Biblical References Used to Justify Slavery

Genesis 4.1-15

“Cain slew his brother Abel and was “marked” by God for doing so.  This mark has sometimes been taken to be the origin of dark-skinned peoples.”  (NAAL, p. 810, ftnt. 2)

Genesis 9.25

“Ham, the second son of Noah and the father of Cush as well as of Canaan, of the latter whom Noah in Genesis 9.25 says, ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.’  Apologists for slavery often insisted that Ham was the ancestor of the African peoples.”  (NAAL, p. 388, ftnt. 9)

Read also:

Samuel Sewall’s “The Selling of Joseph” -- opposes slavery

John Woolman’s “Journal” and “Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes” -- opposes slavery

James Grainger’s “The Sugar Cane: A Poem, in Four Books, Book IV” -- for other arguments used to justify slavery

Moses Bon Saam

Philip Freneau’s “To Sir Toby"

Sarah Wentworth Morton’s “The African Chief"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Slave’s Dream"