George Whitefield Lobbies to Legalize Slavery in Georgia While Preaching Spiritual Equality

George Whitefield, the most famous preacher of the Great Awakening who drew enormous crowds of both Black and white listeners across the colonies, was simultaneously a slave owner and an active lobbyist to legalize slavery in Georgia. In 1747-1748, Whitefield wrote letters to Georgia's trustees arguing that the colony could not succeed economically without enslaved labor and pressing for the repeal of Georgia's ban on slavery. He purchased a plantation in South Carolina and owned enslaved workers. Whitefield's theology insisted on the spiritual equality of all people before God — he preached to enslaved Africans and free Black people, and his emotional, accessible style of worship resonated powerfully — while his economic behavior and political advocacy reinforced the slave system. His position exemplified the accommodation evangelical Protestantism made with slavery in the American South, providing a template for the religious defense of slavery that would dominate Southern churches for the next century.