The influence of christianity on North American slavery.
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Different forms of slavery existed for over 18 centuries within Christianity. Although in the early years of Christianity, freeing slaves was regarded as an act of charity,[59] and the Christian view that all people were equal including slaves was a novel idea within the Roman Empire,[60] the institution of slavery was rarely criticised. David Brion Davis writes that the "variations in early Christian opinion on servitude fit comfortably within a framework of thought that would exclude any attempt to abolish slavery as an institution".[61] Indeed, in 340, the Synod of Gangra condemned the Manicheans for urging that slaves should liberate themselves; instead the canons of the Synod declared that anyone who preached abolitionism should be anathematised, and they also declared that slaves had a "Christian obligation" to submit to their masters. Augustine of Hippo, who renounced his former Manicheanism, argued that slavery was part of the mechanism to preserve the natural order of things;[62][63] John Chrysostom, who is regarded as a saint by Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, argued that slaves should be resigned to their fate, because by "obeying his master he is obeying God".[64] but he also stated that "Slavery is the fruit of covetousness, of extravagance, of insatiable greediness" in his Epist. ad Ephes.[65] As the Apostle Paul admonished the early Christians; "There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus". And in fact, even some of the first popes were once slaves themselves.[60]
In 1452 Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which granted Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery. The approval of slavery under these conditions was reaffirmed and extended in his Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455. (This papal bull was issued in response to the wars which were triggered by the Fall of Constantinople in 1453) In 1488 Pope Innocent VIII accepted the gift of 100 slaves from Ferdinand II of Aragon and distributed those slaves to his cardinals and the Roman nobility. Also, in 1639 Pope Urban VIII purchased slaves for himself from the Knights of Malta.[66]
In the 15th and 16th centuries other Popes denounced slavery as a great crime, including Pius II,[60] Paul III,[67] and Eugene IV.[68] In 1639, pope Urban VIII forbade slavery, as did Benedict XIV in 1741. In 1815, pope Pius VII demanded that the Congress of Vienna suppress the slave trade, and Gregory XVI condemned it again in 1839.[60]
In addition, the Dominican friars who arrived in the Spanish settlement of Santo Domingo in 1510 strongly denounced the enslavement of the local Indians. Along with other priests, they opposed the mistreatment of the Indians and denounced it as unjust and illegal in an audience with the Spanish king as well as in the subsequent royal commission.[69] As a response to this position, the Spanish monarchy's subsequent Requerimiento provided a religious justification for the enslavement of the local populations, on the pretext that they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism and therefore denied the authority of the Pope.[70]
Various interpretations of Christianity were also used to justify slavery.[71] For example,some people believed that slavery was a punishment that was reserved for sinners.[71] Some other Christian organizations were slaveholders. The 18th-century high-church Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts owned the Codrington Plantation, in Barbados, which contained several hundred slaves, who were branded on their chests with the word Society.[72][73] George Whitefield, who is famed for his sparking of the so-called Great Awakening of American evangelicalism, overturned a province-wide ban against slavery,[74] and went on to own several hundred slaves himself.[75] Yet Whitefield is remembered as one of the first evangelists who preached to the enslaved.[76]
At other times, Christian groups worked against slavery. The 7th-century Saint Eloi used his vast wealth to purchase British and Saxon slaves in groups of 50 to 100 in order to set them free.[77] The Quakers in particular were early leaders of abolitionism, and in keeping with this tradition they denounced slavery at least as early as 1688. In 1787 the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed, and 9 of its 12 founding members were Quakers; William Wilberforce, an early supporter of the society, went on to push through the 1807 Slave Trade Act, striking a major blow against the Atlantic slave trade. Leaders of Methodism and Presbyterianism also vehemently denounced human bondage,[78][79][80] convincing their congregations to do likewise; Methodists[81] and Presbyterians[82] subsequently made the repudiation of slavery a condition of membership.