Editing Cotton Mather (section)

==Slavery and racial attitudes==

Cotton Mather's household included both free servants and a number of [[Slavery|slaves]] who performed domestic chores.  Surviving records indicate that, over the course of his lifetime, Mather owned at least three, and probably more, slaves.{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=451n}}  Like the majority of Christians at the time, but unlike his political rival Judge [[Samuel Sewall]], Mather was never an [[Abolitionism|abolitionist]], although he did publicly denounce what he regarded as the illegal and inhuman aspects of the burgeoning [[Atlantic slave trade]].  Concerned about the New England sailors enslaved in Africa since the 1680s and 1690s, in 1698 Mather wrote them his ''Pastoral Letter to the Captives'', consoling them, and expressing hope that “your slavery to the monsters of Africa will be but short.”<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Claudio|editor-first1=Vicki |title=A Pastoral Letter to the Captives |date=2012 |author=Cotton Mather|publisher=Exagorazo Press |isbn=978-1441417930 |chapter=A Pastoral Letter to the Captives in Africa |quote=letter written to a group of New England sailors captured in the 1680s and 90s, he expresses the determination of the community to exhaust all means to bring them home […] offers encouragement to the enslaved men […] "your slavery to the monsters of Africa will be but short" |edition=}}</ref> On the return of some survivors of African slavery in 1703, Mather published ''The History of What the Goodness of God has done for the Captives, lately delivered out of Barbary,'' wherein he lamented the death of multiple American slaves, the length of their captivity—which he described as between 7 and 19 years,—the harsh conditions of their bondage, and celebrated their refusal to convert to Islam, unlike others who did.<ref>{{Harv|Claudio|2012|loc=The History of What the Goodness of God has done for the Captives, lately delivered out of Barbary|ps=: —«Many, many died under the hardhips […] some of them for a whole prenticeship of years [7 yrs.], and one here for nineteen years altogether […] There was now and then a wretched Christian who renounced Christianity and embraced Mahometism»}}</ref>

In his book ''The Negro Christianized'' (1706), Mather insisted that slaveholders should treat their [[African Americans|black]] slaves humanely and instruct them in Christianity with a view to promoting their salvation.  Mather received black members of his congregation in his home and he paid a schoolteacher to instruct local black people in reading.{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=264}}  Mather consistently held that black Africans were "of one Blood" with the rest of mankind and that blacks and whites would meet as equals in [[Heaven]].  After a number of black people carried out arson attacks in Boston in 1723, Mather asked the outraged white Bostonians whether the black population had been "always treated according to the Rules of Humanity?  Are they treated as those, that are of one Blood with us, and those who have Immortal Souls in them, and are not mere Beasts of Burden?"{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=264}}

Mather advocated the Christianization of black slaves both on religious grounds and as tending to make them more patient and faithful servants of their masters.{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=264}}  In ''The Negro Christianized'', Mather argued against the opinion of [[Richard Baxter]] that a Christian could not enslave another [[Baptism|baptized]] Christian.<ref name="Koo">{{Cite journal|last=Koo|first=Kathryn|date=2007|title=Strangers in the House of God: Cotton Mather, Onesimus, and an Experiment in Christian Slaveholding |journal=Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society|volume=117|pages=143–175|url=https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44574368.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150729230909/http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44574368.pdf |archive-date=2015-07-29 |url-status=live|access-date=January 30, 2022}}</ref>  The African slave [[Onesimus (Bostonian)|Onesimus]], from whom Mather first learned about smallpox inoculation, had been purchased for him as a gift by his congregation in 1706.  Despite his efforts, Mather was unable to convert Onesimus to Christianity and finally [[Manumission|manumitted]] him in 1716.<ref name="Koo" />