The Methodists and the Slavery Issue

John Wesley, founder of Methodism, expressed clear condemnation of slavery in a 28-page volume entitled “Thoughts on Slavery” (Wesley 1774) and that was one of the reasons why Methodism gained wide acclaim overseas also among black people. In addition, the Methodist religion conveyed a message that was easy to understand and experience: it accepted intuitions, prophetic dreams and visions as divine messages, and, as said, admitted black people to the role of exhortators and preachers (Wigger 2001).

The abolitionist position was embraced by the aforementioned Francis Asbury, one of the fathers of Methodism in America, sent to preach in the New World by John Wesley in 1771 and ordained bishop in 1784. However, in the post-revolutionary United States the issue of slavery proved inextricably linked to politics: in several southern states many whites were convinced of the need to maintain slavery to support the plantation-based economy. For this reason, abolitionist ideas were considered dangerous and subversive. White people often lived in fear of insurrection. Thus in several states the Methodist pastors who stood up for the emancipation of slaves were considered fanatics and sowers of discontent and discord.

The attempt to unanimously approve the rule forbidding Methodists from buying or owning slaves, punishable of expulsion from the congregation, almost led to a schism in 1785. Many defended slavery by claiming that it had always existed, citing the Old Testament in which it was reported that the Israelites enslaved their enemies with impunity. Especially in the South, Methodist pastors who interrupted their itinerant preaching settling in a church would often buy or inherite slaves. In 1804, the Conference suspended the slavery directives for the southern Virginia territories: two different versions of the Discipline were printed, a fact repeated in 1808. The conferences of individual states could then decide how best to regulate the so-called “peculiar institution”. Following these discussions, however, a small number of Methodists decided to emancipate the slaves they owned, and many others preferred to emigrate further north, resenting living in a land where inalienable human rights were trampled (Mathews 2015).

In 1816, the year Asbury died, the Conference concluded that, given the circumstances, the Methodists could do little to abolish a practice that, while contrary to the principles of moral justice, was established by the law in force and governed by the civil code in several states. Although many itinerant pastors continued to preach for abolitionism, in some places it started being dangerous to express such ideas in public.
One example is the case of a Pennsylvania preacher, an elderly Methodist who attended a camp meeting in Maryland in 1818, who asserted in front of 3000 white people and 400 black people that not only was slavery against the Declaration of Independence, but was also threatening for the peace of society. He was indicted for maliciously trying to disturb the tranquility, established order, and government of the state of Maryland, endangering the safety and property of many of its citizens. Although at the end he was not sentenced, the Methodist Conference in Baltimore urged preachers to use more caution (Mathews 2015).These events brought to light a profound problem that the United States Congress tried to address in 1820 by ratifying the Missouri compromise: in order to maintain the balance between the so-called free states and those that allowed slavery, Missouri was declared a slave state, whereas Maine was accepted as a free state. At the same time, the inadmissibility of slavery was imposed in to the states North of the line that passed along the southern border of Missouri (latitude 36 and 30′), with the exception of Missouri itself (Mathews 2015).

In later years, in an effort to stop the fleeing of slaves and control the uprisings, the Southern states tightened many rules, making the emancipation of slaves increasingly difficult. For example, we mention here the alleged rebellion organized by Denmark Vesey, pastor of the African Methodist Church, which was stifled in the year 1822 in South Carolina: Vesey, accused of wanting to involve six thousand conspirators, was hanged and 37 African Americans were sentenced to death. Another uprising took place in August 1831, when a literate African slave named Nat Turner led a revolt in Virginia in which 57 white people were killed, and 200 slaves were killed (Hudson 2006).

In the South, the Methodists were regarded with suspicion, though they were against abolitionism and committed to saving the souls of slaves. According to the plantation owners, teaching the gospel to the slaves could encourage insurrections: to get permission from the owners and to preach, the Methodists tried to convince them that they would forge more meek and obedient slaves, willing to live a life of suffering in order to win the kingdom of heaven (Morris-Chapman 2019).

Within the Methodist congregation there was not an unanimous point of view on this matter: the MEC faithful, while considering slavery a crime, were far from supporting racial equality and had always concentrated the power in the hands of the whites, by enacting forms of paternalism, social segregation, and liturgical discrimination against African Americans. This led in 1822 to the official establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in New York, and other Methodist congregations made up of black people. In an attempt to reconcile their opposition to slavery with the problem of civil coexistence with emancipated slaves, many Methodists believed that the best solution was to send them back to their homeland. For this purpose, the American Colonization Society was established in 1916, and a number of black Americans managed to arrive in Liberia – but the initiative was not successful because many former slaves preferred to remain in America. In fact, not only was America their homeland but it offered better living conditions than the colony. The Methodists in favour of immediate emancipation were a minority, considered fanatical in the North and subversive in the South.