Church of England Missionaries Debate Baptizing Enslaved People (1680s)

Church of England missionaries in the American colonies debated in the 1680s–1690s whether enslaved people should be baptized and what religious instruction they should receive. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (founded 1701) would later attempt systematic missionary work among the enslaved. In the earlier period, most slaveholders resisted baptism and religious instruction, fearing it might imply freedom or make enslaved people less compliant. The debate illustrated how religion became a contested terrain between slaveholders seeking total control and missionaries with complex, often paternalistic motivations.