The Worst Kind Of Thievery? The Puritan Servant-Slave Social Ethic In Richard Baxter And William Gouge -- By: Maarten Kuivenhoven

Journal: Puritan Reformed Journal
Volume: PRJ 05:2 (Jul 2013)
Article: The Worst Kind Of Thievery? The Puritan Servant-Slave Social Ethic In Richard Baxter And William Gouge
Author: Maarten Kuivenhoven


The Worst Kind Of Thievery?
The Puritan Servant-Slave Social Ethic In Richard Baxter And William Gouge

Maarten Kuivenhoven

Recent scholarship has looked at the issue of slavery from a Puritan viewpoint to a very limited extent and only from the New England perspective.1 The issue recently came into sharp focus following the release of a rap song by Christian hip-hop artist Propaganda.2 The song ignited a firestorm of response in the blogosphere by various historians, pastors, and church leaders, ranging from defense of the Puritans to condemnation of the Puritans’ position on slavery.3 Such a

debate can quickly devolve into an argument about race and ethnicity while failing to deal honestly with the writings of Puritans, written within their respective historical environments. The Puritans, especially Richard Baxter,4 and to a lesser extent, William Gouge,5 developed a social ethic or conscience regarding the issue of slavery based on scriptural injunctions, though not going far enough to call for an end to slavery.6

This article will approach the issue from several different angles. First, the parameters of Puritanism must be established in order to argue effectively for a collective social ethic regarding the issue of slavery in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. This article will then look at what Baxter and Gouge said regarding servanthood and slavery, demonstrating that the Puritan view of servanthood and slavery were closely linked and based on ethical injunctions from Scripture.

From a historical standpoint alone, it is very difficult to argue for the position that the Puritans advocated for or against slavery in collective fashion. Part of this difficulty lays in the fact that Puritanism as a movement is difficult to define in terms of its historical parameters. As with most historical movements or developments, difficulty lies in pinpointing an exact start date or an exact end date, and the influence of a particular historical movement or figure can easily extend beyond the actual time period given. The Puritan era as defined by Joel Beeke

and Mark Jones ends somewhere between 1662-1689, or perhaps as late as 1705.7 However, for the purposes of this paper and for the sake of historical argument, this article...

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