GROTON, Mass. (AP) — Jennifer Cromack was combing through the American Baptist archive when she uncovered a slim box among some 18th and 19th century journals. Opening it, she found a scroll in pristine condition.
A closer look revealed the 5-foot-long (1.5-meter-long) document was a handwritten declaration titled “A Resolution and Protest Against Slavery,” signed by 116 New England ministers in Boston and adopted March 2, 1847. Until its discovery in May at the archives in Groton, Massachusetts, American Baptist officials worried the anti-slavery document had been lost forever after fruitless searches at Harvard and Brown universities and other locations. A copy was last seen in a 1902 history book.
“I was just amazed and excited,” Cromack, a retired teacher who volunteers at the archive, said. “We made a find that really says something to the people of the state and the people in the country. … It speaks of their commitment to keeping people safe and out of situations that they should not be in.”
The document offers a glimpse into an emerging debate over slavery in the 18th century in the Northeast. The document was signed 14 years before the start of the Civil War as a growing number of religious leaders were starting to speak out against slavery.
Split over slavery
The document also shines a spotlight on a critical moment in the history of the Baptist church.
It was signed two years after the issue of slavery prompted southern Baptists to split from northern Baptists and form the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The split in 1845 followed …