Today Jacob Eliot, a Baptist layman, lawyer and former slaveowner from Corsicana, Texas, is not entirely happy about the end of slavery. Nonetheless, today he uses his legal position to help four freedmen who apparently had not been his slaves. “I procured license for Joe McCullough and Charlie Thomas, two old freedmen – to get…
Treated as non-humans by Southern state laws in the decades prior to and during the war, slaves were not allowed to marry. Many slave couples compensated by engaging in simple rituals signifying informal marriages. White Baptist leaders of the South remained defiantly supportive of black slavery throughout the war, although some voiced support of laws…
Today’s edition of the Georgia Baptist Christian Index returns to an oft-repeated argument in these latter months of the war. In an article entitled “Marriage of Slaves,” the author follows a well-worn path in refusing to blame slavery as the cause of God’s punishment upon the South, but does argue that the manner in which…