1. Owner of Slaves

[Rob Boss]

Edwards owned slaves, yet his closest theological heir, Samuel Hopkins, became one of the strongest early abolitionists. How do you explain that surprising outcome?

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[Joseph Lee]

A key reason is that Hopkins lived into the revolutionary years when institutionalized slavery was questioned, considering the increasing desire for emancipation from Britain. Because Edwards passed in 1758, he lived the duration of his life in Puritan New England, though I believe the intellectual and cultural landscape was shifting. I agree with Gerald McDermott’s thesis that Edwards’s racial thoughts and attitudes were improving during his time in Stockbridge. Nonetheless, both the slave trade and the institution of slavery were largely unquestioned in prerevolutionary America. Hopkins, who also enslaved and later manumitted the individual enslaved, certainly was impacted by the growing antislavery sentiment in the Revolutionary years. I would say his moral theology began to align with the appropriate expression of his abolitionist stance.