“The Duties of Servants.” On the surface, the broadside didn’t conjure the word “slavery” in my mind. But there it was among the slavery and abolition documents up for auction this week at Swann Auction Galleries’ African American manuscript sale.
The broadside was printed circa 1850 (or in the 1840s) by a man named Christopher Pickard in Leeds, England. It didn’t specifically mention slaves, but servants and masters – some English families did have servants at the time. It was likewise being sold as a pro-slavery document on retail sites on the web. A copy on eBay had the handwritten inscription “Slavery” across the top, and on the back: “Pro-Slavery Broadside – English – 1840’s. Servants = slaves. Using the Bible to justify.”
I found the broadside intriguing both for its content and format. The message was in the form of a question and answer, the same as I use for my Friday blog posts to answer readers’ questions. In this instance, someone – it’s not clear if Pickard the printer wrote this or merely printed it for someone else – quoted the Scriptures to promote servitude without dissent.
In researching the broadside and Pickard, I found a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass in Leeds in 1846 admonishing the English for their duplicity in American slavery through their sudden silence on the issue. The British had outlawed slavery in the West Indies, and decades before, potter Josiah Wedgwood had created his famous anti-slavery medallion “Am I Not A Man And A Brother.”
Douglass called on the people of England, and especially its churches, to speak out loudly and forcefully against the brutal system and revive their anti-slavery fervor.
Here is a sampling of the questions and answers from the broadside, followed by excerpts from Douglass’ speech:
Question:
What are the duties of Servants to their Masters and Mistresses?
Answer:
Respect, Faithfulness, Obedience and Diligence.
Question:
What is respect to a Master and Mistress?
Answer:
An acknowledgment of their superiority; a respectful manner of speaking of them, and to them, and a becoming behavior.
Question:
What doth the Scripture teach Servants as to the duty of Respect?
Answer:
Let as many Servants as are under the yoke, count their own Masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 1 Tim. vi. 1.
Question:
Suppose a Servant meets with a harsh unfeeling Master or Mistress; does that lessen the duty of Respect and Honour?
Answer:
No; for Saint Peter commands; Servants be subject to your Master with all fear; not only to the good and gentle but to the froward. For this is thank-worthy; if a man of conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. 1 Pet. ii. 18, 19.
Frederick Douglass speaks
On Dec. 23, 1846, at the Music Hall in Leeds, Douglass delivered a speech on the horrors of slavery in America. It was a direct contrast to the noble advice offered in the broadside, which preached obedience in the face of brutality. Considered a fugitive slave, Douglass had sailed to England to escape capture and spent two years speaking out against slavery. While he was in the country, his English supporters bought his freedom.
Douglass spoke of the reality of a system that was sanctioned by religious leaders in the South. Interestingly, one of the other items offered at Swann was a sermon delivered in Charleston, SC, in 1850 by Rev. James Henley Thornwell, a pro-slavery minister, on the rights and duties of masters. It did not sell.
Here are excerpts from an account of Douglass’ speech “England Should Lead the Cause of Emancipation” as reported in the Leeds Times newspaper on Dec. 26, 1846:
Douglass’ own feelings about religion
“I love the religion of our blessed Saviour, I love that religion that comes from above, ‘in the wisdom of God, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.’ And it is because I love the pure and hallowed Christian religion that I hate this slave-holding, this woman-whipping, this mind-darkening, this soul-destroying religion that exists in the Southern States of America (loud cheers).”
A call-out to the churches of England
This foul blot of American slavery calls upon you, cries aloud to you, demands of you, in the name of that God whom you have promised to serve, and by those principles on which you contended for the abolition of West Indian Slavery, to step forward manfully and as Christians, to render your assistance and co-operation in bringing about the emancipation of these 3,000,000 of your fellow-men (loud cheers).’
The duty of English religious leaders
Almost every religious sect in this country is in friendly correspondence with the slave-holding, slave-breeding, slave-bartering, slave-torturing American States. Methodists, Episcopalians, Independents, Unitarians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and almost every denomination of Christians, are in this communication with these slave-holding States (hear, hear, hear). Shall this fellowship be continued? (Loud cries of No.)”
American churches’ link to slavery:
“The slave auctioneer’s block and the pulpit stand side by side; while the blood-stained gold goes to support the pulpit, the pulpit covers the infernal business with the garb of Christianity, and keeps it in countenance (sensation). Why, the man who robbed me of my liberty and filched my daily earnings, was the very man who met me in class on Sunday to teach me the way to heaven (hear, hear).”
“Instead of preaching the gospel against this tyranny, and rebuking this wrong, ministers of religion have sought, by all and every means, to throw in the background whatever in the Bible could be construed into opposition to slavery, and to bring forward that which they could torture into its support (hear, hear).”
A personal account:
Mr. Douglass mentioned that Thomas Hall [Auld], who claimed him as a chattel, and demanded 750 dollars for his liberty, was one ranking high in the religious denomination to which he belonged, and whose house was the abiding place of all the ministers when in the neighbourhood. Yet that man has, said Mr. Douglass, tied my sisters up to a hook in the ceiling, on a Sabbath morning, and flogged her until the warm blood has trickled at her feet, justifying his iniquity by the Scripture quotation, ‘Whosoever knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, the same shall be beaten with many stripes! (Sensation.)’ After a few remarks upon this topic, Mr. Douglass’ strength failed him, and he was compelled to resume his seat, requesting that someone might address the meeting until he had in some measure recovered.”
The broadside at auction sold for $281. Another copy sold last year for $900 at the manuscript sale.
