When Cotton Mather published The Negro Christianized in 1706, his message went beyond a call to spiritual duty. It was also a calculated appeal to the interests of slaveholders. He argued that introducing Christianity to enslaved servants would not weaken the institution of slavery but strengthen it. By shaping them into more obedient, dependable, and compliant workers, Christianity, he suggested, would make slavery itself more secure.
Back during slavery, one of the greatest concerns for masters was control. The enslaved were not always “manageable” in the way slaveholders wished. Many resisted openly through rebellion, escape attempts, or sabotage. Others resisted in quieter ways—working slowly, breaking tools, or refusing to be broken in spirit. For those who lived off the labor of others, this constant resistance created fear. The slave system depended on obedience, but obedience was never guaranteed.
In response, masters looked for ways to tame the Africans they held in bondage. Some turned to brutal methods such as flogging, hoping to beat submission into the body. Others used starvation, withholding food as a weapon to crush stubbornness. Yet alongside these physical punishments, another method emerged, one less bloody but no less wicked: the use of religion.
Religion promised what the whip and the chain could not always achieve, control over the mind. If the enslaved could be made to believe that God commanded their obedience, then they might accept their bondage not just in body but in spirit. This idea became the foundation for works such as Cotton Mather’s The Negro Christianized (1706), which argued that Christian instruction would make servants more useful, more faithful, and more content.
Who Was Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather was one of the most influential Puritan ministers in colonial New England. Born in Boston, he came from a powerful family of clergymen and slave holders, his father, Increase Mather, was also a leading Puritan voice. Cotton Mather is remembered today for his prolific writings, his role in the Salem witch trials, and his attempts to shape colonial society through religion.
A deeply religious man, Mather wrote extensively on theology, historical, and scientific subjects. His sermons and essays often combined religious zeal with social instruction, urging colonists to live under God’s covenant. Yet, like many ministers of his day, he accepted slavery as part of the social fabric.
When he wrote The Negro Christianized in 1706, Mather was not calling for abolition. Instead, he was addressing New England masters who hesitated to expose their enslaved Africans to Christianity. His pamphlet was meant to reassure them that introducing Christianity to their servants would not threaten their property rights. On the contrary, he argued, it would make slavery easier to manage.
One of Mather’s strongest arguments was that Christianity would make enslaved Africans more productive workers. He believed that by internalizing biblical lessons of obedience, humility, and diligence, enslaved Africans would channel their labor more effectively. A servant who feared divine punishment for idleness, disobedience or dishonesty would, in Mather’s eyes, become a more reliable source of wealth for the plantation or household.
This was a calculated appeal to masters’ economic interests. By presenting religion as a way to increase utility, Mather transformed the Christian Gospel into a manual for labor discipline. A servant’s fear of God could become the master’s guarantee of harder work.
Mather also argued that Christian instruction would make servants more faithful and loyal. Colonial slaveholders, who lived in constant fear of rebellion, theft, and escape, were told that Christian instruction could calm these anxieties.
A slave taught biblical commandments such as “Thou shalt not steal” and “slave, obey your masters” was portrayed as less likely to challenge authority. Loyalty, in this framework, did not come from affection for the condition of slavery, but from fear of eternal judgment. For masters, catechism became a spiritual shield against disobedience, binding enslaved Africans not only by the law of men but also by the conscience of faith.
Another of Mather’s most unsettling arguments was that Christianity would make enslaved Africans more content with their bondage. Through sermons on patience in suffering, obedience to earthly authorities, and hope for eternal salvation, enslaved Africans could be encouraged to bear their burdens without complaint.
Mather leaned heavily on New Testament passages such as Ephesians 6:5–7 and Colossians 3:22–24, which direct servants to obey their earthly masters “with fear and trembling,” not merely to please men but as though serving Christ.
The logic was simple: if the enslaved accepted their condition as God’s will, they were less likely to resist. Faith became a psychological chain, soothing anger and suppressing rebellion. In this way, Christian instruction was not presented as liberation but as a spiritual anesthetic, numbing the pain of bondage while leaving the system intact.
Cotton Mather’s pamphlet was not the end of this line of reasoning. More than a century later, Charles Colcock Jones, a Presbyterian minister and slaveholder from Georgia, published the religious instruction of the Negroes in the United States (1842). His work echoed Mather’s themes but expanded them into a systematic plan for the American South.
Like Mather, Jones argued that Christianizing enslaved Africans would make them more obedient, loyal, and manageable. He insisted that teaching the enslaved the Gospel was not only a spiritual duty but also a practical safeguard for the slave system. Religion, he claimed, would make them accept their condition, labor diligently, and avoid rebellion.
Whereas Mather’s 1706 pamphlet addressed a colonial audience still debating whether to evangelize Africans, Jones’s 1842 book addressed a nation where slavery was deeply entrenched and under increasing moral attack. In this context, religious instruction became a way to defend the system against outside criticism while keeping the enslaved spiritually subdued within it.
Taken together, The Negro Christianized and The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States reveal a troubling continuity. Both works show how Christian theology was shaped into an instrument of control. By stressing usefulness, faithfulness, and contentment, ministers reassured masters that religion would not disrupt their authority, it would reinforce it.
The legacy of these works is one of deep contradiction. They declared that enslaved Africans had souls equal in worth to any other, yet they stopped short of calling for freedom. They used the Bible both to justify slavery and to promise liberation in the next world, while keeping bondage secure in this one.
Sources:
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/analysis-negro-christianized
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeaamericanstudies/5/
