Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was an influential American theologian, philosopher, revivalist, missionary, and chancellor. Jonathan Edwards was also a racist. Jonathan Edwards owned slaves like his father Timothy Edwards, and personally purchased slaves himself, and defended a minister's right to own slaves against abolitionists protesters, and according to George Marsden, Edwards defended slavery by arguing that "the Bible expressly allowed slavery and it would not contradict itself" [1]. Edwards's racism was extended to the Native Americans, George Marsden said "Edwards regarded African and Native American civilization as vastly inferior to Christendom". [2].

Edwards acknowledged that Africans and Native Americans were not inherently inferior, because he believed they suffered from the same original sin and fall as all humanity, and had the potential to overcome their inferiority (in part) by assimilating to the authority structures of Jonathan Edward's own white European Christian culture. For instance, Edwards was willing to baptize his own slaves and welcome them into membership into his own church and was willing to evangelize the Mohican Indians, but when abolitionist demanded abolition, Edwards used his bible to prosecute abolitionists because they protested "only to make disturbances and raise uneasiness among people against their minister, to the great wounding of religion." [3]

Jonathan Edwards never repented of his racism, and his zeal for godliness, theology and the church entrenched him further into his racism. In this article, I'll discuss two pieces of evidence that demonstrates Jonathan Edward's racism: "Receipt for Slave Named Venus" and his "Draft Letter on Slavery."  

Receipt for Slave Named Venus (1731)

On June 7th, 1731 Jonathan Edwards purchased an African girl named Venus who was fourteen years old (possibly younger) for the price of eighty pounds in Newport, Rhode Island. Edwards retained the "Receipt for Slave Named Venus" as a proof-of-purchase. The full text of this receipt is available in the Yale archive, which I've abridged for readability as follows:

KNOW ALL MEN by these presents that I, Richard Perkins of Newport . . . in consideration of the sum of eighty pounds . . . truly paid . . . hereof by Jonathan Edwards of Northampton . . . do hereby bargain sell and deliver unto the said Jonathan Edwards a Negro girl named Venus aged fourteen years or thereabout . . . the seventh day of June in the fourth year of the reign of our sovereign lord George the second by the grace of god of Great Britain France and Ireland king defender of the faith . . . 

Anno Dm 1731, Sealed and Delivered in the presence of us, John Cranston, Jas Martin [4]

The "Receipt for Slave Named Venus" proves that Jonathan Edwards personally purchased at least one very young slave to do slave labor in his own household. Edwards purchased a second "Negro boy" named Titus, and "a second female slave named Leah—although historians are uncertain as to whether the family simply gave Venus a biblical name" [5] [6]. Additionally, Edwards' pastoral salary was negotiated in detail with the city of North Hampton, and this required Edwards to justify every expense to maintain his large household and entertain guests. So Edward's decision to purchase slaves was intentional, calculated, publicly defended. 

The "Receipt for Slave Named Venus" (show in the image above) is a disturbing note because Jonathan Edwards reused the very same piece of paper twenty years later to write two sermons upon it: "Lectures On The Qualifications For Full Communion In The Church Of Christ" (1749) and "One Great End In God's Appointing The Gospel Ministry" (1750). Paper was in limited supply, so Jonathan Edwards recycled every piece of paper available to him; almost twenty years after he enslaved the young girl Venus, Edwards found the receipt from his purchase of this human being and divided it into three pieces and heartlessly composed two sermons upon that cursed paper receipt. Like Bildad, in Moby Dick, reading in his bible "lay not up for yourself treasures upon earth, where moth—" in the very same moment he is calculating his whaling profits. [7]. In the same way, Edwards wrote his sermon on Christian qualifications upon his disqualifying slavery receipt; a double-tongued sin of writing sermons on the backs of slaves (c.f. James 3:10). The back-side of the sermon transcript matters. 

Draft Letter on Slavery

In 1738, seven years after Jonathan Edwards enslaved the fourteen year old African girl named Venus, he drafted a letter defending a minister who owned slaves (who may have been Jonathan Edwards himself) from abolitionist protesters. Jonathan Edward's "Draft Letter on Slavery" is one of the only known instances where Edwards explicitly defends slavery. 

The full-text of Jonathan Edward's "Draft Letter on Slavery" (shown in the image above) is available online at the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, and includes this helpful introduction summarizing the Edwards' defense of slavery in it:

Though fragmentary and frustratingly cryptic at points, this document is extremely valuable because it is the only known instance of Edwards speaking explicitly on the issue of slavery and, more specifically, on the enslavement of Africans in the American colonies. Edwards defends the purchase and ownership of slaves provided they fall under the legal definition of a slave, are treated humanely according to law, and are Christianized. He condemns as hypocritical those who denounce slave owning while benefiting from goods produced or imported as a result of the slave trade. . . . He bases his argument on passages taken primarily from the Old Testament regarding God's allowing the Israelites to buy slaves, and, to a lesser extent, on passages in the New Testament. [8]

In addition to argument summarized above, here are five additional arguments Jonathan Edwards makes to defend slavery in the Draft Letter on Slavery:

Jonathan Edwards also argues that 1) slavery is biblical and explicitly permitted in the Mosaic Law, and it was never abrogated like other injustices that god winked at temporarily (Acts 17:30). Edwards argues that slavery was not abolished because it was explicitly permitted and never explicitly repealed; Jonathan Edwards says "no other sin generally prevalent that is not expressly mentioned and strictly forbidden. " [9]

Jonathan Edwards argues 2) that individual scriptures that prohibit slavery and prohibit taking ones neighbor's wages without pay should be not established as a rule for all ages and nations; Edwards writes "To give leave for a special punishment of the injuriousness of the Egyptians to borrow is quite a different thing from establishing it as a rule that his people might borrow and not pay in all ages." [10]

Additionally, 3) Edwards argues that abolition would cause deprivation due to lost money and goods produced through slavery: "It would have a much greater tendency to sin, to have liberty to disfranchise whole nations". [11]

And, 4)  abolitionism undermines the authority of slave-owning ministers (such as himself), and injures the church. Edwards' patriarchal authoritarianism is revealed in his demand for abolitionists to submit their disputes in writings, so that they may be fully prosecuted: "And let the answers be in writing, that everybody that is so disposed may see what they be, and know whether there be just cause for their boasts when they go about and say the pastor of the church could not answer 'em, could say nothing that was worth a-saying." [12]

And lastly, 5) Jonathan Edwards argues that not everyone is our neighbor (contra Jesus cf. Luke 10:25-37) but only the children of Israel when he writes: "Neighbor. By this there is no rule that respects the treatment of any of mankind in the moral law, but only the children of Israel." [13]

Conclusion

Jonathan Edwards was an outstanding theologian and a racist. He never repented of his racism, and his zeal for Christianity reenforced his racism towards Africans, Native Americans and other people he deemed inferior. Edwards' racism also revealed an inherent patriarchal and authoritarian view of Christianity, and that he was a white supremacist that expected all cultures and people to assimilate and submit to his own white male Protestant European Christian culture. 

Jonathan Edwards' racism and white supremacy are a serious problem for anyone wishing to study his theological works, and I understand why many people are unwilling to study Edwards at all due to his racism. However, if we are to study sinless theologians, then there will be no theologians left in the history of the world, because virtually every great theologian has disqualifying sin, and this is true of the biblical characters as well from Moses, to David, to Peter and Paul. I've personally benefited and learned from Jonathan Edwards' writings, but to do so, I'd like to acknowledge the insurmountable problem of Jonathan Edwards racism that was prevalent and shared by American theologians.

Sources:

1. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, Yale Publishers 2003, p. 257.

2. George Marsden, 257.

3. Jonathan Edwards, Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 16, Letters and Personal Writings, "20. Draft Letter on Slavery", ed. George S. Claghorn, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1957-2008, accessed on Nov. 24th 2018), p. 73. [WJE 16:73]

4. Jonathan Edwards, Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 40, Autobiographical and Biographical Documents, "Receipt for Slave Girl Venus", (Jonathan Edwards Centure, Yale University, 2008, accessed on Nov. 24th 2018). [WJE 40, "Receipt for Slave Girl Venus"]

5. Richard Anderson, Princeton & Slavery Project, "Jonathan Edwards Sr.", Princeton https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/jonathan-edwards#2266 accessed 24 November 2018.

6. George Marsden, 255.

7. Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 16: The Ship

8. Jonathan Edwards, Draft Letter on Slavery, p. 71-2.

9. Jonathan Edwards, Draft Letter on Slavery

10. Jonathan Edwards, Draft Letter on Slavery

11. Jonathan Edwards, Draft Letter on Slavery

12. Jonathan Edwards, Draft Letter on Slavery

13. Jonathan Edwards, Draft Letter on Slavery