Yoon, Young Hwi (2011) The spread and transformation of antislavery sentiment in the transatlantic evangelical network : 1730s-1790s. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The study will analyse how Anglo-American evangelicals' antipathy towards
slavery spread and transformed in the context of the transatlantic evangelical
network. Many researchers have treated antislavery sentiment as a spontaneous
reaction, or as one of a number of background moods influencing those who started
the abolitionist movement. However, this sentiment spread in the Atlantic world as
result of evangelical activities throughout the eighteenth century.
The formation of the transatlantic evangelical network is central to
understanding the spread of antislavery sentiment. Stimulated by the Great
Awakening in the 1730s and the 1740s, Anglo-American evangelicals began to
travel between both sides of the Atlantic. Much evidence suggests that a religious
and ideological sense of unity was being forged during this process. Importantly, the
evangelical network offered a channel of transatlantic communication allowing
Anglo-Americans to debate common issues. Although in itself not antislavery, it had
the potential to develop antislavery sentiment among its members.
Many historians have not traced the development of antislavery ideals in the
mid-eighteenth century as there seemed no public self-identifying antislavery
movement. However, close examination of 'proslavery' literature reinvents this
period into years of transformation of evangelical attitudes to slavery, far from a
'dark age' of unquestioned proslavery expression. Below the surface, fledgling
antislavery sentiment was spreading in the Atlantic world before the American
Revolution.
In the tense atmosphere of the American Revolution in the 1770s, antislavery
sentiment became transformed into moral conviction. Many members of religious
communities on both sides of the Atlantic lost their confidence in the imperial
system, and were fearful for their moral health. As part of this process, ill-feeling
towards both the inhumanity and religio-moral inconsistencies of slavery became
transformed into a moral ideology. Furthermore, the Revolution stimulated
evangelical abolitionism and participation in wider secular political activities.
After the Revolution, the evangelical network seemed to be reinvigorated,
responding to new territorial and economic circumstance. However, conflicts within
the transatlantic evangelical community caused by disestablishment debates
stimulated the process of division, and influenced the developmental process of the
antislavery movement in the transatlantic evangelical network. Consequently,
evangelicals in each area developed individual abolitionist movements, producing
different outcomes. This reflects that the transatlantic evangelical network's mission
for a transatlantic channel for the antislavery cause was finishing.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BR Christianity E History America > E11 America (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Antislavery movements -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century, Antislavery movements -- United States -- History -- 18th century, Evangelicalism -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century, Evangelicalism -- United States -- History -- 18th century
Official Date:	November 2011
Dates:	Date Event November 2011 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Richardson, Sarah, 1964 May 11- ; Lockley, Timothy James, 1971-
Sponsors:	Kim Hee-Kyung Scholarship Foundation for European Humanities ; Ok Han Heum Scholarship Foundation ; Rotary International ; University of Warwick
Extent:	iv, 276 leaves
Language:	eng

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