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The Dutch Reformed Church and Negro Slavery in Colonial America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Gerald Francis De Jong
Gerald Francis De Jong
Affiliation:
Professor of European history in the University of South Darota, Vermillion
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Extract

Current attitudes of religious organizations toward the civil rights movement prompt the raising of various historical questions. These concern, among others, the attitude of the churches toward the slave trade and the use of slave labor in the American colonies. Did the churches ignore slavery or did they object to it but were unable to change it because of vested economic interests? Were there any individual clergymen who raised particularly loud voices of protest against the use of slave labor and the buying and selling of human beings? Did the churches make any effort to convert the Negroes to Christianity? The examination of such questions with reference to a specific religious denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church, sheds light on this subject.

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Articles
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Church History , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 423 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1971

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References

1. The first Dutch Reformed church in the American colonies was organized at New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1628. The American branch of the Dutch Reformed Church did not become an independent denomination until 1772. Following its independence of the mother church in Holland, it became known as the Reformed Dutch Church until 1867. At that time, the name was changed to the Reformed Church in America, its present appellation. To avoid confusion, the term Dutch Reformed Church will be used consistently in this article and will signify, unless otherwise specified, that the writer has reference to the Church in what is now the United States of America, no matter whether it be before 1772 or after.

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63. Following the so-called slave insurrection in New York City of February 28, 1741, 134 Negroes were brought to trial, of whom thirteen were burned alive, eighteen were hanged, seventy were transported to the West Indies, and thirty-three were acquitted. Fishel, Leslie H. and Quarles, Benjamin, The Negro American: A Documentary History (Glenview, Ill: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1967), p. 27Google Scholar. See Wright, Marion T., “New Jersey Laws and the Negro,” Journal of Negro History, XXVIII (04 1943), 165–166Google Scholar, regarding the harsh penalities meted out to Negro slaves in New Jersey at the opening of the eighteenth century. According to a recent study, New York and New Jersey, where the majority of the Dutch Reformed churches were located, had the most severe black codes of any of the northern colonies. Zilversmit, The First Emancipation, p. 13.

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