SU S1 2024 - The Bible & the Abolition of American Slavery

Course Description: This course explores the complex relationship between the Bible and the history of slavery and abolition in the United States. We will examine the ways slaveholders (mis)used scripture – especially the Old Testament - to claim that Black people were cursed by God and that slavery was a divinely sanctioned institution. These arguments had great influence not because they were theologically sound but because of their connection to slaveholders’ entrenched economic and political power. African Americans and white abolitionists retorted that slavery and racial oppression violated both the spirit and letter of the Bible when the Old Testament is read in light of Christ’s Gospel dispensation. We will examine how antislavery theology gained adherents over time, especially as the American Revolution and the Civil War led Americans to question the providential significance of unprecedented destruction. We will conclude by discussing theology’s relevance to the nation’s ongoing racial reckoning and the process of reconciliation. Readings will include historical documents, such as sermons, along with scholarly analysis.

Nicholas P. Wood is an associate professor at Spring Hill College, where he teaches courses on early American history. After earning his PhD at the University of Virginia, he held postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University and the Library Company of Philadelphia before coming to Spring Hill. Wood's scholarship focuses on the role of religion in the antislavery movement and has been supported by many archives and organizations, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Society of Colonial Wars. Wood’s scholarly essays have appeared in venues such as the William and Mary Quarterly and the Journal of the Early Republic; his book manuscript, Let the Oppressed Go Free: The Revolutionary Generation of American Abolitionists, will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.