The Puritan Imagination in Antislavery New England

The Puritans of seventeenth-century New England generally had few objections to slavery. Those of their descendants who flocked to the antislavery cause from 1830 to the American Civil War were far from their Puritan ancestors in political and religious belief. Yet these two historical facts clash with a puzzling third: New England abolitionists constantly invoked their Puritan ancestry in their writings and speeches as a reason to resist slavery, and their opponents nearly as often insulted and condemned abolitionists as "puritanical." This talk will explore why antebellum Americans reached for the Puritans in the fight against slavery and why this matters for scholarship of American history and culture.