778, p 72) 

Wesley's views on slavery were not shared by his fellow Methodists - as this cartoon of 1844 points out, slave 

holders had been permitted to be members of God's Church since apostolic times, and abolitionists were servants of 

the Devil.

Two vocal Methodists abolitionists, Laroy Sunderland and Orange Scott, had faced such 

opposition from their coreligionists, that they left the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church and 

helped organize the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1843. 

1792 British cartoon by Isaac Cruikshank representing a true event, in which Captain John Kimber had a 15 year old 

captive suspended, whipped, and tortured, causing her death, for her 'virgin modesty.' Kimber was tried for this and 

for the murder of another captive, but was 'honorably acquitted.' 

While Thomas Paine opposed slavery in America, his fellow freethinkers opposed it in his native 

country. Granville Sharp, a British humanitarian lawyer, sought to bring cases before the courts, 

arguing that throwing slaves overboard to drown was murder. (The prevailing Christian view was 

that a ship's captain was free to jettison them, just like any other property 23 .) Within a few years, 

by 1787, a campaign to abolish the Atlantic slave trade was started by a group of Quakers 24 . It 

was supported by non-believers. As the movement grew, various nonconformist groups and 

some evangelical Christians joined it, but all traditional Churches and mainstream Christian sects 

consistently opposed it.

On November 29th, 1781 the crew of the slave ship Zong threw 133 - 142 African slaves overboard (because of a 

shortage of water). The owners subsequently made an insurance claim for the loss of their "cargo". The claim was 

disputed and gave rise to a legal case (Gregson v Gilbert (1783) 3 Doug. KB 232). The (Christian) English court held 

that in certain circumstances, the deliberate killing of slaves was legal and that insurers could be required to pay for 

the slaves' deaths, though in this case the slave owners lost, due to evidence being introduced suggesting fault on 

behalf of the captain and crew. 

Image from French, A. M. (Austa Malinda), Slavery in South Carolina and the ex-slaves; or, The Port Royal Mission., 

New York, W.M. French, 1862 

William Wilberforce is usually accredited with abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, 

although he came many years after the first abolitionist campaigners. He too was an unbeliever 

when he espoused abolition. Later as an evangelical he was able to sit in Parliament (which 

unbelievers were not). There he stood out amongst his fellow Christians as an exception. He 

noted that those who opposed slavery were nonconformists and godless reformers, and that 

Church people were indifferent to the cause of abolition, or else actively obstructed it. His support 

came from Quakers, Utilitarians and assorted freethinkers. Like the freethinkers who had started 

the movement, he was condemned by the mainstream Churches as presuming to know better 

than the Bible. His successor, Sir Thomas Buxton, was another maverick, an evangelical with 

Quaker sympathies. 

The Church had enjoyed 1,500 years during 

which it had had the power to ban slavery 

but had failed to do so, or even to have 

expressed any desire to do so. (The 

Anglican Church's missionary organisation, 

the Society for the Propagation of the 

Gospel in Foreign Parts, had been branding 

its slaves on the chest with the word 

SOCIETY to show who owned them. 

Bishops of London and archbishops of York 

were involved in the management of the 

Society, while its governing body included 

archbishops of Canterbury. One Archbishop 

of Canterbury, the Most Rev Thomas 

Secker, wrote to a fellow bishop in 1760 

about slave deaths, his concern apparently 

being for the financial implications: "I have 

long wondered and lamented that the 

Negroes in our plantation decrease and new 

supplies become necessary continually... 

Surely this proceeds from some defect, both 

of humanity and even of good policy. But we 

must take things as they are at present."

Once reform was in the air, the mainstream churches opposed it with all their power. They vilified 

reformers (including Wilberforce) and attacked them for daring to question the plain word of God. 

Anglican clergymen still owned slaves and continued to oppose abolition well into the nineteenth 

century. One of their number was the most effective supporter of slavery during the 1820s 

abolitionist campaign in Jamaica 25 . All mainstream Churches agreed with the traditional view that 

slavery was ordained by God. To practice slavery was therefore meritorious, and to try to stop the 

practice was sinful. With the exception of Quakers, and John Wesley, all denominations agreed. 

The two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade was commemorated in 2007 

In 1807 Britain became the first major power to permanently abolish the slave trade, but slave 

owning was still legal in the colonies. When the British parliament voted to abolish slavery in the 

colonies in 1833, the Bench of Bishops voted against — as they did on almost all reform bills. To 

get the bill through, Parliament voted to compensate slave owners (There was no compensation 

for the slaves themselves). The Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833 provided for £20 million to be 

paid to West Indian plantation slave owners in compensation for the loss of their 'property'. The 

Anglican Church received £8,823 8s 9d, for the loss of slave labour on its Codrington plantation 

in the West Indies. 

Individual Anglican Churchmen had to be compensated separately. Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of 

Exeter, and three business associates received nearly £13,000 26 . 

Compensation recorded in the British Parliamentary Papers 1836 (597) vol. 49. 

(The total actually comes to £12,729 5s 2d) 

The Bishop, the Right Rev Henry Philpotts, together with three partners 

received: 

£4,836 4sh 7d for 236 slaves in the parish of Vere, Middlesex County, Jamaica. 

£5,480 13sh 11d for 304 slaves in the parish of Clarendon, Mdx, Jamaica. 

£2, 412 6sh 8d for slaves also in the parish of Clarendon. 

Total of £12,729 4sh 4d for 665 slaves. 

French Slavery in the New World - The Code Noire 

The Code Noir (The Black Code) sets out French slave policy regarding the Islands of French 

America. The Code initially took the form of King Louis XIV's edict of 1685. Subsequent decrees 

modified a few of the code's provisions, but this first document established the principles for the 

policing of slavery up to 1789. The code set out a number of rights and responsibilities, mainly 

concerning slavery but also mentioning Jews. 

The Code Noire

Below are some notable highlights. It lays great emphasis on the Roman Catholic religion. For 

the full text click on the following link to the Code Noire. 

… reports inform us of [our officer's] need for our authority and our justice in order 

to maintain the discipline of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith in the 

islands. Our authority is also required to settle issues dealing with the condition 

and quality of the slaves in said islands. 

Article I. … we enjoin all of our officers to chase from our islands all the Jews who 

have established residence there. As with all declared enemies of Christianity, we 

command them to be gone within three months of the day of issuance of the 

present [order], at the risk of confiscation of their persons and their goods. 

... 

Article III. We forbid any religion other than the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic 

Faith from being practiced in public. We desire that offenders be punished as 

rebels disobedient of our orders. We forbid any gathering to that end, which we 

declare to be conventicle, illegal, and seditious, and subject to the same 

punishment as would be applicable to the masters who permit it or accept it from 

their slaves. 

Article IV. No persons assigned to positions of authority over Negroes shall be 

other than a member of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith… 

Article V. We forbid our subjects who belong to the so-called "reformed" religion 

from causing any trouble or unforeseen difficulties for our other subjects or even 

for their own slaves in the free exercise of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic 

Faith, at the risk of exemplary punishment. 

Article VIII. We declare that our subjects who are not of the Roman, Catholic, and 

Apostolic Faith, are incapable of contracting a valid marriage in the future. We 

declare any child born from such unions to be bastards, and we desire that said 

marriages be held and reputed, and to hold and repute, as actual concubinage. 

Article XI. We forbid priests from conducting weddings between slaves if it 

appears that they do not have their masters' permission. We also forbid masters 

from using any constraints on their slaves to marry them without their wishes. 

Article XII. Children born from marriages between slaves shall be slaves, and if 

the husband and wife have different masters, they shall belong to the masters of

the female slave, not to the master of her husband. 

Article XVI. We also forbid slaves who belong to different masters from gathering, 

either during the day or at night, under the pretext of a wedding or other excuse, 

either at one of the master's houses or elsewhere, and especially not in major 

roads or isolated locations. They shall risk corporal punishment that shall not be 

less than the whip and the fleur de lys, and for frequent recidivists and in other 

aggravating circumstances, they may be punished with death, a decision we leave 

to their judge. .. 

Article XXXI. Slaves shall not be a party, either in court or in a civil matter, either 

as a litigant or as a defendant, or as a civil party in a criminal matter… 

Article XXXVIII. The fugitive slave who has been on the run for one month from 

the day his master reported him to the police, shall have his ears cut off and shall 

be branded with a fleur de lys on one shoulder. If he commits the same infraction 

for another month, again counting from the day he is reported, he shall have his 

hamstring cut and be branded with a fleur de lys on the other shoulder. The third 

time, he shall be put to death. 

Article XLII. The masters may also, when they believe that their slaves so 

deserve, chain them and have them beaten with rods or straps… 

Article XLIV. We declare slaves to be charges, and as such enter into community 

property. They are not to be mortgaged, and shall be shared equally between the 

co-inheritors without benefit to the wife or one particular inheritor... 

Slavery in North America 

Slaves in the US were mere property, even in so-called free states, as confirmed in the case of 

Dred Scott v. Sanford (60 U.S. 393 (1857)). A slave named Dred Scott tried to sue his master, Dr. 

John Emerson, a surgeon in the US Army, for his freedom and that of his wife and their two 

daughters, on the grounds that they had moved to free states and that the slave family, was 

therefore free. The United States Supreme Court decided by 7–2 against Scott, finding that 

neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, 

and therefore could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. The Court 

held that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories because slaves are 

personal property and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution protected property owners against 

deprivation of their property without due process of law. According to Chief Justice Roger B. 

Taney, the authors of the Constitution had viewed all blacks as "beings of an inferior order, and 

altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far 

inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" 

Virginia Statutes: ACT XII (1662) 

That the children of slave women were always slaves themselves 

was a principle of Church Law, that had been carried over into Civil Law before the Revolution 

( Under English common law, the father’s status determined his children’s status) 

Negro women's children to serve according to the condition of the mother 

Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro 

woman should be slave or free, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand 

assembly, that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to 

the condition of the mother, and that if any Christian shall commit fornication with a negro 

man or woman, he or she so offending shall pay double the fines imposed by the former act. 

Slave Advertisement, Charleston, South Carolina, 1780s 

Slaves were regarded like livestock - healthy specimens commanded higher prices.

Since they were merely property, there could 

be no objection to branding slaves just like any 

other animal. Neither was there any obligation 

to treat them more humanely than animals in 

other ways. Their prices depended on supply 

and demand like any other commodity. Female 

breeders would be sold at premium prices 

after the importation of African slaves to North 

America and the Caribbean ceased. 

Sometimes slaves were hamstrung to stop 

them escaping. If they had escaped before, 

they could have a leg amputated to stop them 

doing so again. Once their working lives were 

over, they were put down 27 . Black slaves in 

the Caribbean and Americas received little education, but what they were allowed was mainly 

religious. Preachers tended to concentrate on biblical passages, such as those already quoted 

that endorsed slavery and counselled passive acceptance of it. Surviving texts show that among 

missionaries, the problem of preventing slaves from enjoying themselves on the Sabbath was 

more important than the question of slavery itself 28 . 

Here is John Wesley on the Law in Virginia. (Note that the officials responsible for dealing with 

escaped slaves are not state officials, but Church officials): 

The law of Virginia ordains, "That no slave shall be set free, under any pretence 

whatever, except for some meritorious services, to be adjudged and allowed by 

the governor and council: And that where any slave shall be set free by his owner, 

otherwise than is herein directed, the church-wardens of the parish wherein such 

Negro shall reside for the space of one month are hereby authorized and required, 

to take up and sell the said Negro, by public outcry." 

And Wesley on the law of Virginia allowing any method of torturing to death slaves who ran away 

from their owners: 

"After proclamation is issued against slaves that run away, it is lawful for any 

person whatsoever to KILL AND DESTROY such slaves, by SUCH WAYS AND 

MEANS AS HE SHALL THINK FIT. 

We have seen already some of the ways and means which have been thought fit

on such occasions. And many more might be mentioned. One gentleman, when I 

was abroad thought fit to roast his slave alive! 

A slave auction 

Tellingly, the pro-slavery Confederacy adopted the motto 

“Deo Vindice”, (“God On Our Side”). Here are just a few of 

the many documents (still available on the internet) where 

nineteenth century Christians argue for slavery in the USA 

and against the abolitionist arguments of "infidels" - ie 

secularists 

A Defense of Southern Slavery by a 

Southern Clergyman - 1851 

Bible Defense of Slavery by Rev. Josiah A.M. 

1852 

An Essay on the Origin, Habits of the African 

Race by John Jacobus Flournoy 1835 

(Expounds on the "Curse of Cain") 

Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments 

by E.N. Elliot LLD, 1860, over 900 pages 

Slavery as Recognized in the Mosaic Civil 

Law by Rev. Stuart Robinson 

Bible Servitude Re-Examined, with Special Reference to Pro-Slavery 

Interpretations and Infidel Objections by Rev. Reuben Hatch 1862 

Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible - A Tract for Northern Christians 1861 

The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery by James Gillespie 

Birney 1885 

The Pro-slavery Argument, as Maintained by the Most Distinguished Writers by 

William Harper, William Gilmore Simms, James Henry Hammond, Thomas 

Roderick Dew 1852 

Religion and Slavery by Rev. James McNeilly, D.D. (Presbyterian Minister) 1911 

The Right of American Slavery by True Worthy Hoit 1815 

The Christian Doctrine of Slavery by George Armstron 1857 

Does Slavery Christianize the Negro? by Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1855 

Slavery Ordained by God by Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D. 

Review of Bishop Hopkins' Bible view of slavery by JP Lundy 1863 

Slavery Examined in the Light of the Bible by Lee Luther 1855 

Bible Vindicated: A Series of Essays on American Slavery by Jonas Hartzel 

1858 

The Interest in Slavery of the Southern non-slave-holder. The Right of Peaceful 

Secession. Slavery in the Bible by JDB De Bow 1860 

The Bible and Slavery - A Brief Examination of the Old and New Testaments on 

Servitude 1867 

Southern Slavery and the Bible - A Scriptural refutation of the principal 

arguments upon which the abolitionists rely. A vindication of southern slavery

from the Old and New Testaments by EW Warren 1864 

Bible Slaveholding not Sinful by HD Ganse 1856 (poor quality) 

Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the Slave-trade by R Harris 1788 

White Supremacy and Negro Subordination; Or, Negroes a Subordinate Race, 

by John H. Van Evrie 1870 

Dr. Cartwright discovered an illness ("Drapetomania") peculiar to "negroes", which caused them 

to run away from their slave masters if the masters were too harsh or too kind. You can read the 

full text here aaa ., or an extract below. 

Extract from "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race," by Dr. Cartwright 

De Bow's Review, Southern and Western States 

Volume XI, New Orleans, 1851, AMS Press, Inc. New York, 1967 

If the white man attempts to 

oppose the Deity's will, by trying 

to make the negro anything else 

than "the submissive kneebender," 

(which the Almighty 

declared he should be,) by 

trying to raise him to a level with 

himself, or by putting himself on 

an equality with the negro; or if 

he abuses the power which 

God has given him over his 

fellow-man, by being cruel to 

him, or punishing him in anger, 

or by neglecting to protect him 

from the wanton abuses of his 

fellow-servants and all others, 

or by denying him the usual 

comforts and necessaries of 

life, the negro will run away; but 

if he keeps him in the position 

that we learn from the 

Scriptures he was intended to 

occupy, that is, the position of 

submission; and if his master or 

overseer be kind and gracious 

in his hearing towards him, 

without condescension, and at 

the same time ministers to his 

physical wants, and protects 

him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away. 

Escaped slaves in the US were hunted down by professional hunters using dogs. 

And here are a few interesting quotes, first from Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina:

The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by 

precept and example. 

James Henley Thornwell was an advocate of slavery. On May 26, 1850 he said the following, in 

The Rights and the Duties of Masters, A Sermon Preached at the Dedication of a Church Erected 

in Charleston, S.C.,for the Benefit and Instruction of the Coloured Population: 

The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders—they are 

atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on one side, and the 

friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the 

battle ground—Christianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of 

humanity at stake. 

Bishop Meade, an Episcopal clergyman of Virginia, cited in American Slavery and Colour by 

William Chambers 1857, pointed out that a slave aught to regard his master as God himself: 

And Baptists: 

Having thus shewn you the chief duties you owe to your great Master in heaven, I 

now come to lay before you the duties you owe to your masters and mistresses 

here upon earth. And for this you have one general rule, that you ought always to 

carry in your minds, and that is, to do all service for them as if you did it for God 

himself. Poor creatures! you little consider when you are idle and neglectful of 

your masters' business; when you steal, and waste, and hurt any of their 

substance; when you are saucy and impudent; when you are telling them lies and 

deceiving them; or when you prove stubborn and sullen, and will not do the work 

you are set about without stripes and vexation-you do not consider, I say, that 

what faults you are guilty of towards your masters and mistresses, are faults done 

against God himself, who hath set your masters and mistresses over you in His 

own stead, and expects that you will do for them just as you would do for Him. 

And pray do not think that I want to deceive you when I tell you that your masters 

and mistresses are God's overseers, and that, if you are faulty towards them, God 

himself will punish you severely for it in the next world, unless you repent of it, and 

strive to make amends by your faithfulness and diligence for the time to come..." 

"…the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by 

precept and example… Had the holding of slaves been a moral evil, it cannot be 

supposed that the inspired Apostles … would have tolerated it for a moment in the 

Christian Church. In proving this subject justifiable by Scriptural authority [Luke 

12:47], its morality is also proved; for the Divine Law never sanctions immoral 

actions." 

Richard Furman, Baptist State Convention, letter to South Carolina Governor, 

1822 

The Roman Catholic Church was the largest corporate staveholder in the Americas. Catholic 

institutions also held slaves. so did religious orders. Jesuits who ran a Catholic educational 

institution in Maryland were not atypical. They sold 272 enslaved men, women, and children 

(including a two-month old infant) in 1838 to help fund the institution (now known as Georgetown 

University) founded by the first US Cardinal. The slaves had been held on Jesuit plantations in 

Maryland. Their world had been one dominated by priests who required them to attend Mass, and 

whipped them at least as often as other slave masters. Some had to be “dragged off by force to 

the ship,” bound for New Orleans. They included children separated from their parents 28a . Jesuits 

had sold off slaves before. As early as the 1780s they had discussed the need to cull their stock 

of slaves. Other universities including Brown, Columbia, Harvard and the University of Virginia 

have publicly recognised their involvement in slavery. Slaves were often donated to Church's and 

Church institutions by prosperous parishioners. 

Important questions for the Church were the extent of slave owners' rights to flog or burn their 

human property, to split up their families, and to demand sexual gratification from them 29 . This 

last must have been a particular problem, since owners could point to several biblical passages 

that take it for granted that a slave girl is available for her master's sexual desires. This was 

clearly difficult to square with the knowledge that sex was sinful. The harm that was done to the 

slaves themselves was not considered, although its effects were so severe that they live on 

today. In the Americas it has left a legacy of bitterness, hatred and social disruption 30 that is likely 

to endure well into the third millennium. 

An auction of slave women and their babies

Slavery was not confined to selected races or to members of other religions: Christians routinely 

condemned their fellow believers to slavery. John Knox for example spent 18 months as a galleyslave 

under French Catholics. Cotton Mather, a Puritan clergyman best known for his part in the 

infamous Salem Witch Trials, plotted the enslavement of William Penn and his fellow Quakers in 

1682 31 . 

Cotton Mather, clergyman, one of the most influential religious leaders in America, 

was keen to enslave Quakers in 1682 

In the late eighteenth century popes still held slaves, as did Anglican clergymen. It was still 

beyond question that slavery was ordained by God and therefore unimpeachable. 

This advertisement was placed in the Colored Tennessean newspaper 

in Nashville, Tennessee on October 7, 1865 

It is a equest for information by Thornton Copeland who had been separated from his mother, he and his mother 

having been sold to different slave masters some twently years earlier. 

(It was, incidentally, normal practice for slaves to adopt the surname of their masters)

In the second part of The Age of Reason, 

published in 1795, Thomas Paine noted that 

in the book of Numbers Moses had given 

instructions as to how to treat Midianite 

captives. Essentially, everyone was to be 

executed except virgins, whom the victors 

were allowed to keep alive for themselves. 

God then gave instructions as to how the 

booty, including 32,000 virgins, should be 

divided up between the victors. Paine 

summarised the relevant passage: "Here is 

an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the 

mothers, and debauch the daughters" 32 . In 

response to this, Bishop Watson of Llandaff 

pointed out that the virgins had not been 

spared for any immoral purpose, as Paine 

had wickedly suggested. Rather, he said, 

they were spared so that they could be taken into slavery. Obviously, there could be no ethical 

objection to this, since slavery was divinely sanctioned. The bishop's rebuttal was perfectly 

acceptable to mainstream Christians, who found sex objectionable but slavery not at all 

objectionable. According to the Churches, slavery was not merely permitted, it was obligatory. 

Slavery was a God-given institution. To oppose what God had sanctioned was positively sinful. 

A popular publication - still available 

A Plan of National Colonization, advocating the removal of 

free Blacks, by Rev. W. S. BR0WN, M. D.

In America opposition to slavery was first voiced by freethinkers such as Benjamin Franklin and 

Thomas Paine. Initially a Quaker, later a deist, Paine was widely condemned as an unbeliever. 

He wrote an influential article against slavery in 1775, and when he drafted the American 

Declaration of Independence the following year, he included a clause against slavery that was 

later struck out 33 . Under Quaker influence, slavery was made illegal in the state of Pennsylvania 

in 1780. Other campaigners included the rationalist James Russell Lowell, the sceptical expreacher 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the freethinker Wendell Phillips. Abolitionists such as 

William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown had shifted away from traditional Christianity after 

reading Thomas Paine. 

Here, opposition to slavery is accurately characterised as atheistic and godless 

"God is introduced to give dignity and emphasis ... and then He is banished. It was 

this very atheistic Declaration [of Independence] which had inspired the 'higher 

law' doctrine of the radical antislavery men. If the mischievous abolitionists had 

only followed the Bible instead of the godless Declaration, they would have been 

bound to acknowledge that human bondage was divinely ordained. The mission of 

southerners was therefore clear; they must defend the word of God against 

abolitionist infidels." 

Thomas Smyth, minister of 2nd Presbyterian Church of Charleston, S.C. 

11/21/1861 

Slave Coffle, Near Paris, Kentucky, 1850s 

Elsewhere Churches held out longer. Clergymen advocated slavery and opposed abolitionist 

"infidels" on the traditional Christian grounds that slavery was required by God. Here is the Rev 

William S Plummer, DD of Richmond: 

"... Lastly.- Abolitionists are like infidels, wholly unaddicted to martyrdom for 

opinion's sake. Let them understand that they will be caught if they come among 

us, and they will take good heed to keep out of our way. There is not one man 

among them who has any more idea of shedding his blood in this cause, than he 

has of making war on the Grand Turk." 

(http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/christn/chesjgbat.html) 

According to Christian tradition, Blacks were inherently inferior, a consequence of their descent 

from a biblical character called Ham, which accounted for both their colour and their inferior 

status. Here is one of thousands of statements of the Christian position, from the Letters and 

Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond, edited by the Christian gentleman himself in 1866 

(He was a United States Senator): 

The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African 

descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot 

separate what God hath joined. 

The Rev. J. C. Postell, in July, 1836, delivered an address at a public meeting at Orangeburgh 

Court-house, S. C., in which he maintains; 1. That slavery is a judicial visitation. 2. That it is not a 

moral evil. 3. That it is supported by the Bible. He thus argues his second point:- 

It is not a moral evil. The fact that slavery is of Divine appointment, would be proof 

enough with the Christian, that it could not be a moral evil. But when we view the 

hordes of savage marauders and human cannibals enslaved to lust and passion, 

and abandoned to idolatry and ignorance, to revolutionise them from such a state, 

and enslave them where they may have the gospel, and the privileges of 

Christians; so far from being a moral evil, it is a merciful visitation. If slavery was 

either the invention of man or a moral evil, it is logical to conclude, the power to 

create has the power to destroy. Why then has it existed? And why does it now 

exist amidst all the power of legislation in state and church, and the clamor of

abolitionists? It is the Lord's DOINGS AND MARVELLOUS IN OUR EYES: and 

had it not been done for the best, God alone, who is able, long since would have 

overruled it. IT IS BY DIVINE APPOINTMENT." 

(http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/christn/chesjgbat.html) 

The Catholic and Anglican Churches were not alone. In 1843 some 1,200 Methodist ministers 

owned slaves in the USA. Under popular pressure generated by secular thinkers, all of the 

mainstream Churches (except the Southern Baptists) performed a volte-face during the 

nineteenth century. When enough of their members had moved over to the abolitionist cause, the 

Churches followed. God had always condoned, sanctioned and even demanded the practice of 

slavery, but slavery was no longer acceptable. God must have changed his mind. Priests, 

bishops and popes felt obliged to cease owning slaves. Slavery was criticised for the first time by 

a pope (Gregory XVI) in 1839, but it was still permissable after its abolition in the USA: 

"Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to 

the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and these 

are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred 

canons.... It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, 

bought, exchanged or given." (20 June 1866 decision (No. 1293) of the Holy Office (cited in 

Bokenkotter's A Concise History of the Catholic Church and by J. F. Maxwell in “The Development 

of Catholic Doctrine Concerning Slavery,” World Jurist 11 (1969–70): 306–7)) 

It was not until the Berlin Conference of 1884 that Roman Catholic countries started to fall into 

line with Protestant ones on the question of slavery, agreeing that it should be suppressed. In 

1888 Pope Leo XIII declared in In plurimis that the Church was now opposed to it - though 

Church Law on the topic remained unchanged. 

In the USA the pattern was similar: nineteenth century churchmen advocated slavery, though 

secular forces opposed it. It was a commonplace that "Slavery is of God". Christian ministers 

wrote almost half of all defences of slavery published in America. The Churches routinely 

produced such defences. Along with these defences, Christian Churches circulated biblical texts 

on the subject of Negro inferiority, and the need for total unquestioning obedience. A civil war was 

fought before the Christian South was forced to abandon slavery in 1863. Yet the Southern 

Presbyterian Church could still resolve in 1864 that it was their peculiar mission to conserve the 

institution of slavery, and to make it a blessing to both master and slave. 

Frederick Douglass on Slavery and Christianity 

Black slaves were generally not permitted to learn to 

read or write, since education was seen as a threat to 

God's natural order. An American slave who adopted the 

name Frederick Douglass was exceptional in that he 

learned to read and write in secret. After he was granted 

his freedom he campaigned against slavery and wrote 

about his life. His writings are of particular interest, not 

only because of his personal experience, but also 

because of his lucid style. He stood as a living 

confutation to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did 

not have the intellectual capacity to function as a citizen. 

An outstanding orator, he became a leader of the 

abolitionist movement. Although a Christian believer 

himself, his testimony against mainstream Christians is 

excoriating. Here it is in a nutshell. 

Were I to be again reduced to chains of slavery, 

next to that enslavement, I should regard being 

the slave of a religious master the greatest 

calamity that could befall me.... [I] hate the 

corrupt, slaveholding, women-stripping, cradle 

plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of 

this land 34 . 

And here it is, in more detail: 

. . . I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and 

show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. 

We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and 

cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cow 

skin (whip) during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister 

of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of 

each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way 

of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of 

prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a 

religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of 

the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole 

millions (of slaves) of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of

wholesale (moral) pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family 

relation is the same that scatters whole families, - sundering husbands and wives, 

parents and children, sisters and brothers, leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth 

desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against 

adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, 

and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God 

and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime 

in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the 

religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slavetrade 

go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each 

other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious 

psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The 

dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the 

pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold 

to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the 

garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each otherdevils 

dressed in angels' robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise." 

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for 

the most horrid crimes - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of 

the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, 

grossest, and most infernal deeds of slave holders find the strongest protection. 

Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I 

should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that 

could befall me... I... hate the corrupt, slave holding, women-whipping, cradleplundering, 

partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land." 

And he said this - indicating that slave owners who become Christians actually became worse 

masters: 

... and when you tell me that there are some Christian slave-holders in the States, 

I tell you, as well might you talk of sober-drunkards. Just as if the lash in the hands 

of a Christian is not as injurious to my back as it would be in the hands of a wicked 

man. As far as my experience goes, I would rather suffer under the hands of the 

latter, and, I tell you, as I have mentioned in my narrative, that next to being a 

slave, there is no greater calamity than being the slave of a Christian slave holder. 

I say this from my own experience .... Some persons have taken offence at my 

saying that Slaveholders become worse after their conversion. 

As Douglass pointed out in the same speech, in his time all Southern Baptists were in favour of 

slavery, because any who espoused abolition were thrown out of the Church. 

I beg now to introduce to your notice a little of the doings of one or two of the 

Churches of America, and I shall begin with the Baptist Church. This Church is 

congregational in its organization and government, but its congregations are 

united by what is called a Triennial Convention, the object of which is to spread 

the Gospel among the heathen. At the last but one of these conventions, in the 

City of Baltimore, the Rev. Dr. Johnston, of South Carolina, presided, and he on 

this occasion asserted the doctrine that when any institution becomes established 

by law, a Christian man may innocently engage to uphold it. The President of the 

Baptist convention is a slaveholder himself. He is a man-stealer. The Secretary of 

the convention is another man-stealer, and most of the other office-bearers were 

manstealers — were thieves. During the progress of the business, there was one 

man in one of the committees, who was found to be an Abolitionist — Elon 

Galusha. This man is now, I trust, in Heaven. He dared to say that a slave was a 

man, and that slavery ought to be abolished. For this, the members of his church 

cut him off — though he was a man of talent and of unblemished character, and, 

as a minister of the gospel, unparalleled. Another great Baptist minister, the Rev. 

Lucius Bowles, congratulated his brethren that there was "a pleasing degree of 

unity among the Baptists through the land, for the southern brethren were all 

slave-holders. 35 . 

Here is another passage from the same speech concerning married slaves 

I have now to speak of them in the State of Virginia, where men regularly enter 

into the raising or breeding of slaves, as a business, just as cattle are raised for 

the Smithfield market; and where the marriage institution is set aside. In some 

cases it becomes the interest of the slave holder to separate two slaves (male and 

female) already married. When the question was proposed to the Baptist Society 

there, whether parties thus separated might marry again, the answer was, that this 

separation being tantamount to the civil death of either of the parties, to forbid the 

second marriage in either case, would be to expose to Church censure those who 

did so for disobedience. Here we find a deliberate setting aside of the Marriage 

Institution, and the deliberate sanction of a wholesale system of adultery and 

concubinage; and, yet the persons who authorise and enforce such wickedness 

calling themselves Christians!

Abolition of Slavery 

Slave owning by Christians continued for centuries despite criticism from rationalists and 

freethinkers. The story now propagated by some Churches — that they were responsible for 

abolition — is simply false. The first country to abolish slavery, was France, under an anticlerical 

revolutionary government in the 1790s 36 . Opposition to slavery was developed by the very 

people that the Christian Churches regarded as their worst enemies: blaspheming philosophers, 

atheists, Deists and Quakers: men like Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin. 

Benjamin Franklins' Address to the Public, 1789 

promoting the abolition of slavery 

Abolition came in Britain in the early nineteenth century, in the teeth of fierce opposition from the 

Anglican Church, and it was achieved through the efforts of an alliance of unbelievers, 

freethinkers, Utilitarians, Quakers and fringe Christians who galvanised public opinion. In the USA 

it came in the second half of the century, again in the face of intense opposition from the 

Churches. 

The Unitarian Wedgwood family and the Darwin family family were closely related. (Charles Darwin was Josiah 

Wedgwood's Grandson). Both families included prominent abolitionists. This provided traditionalist Christians with a 

seam of humour - likening and making fun of the godless idea of regarding black people as brothers, and the godless 

Darwinian idea of regarding apes as cousins. One line of humour was to suggest that evolutionists should create a 

Gorilla Emancipation Society - making a parallel with the Slave Emancipation Society, another was to play on the 

motto of the Slave Emancipation Society: "Am I not a man and a brother". Wedgwood's medallions bearing the motto 

had become iconic - so famous that they probably accelerated abolition in the UK. 

A Jasper-ware cameo, designed and produced 

by Josiah Wedgwood, 1787 

Cartoon from Punch 

London 18 May 1851

After the American Civil War, the Vatican was asked for an authoritative statement on 

slavery,following the adoption of the 13th amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which banned 

The abolitionists won largely because slavery was no longer financially viable. The alliance of 

Church and slave owners lost the battle in one country after another because of monetary 

considerations. Following traditional teachings, and unrestrained by Western economics or 

political correctness, Christians in Ethiopia are still making captured prisoners into slaves well into 

the twenty First century. The simple, if embarrassing, truth is that no Christian society has ever 

abolished slavery while the practice continued to be profitable. 

Even after the abolition of slavery, traditional slave punishments continued for many years. 

In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention officially apologised for its earlier defense of slavery. 

The Church of England apologised for its part in 2006. In a debate held by the Church's 

governing body, before the vote Rev Simon Bessant described the Church's central role in the 

slave trade, saying: "We were at the heart of it." and "We were directly responsible for what 

happened. In the sense of inheriting our history, we can say we owned slaves, we branded 

slaves, that is why I believe we must actually recognise our history and offer an apology." 37 . 

The Catholic Church has moved its position slowly over the centuries. From as early as 1435 

Popes have condemned "indiscriminate" slavery38. These statements are sometimes cited as 

evidence that the Church has long been opposed to slavery, but on the contrary it supported the 

practice of slavery into the twentieth century. In 1839 Pope Gregory XVI criticised the 

international Negro slave trade, but without condemning the institution of slavery or the practice 

of owning slaves. In 1866, the Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX declared: 

Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to 

the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery, and these 

are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons 

… It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, 

exchanged or given".

slavery. In an Instruction dated 20 June 1866 the "Holy Office", which rules on matters of faith 

and teaching, declared : 

"Slavery, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the 

natural and divine law. There can be several just titles of slavery and these are 

referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons [of 

the Catholic Church]. It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to 

be sold, bought, exchanged or given." 

Popes continued to own slaves until they lost control of the Papal States in the nineteenth 

century. In 1888, after all countries other than the Vatican State, had abandoned the practice of 

slavery, Pope Leo XIII condemned slavery in general terms. In 1918 a new Code of Canon Law 

promulgated by Pope Benedictus XV condemned 'selling any person as a slave'. There was still 

no condemnation of slave owning, only of slave trading - so three of the four "just titles" still held. 

In Gaudium et spes, 1965, the Second Vatican Council finally gave up on slavery, denouncing all 

violations of human integrity. To date the Catholic Church has not apologised for it's part in any of 

the Slave Trades it established or participated in. In March 2000, Pope Jean Paul II, hinted at his 

Church's culpability asking unspecified people for forgiveness for unspecified crimes committed 

by unspecified Catholics against unspecified victims 39 . 

Slavery - still a charged issue in the USA 

There are still Christians prepared to uphold the 

traditional Christian line on slavery. In 1996 Charles 

Davidson, a devout Christian Senator from Alabama, 

said that slavery had been good for blacks, and 

pointed out that the practice had biblical approval, 

citing the traditional prooftexts such as Leviticus 25:44 

and 1 Timothy 6:1 40 . 

Many Christian books and websites seek to establish 

that Black slavery was fundamentally different from 

Roman slavery. According to them, Roman slavery 

was a much more benign system, and this was the 

system referred to in the Bible. The argument is flawed 

in two ways. First, the rules applied to Black slavery, 

and Christian justification for it, were based on the Old 

Testament, which regulated the rules for Jews, not 

Romans. Rules about slave owning were similar across many ancient societies, so apologists 

sometimes try to regard them as the same thing. But even if slavery had been based on Roman 

practices in the New Testament, then the argument still does not work. The important differences 

between Roman slavery and Christian slavery do not lie in the rules. They are almost the same, 

and where they differ the Christian rules are generally harsher than the Roman rules. Slaves 

were bought and sold, often at auction. Prisoners captured in war were enslaved. The children of 

slaves also became slaves. The master had a right to control slave marriage and regulate slave 

family life - regarding slaves as breeding stock. Slave-girls were available for sex. As one Roman 

said of his time, Whoever heard of a man prosecuted for sleeping with his concubine? Escaped 

slaves were hunted. Rewards were offered for their return. Once returned they could be punished 

in the most cruel ways, not merely flogging, but amputation of a foot or "half a foot". 

It is certainly true that Roman slavery was often more benign than Christian. We know that 

Roman slaves were often educated, well treated, given good food and medical attention, 

appointed to responsible offices, and even treated as friends. But this reflects the relative level of

civilisation of the society and the individual slave owners. If Roman slave owners behaved better 

than Christian slave owners, it is because pagan Romans were more compassionate and 

civilised than later Christians. For identification, Christians chose to brand their slaves where 

pagans had merely tattooed them, but the purpose and the rules were almost identical. 

Christian Slavery in Africa 

Long after slavery had been abolished in Europe and America, Christians continued to practice 

slavery in Africa. The devoutly Catholic King Leopold II of the Belgians for example established a 

colony known as the Congo Free State. It was established with the express intention of spreading 

Christianity, and catholic missionaries went in large numbers. Between 1885 and 1908, the king's 

agents enslaved millions, many of whom were mutilated or killed for failing to work hard enough. 

Congo Free State, Slaves c 1905 

Congo Free State Slaves c 1904 

Failure to pay taxes often resulted in the offenders being condemned to slavery

A slave is whipped with a chicotte — a bull whip made of hippopotamus hide 

Congo Free State c. 1905 

For more on slavery in the Congo Free State, and the role of the Christian Churches, see 

Christian atrocities. 

Slavery was also practiced in Australia, well into the twentieth century, 

unofficially, but with the informal approval of both Church and State

Documents 

Runaway Slave Poster, in the US Library of Congress

Great Sale of Slaves, Lexington, 1855 - Bucks, Wenches and a Picininny

Slave Chains from west Africa (Royal Albert memorial Museum, Exeter)

Slave Coffle

Slave Transport in Africa

William F. Talbott of Lexington, Kentuckee

Slave sale, Charleston 

Advertisement from Philadelphia’s American Weekly Mercury, 1738

A slave baby being forceably separated from its mother

The Official Medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society English potter Josiah Wedgewood

An idea of the reality of slavery 

Everyday life under the Christian hegenomy, captured in stone

Slave masks, collars and shackles 

US Slave Collar - Reproduction by Fabrice Monteiro

US Slave Collar - Reproduction by Fabrice Monteiro 


US Slave Collar - the bells make it difficult to escape 



Slave mask - still in use in Christian countries in Africa - design unchanged


Pope Damasus - One of many slaver Popes 

Under Damasus's rule, women and children were bought and sold as sex slaves to increase funding for the Catholic 

Church

Anyone who helped a slave escape commited a kind of theft - since a slave was property, 

If caught they were branded SS (for slave stealer) on the hand 

Jonathan Walker was an American reformer who became a national hero in 1844 when he was tried and sentenced 

as a slave stealer following his attempt to help seven runaway slaves find freedom. 

He was branded on his hand by the United States Government with the markings S.S. for "Slave Stealer"..

Franklin and Armfield Office, was started in 1828 by Isaac Franklin and John Armfield. The office was known to have 

been the largest slave trading firm in the antebellum south. At its height in the 1830s, the firm transported between 

1,000 and 1,200 slaves from Alexandria to New Orleans each year. It closed in 1836. The office still stands at 1315 

Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia.

Another design of collar 

Slave shackles

Slave collar and mask. The collar has a croos welded onto it. 

Auction of a slave and her daughter. Possibly one lot. Possibly not.

Marcella Dunn's gravestone (photo courtesy of Kimberly Borchard) 

Francis Bok, former Sudanese slave 

Slave collars and shackles

another run-away slave, 1854 - note that his wife is owned by a different slave-master 

The Slave Triangle

Close packing of slaves athwart one deck of the Brookes 

Slave Children Onboard the Daphne 

Abolition by Granger

“Salve Auction” in Richmond, Virginia. February 16, 1881 edition of The Illustrated London News

child-slave

The Voice of the Clergy (Philadelphia, 1864). When Pennsylvania Democrats republished 

Episcopal Bishop John Henry Hopkins's proslavery work The Bible View of Slavery as a 

campaign document, the Episcopal clergy of Pennsylvania published this denunciation of it.

Slave auction block in Florida

Other areas of social reform: 

Racism 

Capital Punishment 

Penal Reform 

Physical Abuse 

Treatment of Women 

Contraception 

Abortion 

Divorce 

Family Values 

Children 

Romanies 

The Physically Ill 

The Mentally Ill 

The Poor 

Animals 

Ecology 

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The Code Noir (The Black Code)

Edict of the King: 

On the subject of the Policy regarding the Islands of French America 

March 1685 

Recorded at the sovereign Council of Saint Domingue, 6 May 1687. 

Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre: to all those here present and to those to come, GREETINGS. In 

that we must also care for all people that Divine Providence has put under our tutelage, we have agreed to have the 

reports of the officers we have sent to our American islands studied in our presence. These reports inform us of their need 

for our authority and our justice in order to maintain the discipline of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith in the 

islands. Our authority is also required to settle issues dealing with the condition and quality of the slaves in said islands. 

We desire to settle these issues and inform them that, even though they reside infinitely far from our normal abode, we are 

always present for them, not only through the reach of our power but also by the promptness of our help toward their 

needs. For these reasons, and on the advice of our council and of our certain knowledge, absolute power and royal 

authority, we have declared, ruled, and ordered, and declare, rule, and order, that the following pleases us: 

Article I. We desire and we expect that the Edict of 23 April 1615 of the late King, our most honored lord and father who 

remains glorious in our memory, be executed in our islands. This accomplished, we enjoin all of our officers to chase from 

our islands all the Jews who have established residence there. As with all declared enemies of Christianity, we command 

them to be gone within three months of the day of issuance of the present [order], at the risk of confiscation of their 

persons and their goods. 

Article II. All slaves that shall be in our islands shall be baptized and instructed in the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic 

Faith. We enjoin the inhabitants who shall purchase newly-arrived Negroes to inform the Governor and Intendant of said 

islands of this fact within no more that eight days, or risk being fined an arbitrary amount. They shall give the necessary 

orders to have them instructed and baptized within a suitable amount of time. 

Article III. We forbid any religion other than the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith from being practiced in public. We 

desire that offenders be punished as rebels disobedient of our orders. We forbid any gathering to that end, which we 

declare to be conventicle, illegal, and seditious, and subject to the same punishment as would be applicable to the 

masters who permit it or accept it from their slaves. 

Article IV. No persons assigned to positions of authority over Negroes shall be other than a member of the Roman, 

Catholic, and Apostolic Faith, and the master who assigned these persons shall risk having said Negroes confiscated, and 

arbitrary punishment levied against the persons who accepted said position of authority. 

Article V. We forbid our subjects who belong to the so-called "reformed" religion from causing any trouble or unforeseen 

difficulties for our other subjects or even for their own slaves in the free exercise of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic 

Faith, at the risk of exemplary punishment. 

Article VI. We enjoin all our subjects, of whatever religion and social status they may be, to observe Sundays and the 

holidays that are observed by our subjects of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. We forbid them to work, nor make 

their slaves work, on said days, from midnight until the following midnight. They shall neither cultivate the earth, 

manufacture sugar, nor perform any other work, at the risk of a fine and an arbitrary punishment against the masters, and 

of confiscation by our officers of as much sugar worked by said slaves before being caught. 

Article VII. We forbid them also to hold slave markets or any other market on said days at the risk of similar punishments 

and of confiscation of the merchandise that shall be discovered at the market, and an arbitrary fine against the sellers. 

Article VIII. We declare that our subjects who are not of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith, are incapable of 

contracting a valid marriage in the future. We declare any child born from such unions to be bastards, and we desire that 

said marriages be held and reputed, and to hold and repute, as actual concubinage. 

Article IX. Free men who shall have one or more children during concubinage with their slaves, together with their masters 

who accepted it, shall each be fined two thousand pounds of sugar. If they are the masters of the slave who produced said 

children, we desire, in addition to the fine, that the slave and the children be removed and that she and they be sent to 

work at the hospital, never to gain their freedom. We do not expect however for the present article to be applied when the 

man was not married to another person during his concubinage with this slave, who he should then marry according to the 

accepted rites of the Church. In this way she shall then be freed, the children becoming free and legitimate. . . . 

Article XI. We forbid priests from conducting weddings between slaves if it appears that they do not have their masters' 

permission. We also forbid masters from using any constraints on their slaves to marry them without their wishes. 

Article XII. Children born from marriages between slaves shall be slaves, and if the husband and wife have different 

masters, they shall belong to the masters of the female slave, not to the master of her husband. 

Article XIII. We desire that if a male slave has married a free woman, their children, either male or female, shall be free as 

is their mother, regardless of their father's condition of slavery. And if the father is free and the mother a slave, the children 

shall also be slaves. . . . 

Article XV. We forbid slaves from carrying any offensive weapons or large sticks, at the risk of being whipped and having 

the weapons confiscated. The weapons shall then belong to he who confiscated them. The sole exception shall be made 

for those who have been sent by their masters to hunt and who are carrying either a letter from their masters or his known 

mark. 

Article XVI. We also forbid slaves who belong to different masters from gathering, either during the day or at night, under 

the pretext of a wedding or other excuse, either at one of the master's houses or elsewhere, and especially not in major 

roads or isolated locations. They shall risk corporal punishment that shall not be less than the whip and the fleur de lys,

and for frequent recidivists and in other aggravating circumstances, they may be punished with death, a decision we leave 

to their judge. We enjoin all our subjects, even if they are not officers, to rush to the offenders, arrest them, and take them 

to prison, and that there be no decree against them. . . . 

Read, posted and recorded at the sovereign council of the coast of Saint Domingue, kept at Petit Goave, 6 May 1687, 

Article XVIII. We forbid slaves from selling sugar cane, for whatever reason or occasion, even with the permission of their 

master, at the risk of a whipping for the slaves and a fine of ten pounds for the masters who gave them permission, and an 

equal fine for the buyer. 

Article XIX. We also forbid slaves from selling any type of commodities, even fruit, vegetables, firewood, herbs for cooking 

and animals either at the market, or at individual houses, without a letter or a known mark from their masters granting 

express permission. Slaves shall risk the confiscation of goods sold in this way, without their masters receiving restitution 

for the loss, and a fine of six pounds shall be levied against the buyers. . . . 

Article XXVII. Slaves who are infirm due to age, sickness or other reason, whether the sickness is curable or not, shall be 

nourished and cared for by their masters. In the case that they be abandoned, said slaves shall be awarded to the 

hospital, to which their master shall be required to pay six sols per day for the care and feeding of each slave. . . . 

Article XXXI. Slaves shall not be a party, either in court or in a civil matter, either as a litigant or as a defendant, or as a 

civil party in a criminal matter. And compensation shall be pursued in criminal matters for insults and excesses that have 

been committed against slaves. . . . 

Article XXXIII. The slave who has struck his master in the face or has drawn blood, or has similarly struck the wife of his 

master, his mistress, or their children, shall be punished by death. . . . 

Article XXXVIII. The fugitive slave who has been on the run for one month from the day his master reported him to the 

police, shall have his ears cut off and shall be branded with a fleur de lys on one shoulder. If he commits the same 

infraction for another month, again counting from the day he is reported, he shall have his hamstring cut and be branded 

with a fleur de lys on the other shoulder. The third time, he shall be put to death. 

Article XXXIX. The masters of freed slaves who have given refuge to fugitive slaves in their homes shall be punished by a 

fine of three hundred pounds of sugar for each day of refuge. 

Article XL. The slave who has been punished with death based on denunciation by his master, and who is not a party to 

the crime for which he was condemned, shall be assessed prior to his execution by two of the principal citizens of the 

island named by a judge. The assessment price shall be paid by the master, and in order to satisfy this requirement, the 

Intendant shall impose said sum on the head of each Negro. The amount levied in the estimation shall be paid for each of 

the said Negroes and levied by the [Tax] Farmer of the Royal Western lands to avoid costs. . . . 

Article XLII. The masters may also, when they believe that their slaves so deserve, chain them and have them beaten with 

rods or straps. They shall be forbidden however from torturing them or mutilating any limb, at the risk of having the slaves 

confiscated and having extraordinary charges brought against them. 

Article XLIII. We enjoin our officers to criminally prosecute the masters, or their foremen, who have killed a slave under 

their auspices or control, and to punish the master according to the circumstances of the atrocity. In the case where there 

is absolution, we allow our officers to return the absolved master or foreman, without them needing our pardon. 

Article XLIV. We declare slaves to be charges, and as such enter into community property. They are not to be mortgaged, 

and shall be shared equally between the CO-inheritors without benefit to the wife or one particular inheritor, nor subject to 

the right of primogeniture, the usual customs duties, feudal or lineage charges, or feudal or seigneurial taxes. They shall 

not be affected by the details of decrees, nor from the imposition of the four-fifths, in case of disposal by death or 

bequeathing. . . . 

Article XLVII. Husband, wife and prepubescent children, if they are all under the same master, may not be taken and sold 

separately. We declare the seizing and sales that shall be done as such to be void. For slaves who have been separated, 

we desire that the seller shall risk their loss, and that the slaves he kept shall be awarded to the buyer, without him having 

to pay any supplement. . . . 

Article LV. Masters twenty years of age may free their slaves by any act toward the living or due to death, without their 

having to give just cause for their actions, nor do they require parental advice as long as they are minors of 25 years of 

age. 

Article LVI. The children who are declared to be sole legatees by their masters, or named as executors of their wills, or 

tutors of their children, shall be held and considered as freed slaves. . . . 

Article LVIII. We declare their freedom is granted in our islands if their place of birth was in our islands. We declare also 

that freed slaves shall not require our letters of naturalization to enjoy the advantages of our natural subjects in our 

kingdom, lands or country of obedience, even when they are born in foreign countries. 

Article LIX. We grant to freed slaves the same rights, privileges and immunities that are enjoyed by freeborn persons. We 

desire that they are deserving of this acquired freedom, and that this freedom gives them, as much for their person as for 

their property, the same happiness that natural liberty has on our other subjects. 

Versailles, March 1685, the forty second year of our reign. 

Signed LOUIS, 

and below the King. 

Colbert, visa, Le Tellier.

Signed Moriceau. 

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Source: Édit du Roi, Touchant la Police des Isles de l'Amérique Française (Paris, 1687), 28–58. 

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If a free man has unknowingly contracted with a slave girl, and did not consent when he discovered this, 

the matrimony may be put asunder, and he can contract with another. 

Innocent III to Bishop H. 

You know that it has come to our hearing that our beloved son G., the cardinal priest under the title of 

Santa Maria in Trastevere, legate of the Apostolic See, separated our beloved son R., a nobleman and 

knight, from a certain woman because of an error about her condition. 

By apostolic decree, therefore, we command Your Fraternity: Carefully investigate the truth of this matter 

and, if it is clear to you that this knight contracted with the slave girl unknowingly and, afterwards, when he 

understood her condition, did not consent to her by word or deed (the reason their union was put asunder 

by the cardinal), you may, by apostolic authority, grant him permission to contract with another woman. 

Notes 

1 The Authorised Version invariably uses the word servant where the natural translation is slave. Most modern translations 

use the word slave (a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew "ebhedh, Greek doulos) — masters buy and sells slaves not 

servants. 

2. Ignatius's letter to Polycarp 4. See Andrew Louth (ed.), Maxwell Staniforth (trans.) Early Christian Writings, p 110. 

3. St Augustine, City of God, Book XIX, Chapter 15. 

4. Fox, Pagans and Christians, p 298, citing G Sotgiu, Arch. Class. 25/6 (1973-4) 688. Felix's collar was an inscribed 

bronze collarof the late fifth or early sixth century AD, worn by a slave of the Christian archdeacon in Sardinia, reproduced 

in G H R Horsley (ed), New Documents illustrating Early Christianity (Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South 

Wales, 1981, pp 140-141. The inscription runs S[ervus sum] Felicis ar[ch]idiac[oni]: tene me ne fugiam, translated into 

English: "I am a slave of Felix the archdeacon: hold me lest I run away", Frederick Fyvie Bruce, The Epistles to the 

Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, William. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Michigan 1984, p 198. 

5. Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425, Cambridge University Press, p 258. 

6. Ibid, p 258. 

7. Ibid, p 258. 

8. Ibid, p 259 

9. Keith Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, Cambridge University Press, p 148, citing the longer monastic rules of 

Basil, Bishop of Caesaria, in the 370's 

10. Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425, Cambridge University Press, p 259 



13. Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425, Cambridge University Press, p 498, citing Greg Mag Ep 

6:10 

14. Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425, Cambridge University Press, p 498, citing Greg Mag Ep 

9:124} 

15. Decretum gratiani, Case. 32: Misuse of Marriage q. 3: Marriage of Slaves. 

16. The fuller relevant passages are: 

Let matrimony be put asunder when a free man has unknowingly contracted with a slave girl, unless he 

had relations with her after discovering this. 

Alexander the III to the Guardian and Prior of Mortari. 

The woman M., the bearer of the present letter, set out to us that, after her husband had lived with her a 

long time, he objected to the blemish of her servile condition and asserted that she was a slave, and that 

he thought she was free when he took her as wife. 

This matter was treated before our venerable brother, the bishop of Asti, and the woman, who feared that 

she would be injured there, appealed to our hearing. After a short delay this man withdrew the lawsuit he 

had initiated. Both are alive. Therefore, by apostolic decree, we command Your Discretion, since you have 

inquired concerning this: Summon the parties before you and carefully investigate the truth of this matter. 

If it is clear to you that this man knew the woman carnally after he heard she was a slave, admonish him 

and compel him to take her and treat her as his wife with marital affection. But if this is not the case, and a 

decree of divorce is to be given, have restitution made to the woman of the money she gave the said man 

in dowry, as this is just. (Decretals of Gregory IX, Book Four, The Marriage of Slaves, C. 2)

(Decretals of Gregory IX, Book Four, Title VIII, C. 4) 

17. Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, p 104. 

18. A number of cases of women being taken into slavery on the orders of Church authorities are cited by Uta Ranke- 

Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, pp 89-93. 

19. Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, p 91. 

20. Decretum Gratiani, pars. 2, dist. 32, c10 (Hefele, C. J. Konziliengeschichte, vol. V (1863) p 175 ). 

21. Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. 3, p 357. 

22. F G Wood, The Arrogance of Faith, A A Knoopf (New York, 1990), p 59 

23. The issue generally came to court only because of insurance claims, slaves being property like any other. A key case 

(concerning a ship called the "Zong" from which slaves had been jettisoned) was heard in 1783. See Walvin, Black Ivory A 

History of British Slavery, pp 16-22. 

24. James Walvin, Black Ivory A History of British Slavery, p 304. 


26. To his credit Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, marshalled a public apology in 2006 for the Anglican 

Church's role in promoting slavery http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/feb/09/religion.world 

27. For these and other examples of torture and mistreatment of slaves, see Scott, A History of Torture, ch XIV, especially 

pp 126-7. 


28a. "272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants?", New York Times, 16 April, 

2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/georgetown-university-search-for-slave-descendants.html retrieved 23 

September 2016. See also http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/us/slaves-georgetown-university.html. Link to the Report of 

The working group on slavery, memory, and reconciliation to the president of georgetown university, washington, d.c., 

Summer 2016 

aaa. "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race," by Dr. Cartwright (in DeBow's Review), De Bow's Review, Southern 

and Western States, Volume XI, New Orleans, 1851, AMS Press, Inc. New York, 1967 

DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES TO RUN AWAY. 

It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is 

well known to our planters and overseers... 

In noticing a disease not heretofore classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was 

necessary to have a new term to express it. The cause in the most of cases, that induces the negro to run 

away from service, is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much 

more curable, as a general rule. With the advantages of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this 

troublesome practice that many negroes have of running away, can be almost entirely prevented, although 

the slaves be located on the borders of a free state, within a stone's throw of the abolitionists. 

If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity's will, by trying to make the negro anything else than "the 

submissive knee-bender," (which the Almighty declared he should be,) by trying to raise him to a level with 

himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given 

him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him 

from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and 

necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the 

Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be 

kind and gracious in his hearing towards him, without condescension, and at the same time ministers to his 

physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away. 

According to my experience, the "genu flexit" -- the awe and reverence, must be exacted from them, or 

they will despise their masters, become rude and ungovernable, and run away. On Mason and Dixon's line, 

two classes of persons were apt to lose their negroes: those who made themselves too familiar with them, 

treating them as equals, and making little or no distinction in regard to color; and, on the other hand, those 

who treated them cruelly, denied them the common necessaries of life, neglected to protect them against 

the abuses of others, or frightened them by a blustering manner of approach, when about to punish them 

for misdemeanors. Before the negroes run away, unless they are frightened or panic-struck, they become 

sulky and dissatisfied. The cause of this sulkiness and dissatisfaction should be inquired into and removed, 

or they are apt to run away or fall into the negro consumption. When sulky and dissatisfied without cause, 

the experience of those on the line and elsewhere, was decidedly in favor of whipping them out of it, as a 

preventive measure against absconding, or other bad conduct. It was called whipping the devil out of them. 

If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night--separated into 

families, each family having its own house--not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to 

receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are 

very easily governed--more so than any other people in the world. When all this is done, if any one of more 

of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and 

their own good require that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which it was

intended for them to occupy in all after-time, when their progenitor received the name of Canaan or 

"submissive knee-bender." They have only to be kept in that state and treated like children, with care, 

kindness, attention and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away. 

DYSAETHESIA AETHIOPICA, OR HEBETUDE OF MIND AND OBTUSE SENSIBILITY OF BODY--A 

DISEASE PECULIAR TO NEGROES--CALLED BY OVERSEERS, " RASCALITY." 

Dysaesthesia Aethiopica is a disease peculiar to negroes, affecting both mind and body in a manner as 

well expressed by dysaesthesia, the name I have given it, as could be by a single term. There is both mind 

and sensibility, but both seem to be difficult to reach by impressions from without. There is a partial 

insensibility of the skin, and so great a hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half 

asleep, that is with difficulty aroused and kept awake. It differs from every other species of mental disease, 

as it is accompanied with physical signs or lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which 

are always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms. It is much more prevalent among free 

negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such 

slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc. It is not my purpose to treat of the 

complaint as it prevails among free negroes, nearly all of whom are more or less afflicted with it, that have 

not got some white person to direct and to take care of them. To narrate its symptoms and effects among 

them would be to write a history of the ruins and dilapidation of Hayti, and every spot of earth they have 

ever had uncontrolled possession over for any length of time. I propose only to describe its symptoms 

among slaves. 

From the careless movements of the individuals affected with the complaint, they are apt to do much 

mischief, which appears as if intentional, but is mostly owing to the stupidness of mind and insensibility of 

the nerves induced by the disease. Thus, they break, waste and destroy everything they handle,--abuse 

horses and cattle,--tear, burn or rend their own clothing, and, paying no attention to the rights of property, 

steal others, to replace what they have destroyed. They wander about at night, and keep in a half nodding 

sleep during the day. They slight their work,--cut up corn, cane, cotton or tobacco when hoeing it, as if for 

pure mischief. They raise disturbances with their overseers and fellow-servants without cause or motive, 

and seem to be insensible to pain when subjected to punishment. The fact of the existence of such a 

complaint, making man like an automaton or senseless machine, having the above or similar symptoms, 

can be clearly established by the most direct and positive testimony. That it should have escaped the 

attention of the medical profession, can only be accounted for because its attention has not been 

sufficiently directed to the maladies of the negro race. Otherwise a complaint of so common an occurrence 

on badly-governed plantations, and so universal among free negroes, or those who are not governed at 

all,--a disease radicated in physical lesions and having its peculiar and well marked symptoms and its 

curative indications, would not have escaped the notice of the profession. The northern physicians and 

people have noticed the symptoms, but not the disease from which they spring. They ignorantly attribute 

the symptoms to the debasing influence of slavery on the mind without considering that those who have 

never been in slavery, or their fathers before them, are the most afflicted, and the latest from the slaveholding 

South the least. The disease is the natural offspring of negro liberty--the liberty to be idle, to wallow 

in filth, and to indulge in improper food and drinks. 


30. Psychological studies have found evidence of religion still being responsible for "psychological bondage" amongst 

African Americans well into the twentieth century. See Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi, The Social Psychology of Religion, p 108, 

citing W. H. Grier and P. M. Cobbs, The Jesus Bag, McGraw Hill (New York, 1971). 

31. Letter dated September 15, 1682, from Cotton Mather [1663-1728] to John Higginson [1616-1708]:, quoted (in a 

footnote) by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces. cited by Professor Robert Phillips, American 

Government and Its Problems, Houghton Mifflin, 1941, and by Dr. Karl Menninger, Love Against Hate, Harcourt, Brace 

and Company, 1942, p. 211": 

To ye aged and beloved, Mr. John Higginson [1616-1708]: 

There be now at sea a ship called Welcome, which has on board 100 or more of the heretics and 

malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn, who is the chief scamp, at the head of them. The General Court 

has accordingly given sacred orders to Master Malachi Huscott, of the brig Porpoise, to waylay the said 

Welcome slyly as near the Cape of Cop as may be, and make captive the said Penn and his ungodly crew, 

so that the Lord may be glorified and not mocked on the soil of this new country with the heathen worship 

of these people. Much spoil can be made of selling the whole lot to Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good 

prices in rum and sugar and we shall not only do the Lord great good by punishing the wicked, but we shall 

make great good for His Minister and people. 

Yours in the bowels of Christ, 

Cotton Mather 

32. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, p 92. The biblical reference is to Numbers 31:13-18. 

33. Tribe, 100 Years of Freethought, p 21. 

34. Frederick Douglass, Autobiographies: Narrative of a Life, My Bondage and My Freedom, Life and Times, Henry L. 

Gates, Jr., ed. (New York, Library of America, 1994), cited by Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, p 343. 

35. Frederick Douglass, "Baptists, Congregationalists, the Free Church, and Slavery: An Address Delivered in Belfast, 

Ireland, on December 23, 1845." Belfast News Letter, December 26, 1845 and Belfast Northern Whig, December 25, 

1845. Blassingame, John (et al, eds.). The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One--Speeches, Debates, and Interviews.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Vol. I. 

36. Slavery within England itself had been confirmed to be contrary to the common law in 1772. The slave trade was made 

illegal in 1807 and ranked with piracy from 1824. Slavery was made illegal in all British territories in 1833. 

37. BBC News, 8 February 2006, Church apologises for slave trade, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4694896.stm 

38. Examples of Popes condemning "indiscriminate" slavery (without denying the four 'just titles' for owning slaves) 

include: Pope Eugenius IV condemning the indiscriminate enslavement of natives in the Canary Islands in 1435, Pope 

Paul III condemning the indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America in 1537, Pope Urban VIII condemning the 

indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America in 1639, Pope Benedict XIV condemning the indiscriminate 

enslavement of natives in Brazil in 1741. 

39. The Guardian, 13 March 2000, Pope Says Sorry for Sins of Church. (The title is misleading since the pope failed to 

mention any "sins of the Church"). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/mar/13/catholicism.religion also, 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/674246.stm 

40. "Gospel Truth", The Independent on Sunday, 15 th May 1996. 

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