Tonight I started sifting through my mailbox which has been considerably
neglected for a good week or so except for some pressing business, so please
forgive if I'm a bit late chiming in to this discussion. I've read some
interesting remarks but cannot seem to find the original post.
I've recenlty finished _A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and
Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776_, by John K. Nelson, professor emeritus,
UNC Chapel Hill, which enlightened me considerably about the relationship
between the official church (Church of England) and the government during the
colonial period. It was considerably more complicated than I realized, and as a
daughter of a Presbyterian minister who taught alot of church history, I thought
I knew alot about it.
I can't begin to do justice or summarize adequately, but I highly recommend
Nelson to get a broader picture of the relationship during the colonial period.
But every blanket statement has exceptions, and I can't resist throwing out a
few.
Mary Minor Blackford, a staunch Episcopalian, taught slaves to read and
write. SHe and her husband paid passage to Liberia for a slave they emancipated
who had worked in William Blackford's print shop. And it was this printer who
printed the first newspaper in Liberia. The book _Mine Eyes Have Seen the
Glory_, tells her story and quotes extensively from her journal about her
anti-slavery expressions.
Another from my family, Rev. Thornton Stringfellow, of Stevensburg Baptist
Church (Culpaper County), embarrassed his Episcopalian family considerably by
publishing his biblical views in support of slavery as early as the 1840s and
1850s. Just pulling a few from the online catalogue at the Library of Virginia,
one finds "The Bible argument: or, Slavery in the light of divine
revelation." By T. Stringfellow in _Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments: comprising
the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and
Cartwright, on this important subject. By E. N. Elliott. (1860) and the 1849 _A
brief examination of Scripture testimony on the institution of slavery_.
I'd cite some more, but it's late ... still, I couldn't resist playing
devil's advocate!
Holly
just outside Lynchburg, VA
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