¹ For the early abolitionist movement, see Paul J. Polgar, Standard-Bearers of Equality: America’s First Abolition Movement (Williamsburg, VA: Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019). For the impact of the Revolutionary War and American independence on abolitionist movements on both sides of the Atlantic, see Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Williamsburg, VA: Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

² See Donald M. Jacobs: “David Walker and William Lloyd Garrison: Racial Cooperation and the Shaping of Boston Abolition,” in Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston (ed. idem; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993) 1–20, at 6.

³ While the end of revolutionary abolition and the Atlantic slave trade led to a decline of abolitionist zeal in the US, it fueled the abolitionist fervor in the UK and especially contributed to the emergence of an international human rights regime; Jenny S. Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

⁴ Ben Wright interprets the discourse on slavery and abolition in the context of the emergence of national denominational organizations as a theological conflict about the primacy of purification or conversion. This is a helpful framework for understanding the developments delineated in this article. See Ben Wright, Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020).

⁵ For the understanding of Black abolitionism as opposed not only to slavery but also to White supremacy, see Beverly Eileen Mitchell: Black Abolitionism: A Quest for Human Dignity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005) 101–21.

⁶ See Richard S. Newman: The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002) 86–106.

⁷ See ibid., 86ff., 89ff. Joanna Brooks shows that the structure for this Black counterpublic already emerged at the end of the 18th cent.; see Joanna Brooks, “The Early American Public Sphere and the Emergence of a Black Print Counterpublic,” The William and Mary Quarterly 62 (2005) 67–92.

⁸ One classic and influential source for this argument is Anthony Benezet, Observations on the inslaving, importing and purchasing of Negroes with some advice thereon extracted form [sic] the Yearly Meeting epistle of London for the present year. Also some remarks on the absolute necessity of self-denial, renouncing the world, and true charity for all such as sincerely desire to be our blessed Saviour’s disciples (Germantown: Christopher Sower, 1759). See Brycchan Carey, From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657–1761 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).

⁹ Molly Oshatz, Slavery and Sin: The Fight against Slavery and the Rise of Liberal Protestantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

¹⁰ Ira Berlin: The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018) 107. See also Mitchell, Black Abolitionism, 123.

¹¹ For the current magnus consensus in Old Testament exegesis, see Rainer Kessler, Der Weg zum Leben. Ethik des Alten Testaments (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2017) 118–21.

¹² John Frederic Kilner, Dignity and Destiny: Humanity in the Image of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015).

¹³ See ibid., 17–37.

¹⁴ Kessler, Der Weg zum Leben, 120ff.

¹⁵ Kilner, Dignity and Destiny, 199–210.

¹⁶ See Kessler, Der Weg zum Leben, 93–102; Michael Haspel, Sozialethik in der globalen Gesellschaft. Grundlagen und Orientierung in protestantischer Perspektive (Ethik—Grundlagen und Handlungsfelder 5; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2011) 78–86. For a very condensed yet precise account of the exegetical insights, see Hendrik Bosman, “Humankind as Being Created in the ‘Image of God’ in the Old Testament: Possible Implications for the Theological Debate on Human Dignity,” Scriptura 105 (2010) 561–71.

¹⁷ Unfortunately, Dan McKanan’s book Identifying the Image of God: Radical Christians and Nonviolent Power in the Antebellum United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) is not helpful in this endeavor. He uses the metaphor as an umbrella term for all kinds of positive anthropological concepts of 19th-cent. liberal theology. In many cases where he talks of the image of God, it is not detectable in the referenced sources. In the whole book he actually indicates only twelve passages where imago Dei and its derivatives and synonyms occur. In addition, he seems not to be aware of the usage by Walker and other early Black abolitionists. However, at least five of the twelve examples are from African Americans.

¹⁸ David Walker, David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (Boston: D. Walker, 1829; 3rd repr. ed. 1830; repr., ed. Peter P. Hinks; 6th impr.; University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 2012). The 1st ed. was published in 1829, and by 1830 two more had followed. Quotations are from the 3rd ed., if not indicated otherwise. Page numbers are taken from the 6th impr. The exact date of publication is not known. Even though Walker’s Appeal is dated September 28, 1829, it is not exactly clear when it was first available to the public. Since the said date is Walker’s birthday, it might also have been an attribution and neither the date of production nor publication. In the Appeal, Walker cites a newspaper report from September 8, thus a publication in October is very likely, given the state of print technology available for an abolitionist pamphlet at this time.

¹⁹ Walker’s Appeal, 1, which reproduces the cover of the 3rd ed.

²⁰ Corey Walker convincingly argues that African American Freemasons developed a supranational concept of citizenship. This is exactly what David Walker is drawing on with the full title of the Appeal. See Corey D. B. Walker, “Nation and Oration: The Political Language of African American Freemasonry in the Early Republic,” in All Men Free and Brethren: Essays on the History of African American Freemasonry (ed. Peter P. Hinks and Stephen Kantrowitz; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013) 84–95. See also Melvin L. Rogers, “David Walker and the Political Power of the Appeal,” Political Theory 43 (2015) 208–33, who seems not to be aware of this Masonic concept. For the international dimension of Black abolitionism, see Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (New Haven: Yale University, 2016) 339–47.

²¹ Katherine Gerbner argues convincingly that what Walker evaluates as hypocrisy actually is a systematic concept from the perspective of the White Christians enslaving Black people. Originally, the difference between Christians and non-Christians functions as justification for enslavement and, in turn, conversions were rejected. In the wake of missionary activities and revivalist Evangelicalism, the ideology had to be adjusted. Thus, theories of “Christian slavery” as justifications for enslaving converted enslaved Black people were developed. “Race” instead of religion became the defining feature, and attempts were made to justify slavery on biblical grounds. Thus, the ideology of Christian/Protestant supremacy preceded the concept of White supremacy. See Katharine Gerbner, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).

²² That the Appeal is composed with a rhetorical strategy is emphasized also by Rogers. However, his reflections on the form of an appeal do not seem to me to be equally helpful (Rogers, “David Walker,” 210, 215–21).

²³ See Norbert Finzsch, “David Walker and the Fight against Slavery,” Zetesis 13 (2014) 1–21; Makungu M. Akinyela, “Battling the Serpent: Nat Turner, Africanized Christianity, and a Black Ethos,” JBS 33 (2003) 255–80.

²⁴ In my understanding, in Walker’s Appeal, “men” can denote “males” as well as “human beings” in a generic sense. In this case and context, I would translate it as “human beings.” On other occasions, especially in the context of the concept of “manhood,” the meaning of maleness is important. Cf. James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, “The Affirmation of Manhood: Black Garrisonians in Antebellum Boston,” in Courage and Conscience (ed. Jacobs), 127–53, at 133–38.

²⁵ For Walker’s sources of his historical accounts throughout the Appeal, see Peter P. Hinks, To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren: David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997) 181–93. Cf. Rufus Burrow, Jr., God and Human Responsibility: David Walker and Ethical Prophecy (Voices of the African Diaspora; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2003) 75–128.

²⁶ In this context with the reference to “other people,” it seems clear that “men” here denotes “human beings.” The importance of Walker’s claim of equal humanness is even evident in his typography; see Marcy J. Dinius, “Look!! Look!!! at This!!!!”: The Radical Typography of David Walker’s Appeal,” PMLA 126 (2011) 55–72.

²⁷ Here and throughout the Appeal, it is obvious that, for Walker, the separation of conversion from purification is obsolete. In his Arminian perspective, purification is necessarily interwoven with salvation. He explicitly rejects the conversionist project for Africa (39). In the words of William L. Andrews: “At best, conversion sacralizes the slave’s yoke”; William L. Andrews, “Daniel Coker, David Walker, and the Politics of Dialogue with Whites in Early Nineteenth-Century African American Literature,” in African American Literature in Transition, 1800–1830 (ed. Jasmine Nichole Cobb; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2021) 44–70, at 63. See Wright, Bonds of Salvation, 135–37.

²⁸ See Ava Chamberlain, “The Theology of Cruelty: A New Look at the Rise of Arminianism in Eighteenth-Century New England,” HTR 85 (1992) 335–56; Roger Anstey, “Slavery and The Protestant Ethic,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 6 (1979) 157–72; Anne C. Loveland, “Evangelicalism and ‘Immediate Emancipation’ in American Antislavery Thought,” The Journal of Southern History 32 (1966) 172–88. It is striking that in these accounts no attention is paid to contributions by Blacks themselves to the cause of abolition. See also Mitchell, Black Abolitionism, 128–30.

²⁹ Though Walker’s account is historically not totally accurate, his argument is still convincing. See Walker’s Appeal, 51 ed. n., 119–20.

³⁰ Also, Walker’s claim that Judaism is a proselyting religion is not accurate (39).

³¹ This is one of the passages where it is most obvious that the style of the Appeal strongly resembles Black preaching culture. See Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 193–95.

³² This conviction seems to explain why Walker addresses his Appeal to the “coloured citizens of the world.” As we will see shortly, he assumes that all human beings have human rights, which entitle them to citizenship and civil rights. See Rogers, “David Walker,” 208–33.

³³ It is interesting to note that Walker attributes the danger of the erasure of the image to the impact of enslavement and not, as in orthodox Protestantism, to original sin.

³⁴ Thomas Poole identifies the same passage as central for Walker, though without addressing the imago Dei concept; see Thomas G. Poole, “What Country Have I? Nineteenth-Century African-American Theological Critiques of the Nation’s Birth and Destiny,” JR 72 (1992) 533–48, at 537. Also, Hinks (Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 215) quotes this passage without addressing the theological significance. Likewise, Beverly Mitchell cites exactly this passage without paying attention to the imago Dei concept (Black Abolitionism, 61).

³⁵ It is most significant that Walker does not use the term “sin” once, given that this, along with the Golden Rule, was the theological locus classicus in the abolitionist discourse of the time. Walker mentions the Golden Rule, I assume, because it presupposes reciprocity. It is interesting to note that, for Maria W. Stewart, who was close to Walker and heavily draws on his argumentation in her own oratory and writing, sin was a central theological theme. Notwithstanding, Hinks, in his groundbreaking book on Walker and the Appeal, seems to suggest that Walker uses the concept of sin, which is, as we have just stated, not accurate. Where Hinks uses “sin” —with regard to the wrongdoing of Whites—one would actually expect Walker to employ it, but he does not. See Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 226. Hinks also uses the concept “children of God” to describe Walker’s position (225). Here again, Walker does not use this term once in the Appeal.

³⁶ Walker’s Appeal, annotation, added in the 2nd ed. See “Editor’s Note: The Three Editions of the Appeal,” in Walkers’s Appeal, xlvii. Here again, it is obvious that “man” comprises male and female (“sons and daughters”). Even though this is his only explicit employment of the term “dignity” in the appeal, it is connoted in Walker’s concept of “being men” as humanness.

³⁷ Although, the phrase “image of God” is frequently used by William Ellery Channing, he does so in a strictly perfectionist and not an egalitarian sense (as in the second usage introduced above). See, inter alia, William Ellery Channing, “A Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. Frederick A. Farley (‘Likeness to God’),” in American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr. (ed. Michael Warner; New York: Library of America, 1999) 551–71. Even in his abolitionist writings, Channing purports racist and White supremacist positions; see Channing, Slavery (Boston: James Munroe, 1835). The same applies to Jonathan Edwards, who even supported slavery and was a slave owner.

³⁸ As always, we cannot know if the concept of imago Dei was used in oratory or even in print of which we do not have knowledge. In spite of extensive research for this project, I am far from claiming that I checked all possible sources. I found one interesting parallel to Walker. The Scottish abolitionist theologian Andrew Mitchell Thomson uses the concept of imago Dei once, also in 1829, to ground the universal equality of all human beings (Andrew M. Thomson, Slavery, Not Sanctioned, but Condemned, by Christianity [England, 1829] 8). Since we did not find any reference to Thomson either in Freedom’s Journal or in The Genius of Universal Emancipation, it seems very unlikely that Walker was aware of this text. It is, rather, proof that British and American abolitionism radicalized in the same period. I found two texts in which the concept of imago Dei is employed against slavery, but not connected with the claim for equal rights and immediate emancipation (model 4): see David Rice, Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy (Philadelphia: Parry Hall, 1792). Though there were at least two more editions, it seems that this aspect of his argument was not perceived in the debates following 1807; John Caldwell, “Address: Of the Committee Appointed by the Tenth Annual Convention of the Manumission Society of Tennessee, to the Different Judicatures of the Church of Christ,” The Genius of Universal Emancipation V/5, (Whole No. 48), February 1825, 73–76, at 75, https://archive.org/details/geniusofuniversa48balt/page/n1/mode/2up.

³⁹ See Burrow, God and Human Responsibility, 120–28. Burrow emphasizes the significance of Walker’s usage of the image of God. Yet, he seems to interpolate more of his own concept of personhood and imago Dei into Walker than can be found in the Appeal. Nevertheless, Burrow’s emphasis on the importance of the imago Dei concept in the Appeal is totally in line with my analysis and argumentation.

⁴⁰ See Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 196–99.

⁴¹ See ibid., 173–95.

⁴² See also Walker’s Appeal, 73: “Treat us then like men, and we will be your friends.”

⁴³ Thus, I agree with Peter Hinks, that the tendency to Black nationalism in Walker is overemphasized; Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 249. See also Kristin Waters, who labels Walker’s (and Maria Stewart’s) position “Black Revolutionary Liberalism”; Kristin Waters, “Crying Out for Liberty: Maria W. Stewart and David Walker’s Black Revolutionary Liberalism,” Philosophia Africana 15 (2013) 35–60, at 36.

⁴⁴ See Andrews, “Daniel Coker,” 56–61.

⁴⁵ Rogers, “David Walker,” 226. However, Rogers seems to perceive a tension between the form of the Jeremiad and political deliberation, which I would not necessarily agree with. There are some similarities to Martin Luther King’s applications of the form of Jeremiad. Cf. David Howard-Pitney, The African American Jeremiad: Appeals for Justice in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990; rev. and exp. ed., 2005). For Walker, see also Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 193–95; Finzsch, “David Walker,” 11.

⁴⁶ For the tradition of biblical justification of Black resistance, see Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 47–50. Both the emotionalism and the biblical language are even more striking if one compares the Appeal with the address Walker delivered to the Massachusetts General Colored Association in 1828. Though the content of his argumentation is nearly identical, the language and rhetoric are quite different (“David Walker Addresses the Massachusetts General Colored Association 1828,” in Walker’s Appeal, 85–89).

⁴⁷ Even though Walker draws on arguments and insights that were circulated in the Black abolitionist discourse in the 1820s, a comparison with the Ethiopian Manifesto, which was published the same year, shows the uniqueness of Walker’s work; Robert Alexander Young, “Ethiopian Manifesto,” in Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African-American Protest Literature, 1790–1860 (ed. Richard Newman et al.; New York: Routledge, 2001) 85–89.

⁴⁸ Maria W. Stewart, “Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality. The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build. Productions From the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Steward [sic], Widow of the Late James W. Steward [sic],” in Early Negro Writing 1760–1837 (ed. Dorothy Porter; Boston: Beacon, 1971) 460–71, at 461. See also Maria W. Stewart, “Meditations, Mediation X, Prayer,” in Spiritual Narratives (ed. Sue E. Houchins; New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) 23–63, at 42, where she uses the term but not with an egalitarian meaning. Kristin Waters explicitly recognizes the use of the concept of imago Dei, yet seems unaware of its significance; Waters, “Crying Out for Liberty,” 42.

⁴⁹ The wording indicates that Stewart refers to the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution of the United States. See Waters, “Crying Out for Liberty,” 42.

⁵⁰ See Maria W. Stewart, “Religion and the Pure Principle of Morality,” in Maria W. Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer; Essays and Speeches (ed. Marilyn Richardson; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987) 28–42.

⁵¹ See Marilyn Richardson, “ ‘What If I am a Woman?’ Maria W. Stewart’s Defense of Black Women’s Political Activism,” in Courage and Conscience (ed. Jacobs), 191–206. How the usage of the concept of the image of God impacted her stand for women’s rights would have to be studied in more detail. See Waters, “Crying Out for Liberty,” 42. For the intersection of “race,” class, and gender as a challenge for Black women abolitionists, see Shirley J. Yee, Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828–1860 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992; repr. 1993) 1–11. For the history of the conflict about women’s role in the abolitionist movement and the emerging women’s rights movement, see Sinha, The Slave’s Cause, 266–98.

⁵² William Lloyd Garrison, “Garrison’s First Anti-slavery Address in Boston: Address at Park Street Church, Boston, July 4, 1829, in Old South Leaflets 180 (Boston: Directors of the Old South Work, 1907) 1–12/77–88. Interestingly enough, Garrison dates the Park Street address in his Thoughts on African Colonization to 1828! Since the book appeared in 1832, it seems rather unlikely that he was not able to remember it correctly. See William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization (Boston: Garrison and Knapp, 1832) 3.

⁵³ For Garrison’s gradualist and colonization views at this time, see Hinks’s introduction to Walker’s Appeal, xliii; Jacobs, “David Walker,” 9. Though Mayer convincingly states in his biography of Garrison that Garrison based his quest for abolition on equal rights, Garrison seems to downplay his support for gradualism and colonization in this address. Cf. Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998; repr. New York: Norton, 2008) 60–68. Page numbers from the reprinted edition. Manisha Sinha emphatically calls Garrison’s address an “abolitionist jeremiad,” but confirms that his principled rejection of colonization had still to be developed (Sinha, The Slave’s Cause, 215).

⁵⁴ See also Garrison, “Garrison’s First Anti-slavery Address,” 9/85.

⁵⁵ Elisabeth Heyrick’s pamphlet Immediate, Not Gradual Abolition, originally from 1824 and reprinted several times, influenced Garrison. He adopted the term “immediatism” from her. See Mayer, All on Fire, 70; Sinha, The Slave’s Cause, 179–82.

⁵⁶ The Liberator 1.2 (8 January 1831) 6. Newman suggests that Garrison read Walker’s Appeal in 1830 when he returned to Boston (Transformation of American Abolitionism, 114). I find it most unlikely that someone like Garrison did not have access to the Appeal immediately after its first publication. Yet Jacobs reports that Garrison read the Appeal in Baltimore in 1830 before returning to Boston (Jacobs, “David Walker,” 14).

⁵⁷ See, inter alia, Jacobs, “David Walker,” 13–17.

⁵⁸ William Lloyd Garrison, An address, delivered before the free people of color, in Philadelphia, New-York, and other cities, during the month of June, 1831 (Boston: Stephen Foster, 1831; 2nd repr. 1831) 5. Cf. Mayer, All on Fire, 116f.

⁵⁹ See Mayer, All on Fire, 141.

⁶⁰ For the somewhat different concepts of and motivation for emigration/colonization, see Marie Tyler-McGraw, An African Republic: Black & White Virginians in the Making of Liberia (John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), and Wright, Bonds of Salvation, 86–171.

⁶¹ However, Garrison does not include the concept of imago Dei in the Declaration and Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS, 1833), which he drafted. Interestingly enough, the Declaration and Sentiments states: “Our fathers were never slaves,” alluding to the American Revolution against perceived British oppression. Yet, several African Americans were present, whose forbearers and some themselves endured enslavement. In addition, it is especially surprising, since Garrison’s maternal grandparents came as indentured servants to America. See Mayer, All on Fire, 3, 173–77.

⁶² “To the People of Color,” The Liberator 1.7 (12 February 1831) 25–28, at 25.

⁶³ Opinions of a Freeman of Colour in Charleston, 1832, in Early Negro Writing (ed. Porter), 303–7, at 305.

⁶⁴ George Thompson, “The Substance of a Speech, 13.08.1832,” in Lectures of George Thompson (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1836) 37–73, at 73; idem, “The Substance of a Lecture, 20.09.1832,” in Lectures, 153–72, at 162.

⁶⁵ Sarah M. Grimké, An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States (New York, 1836).

⁶⁶ Angelina E. Grimké, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1836) 3, 25.

⁶⁷ Alexander Crummell, “Rising with Christ,” in idem, The Greatness of Christ and Other Sermons (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1882) 71–85, at 73, 84–85.

⁶⁸ “Proceedings of a General Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, 15.05.1830,” The Anti-Slavery Reporter 3.13 (June 1830) 243; “Declaration of Sentiments,” in Proceedings of the Ohio Anti-slavery Convention: Held at Putnam, on the Twenty-Second, Twenty-Third, and Twenty-Fourth of April, 1835 (Ohio: Meaumont and Wallace, 1835) 5–8, at 6; “Declaration of Sentiments of the State Anti-Slavery Convention at Utica,” Proceedings of the New York Anti-Slavery Convention, Held at Utica, October 21, and New York Anti-Slavery State Society, Held at Peterboro, October 22, 1835 (Utica, NY, 1835) 11–13, at 11; Fourth Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society (New York: William S. Dorr, 1837) at 11, 43.

⁶⁹ Between just 1847 and 1859, there are at least 16 occurrences in his printed works. See Daniel A. Morris, “Liberated from the Liberator: Frederick Douglass and Garrisonian Political Theology,” Political Theology 18 (2017) 423–40.

⁷⁰ Though theologians like Gregory of Nyssa already argued in the 4th cent. that enslavement was against the will of God, since all human beings are created in the image of God, this position did not prevail in church history. See Gregory of Nyssa, “4th Homily,” in Homilies on Ecclesiastes (ed. Stuart G. Hall; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993) 72–84.

⁷¹ Hinks mentions several publications preceding Walker, in which themes and topics were addressed that also are part of the Appeal. Yet, in most of them the concept of imago Dei is not employed. See Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 173–92.

⁷² Richard Allen, The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen. To Which Is Annexed the Rise and Progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Containing a Narrative of the Yellow Fever in the Year of Our Lord 1793: With an Address to the People of Colour in the United States (Philadelphia: Martin & Boden, 1833). In addition, Richard Newman does not refer to either of the concepts in his currently authoritative study on Allen: Richard S. Newman, Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers (New York: New York University Press, 2008). Since Allen is the most influential Black theologian of his time, one could conclude that the concept was not common for the foundation of dignity and equality before 1830.

⁷³ See, inter alia, Hinks, Awaken My Afflicted Brethren, 22–62.

⁷⁴ The analogical interpretation of Exodus is already present in the early sermons of African American clergy. Absalom Jones draws on this motif in his 1808 Thanksgiving sermon on the occasion of the end of the transatlantic slave trade (Absalom Jones, “A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached January 1, 1808, in St. Thomas’s or the African Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, on Account of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade, on that Day, by the Congress of the United States,” in Early Negro Writing [ed. Proctor], 335–42).

⁷⁵ Since Denmark Vesey did not leave any written account, the reconstruction of his theological argumentation is dependent on secondary sources. See Jeremy Schipper, Denmark Vesey’s Bible (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022). For the respective documents, see The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History (ed. Douglas R. Egerton and Robert L. Paquette; Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2017).

⁷⁶ Prince Hall, “A Charge Delivered to the Brethren of the African Lodge, 1792,” in Early Negro Writing (ed. Proctor), 63–69, at 64. One of the earliest usages of the concept of imago Dei in the context of (Black) abolitionism actually occurs in a text of Jupiter Hammon, which was written in 1786 and published in 1787. However, Hammon interprets the image of God in traditional theological terms. The emphasis is on the assertion that the imago Dei was lost because of the “fall,” the original sin attributed to Adam and Eve (Jupiter Hammon, “An Address to the Negroes, 1787,” in Early Negro Writing [ed. Proctor], 313–23, at 320).

⁷⁷ See Prince Hall, “A Charge Delivered to the African Lodge, 1797,” in Early Negro Writing (ed. Proctor), 70–78, at 70. Corey Walker cites this passage, but does not pay attention to the imago Dei concept; Walker, “Nation and Oration,” 84–95, at 87.

⁷⁸ See Peter P. Hinks and Stephen Kantrowitz, “Introduction: The Revolution in Freemasonry,” in All Men Free (ed. Hinks and Kantrowitz), 1–20, at 2.

⁷⁹ Thus, his usage would fit model 4. There is also no evidence that the imago Dei concept was used in the petitions of Black activists, including Hall, in this period. Christopher Cameron, To Plead Our Own Cause: African Americans in Massachusetts and the Making of the Antislavery Movement (American Abolitionism and Antislavery; Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014) 50–69. Cameron emphasizes the impact of Hall’s texts on the emerging Black public and Walker, in particular; see 91, 119.

⁸⁰ Hinks and Kantrowitz assume that Prince Hall, in these orations, was influenced by the Rev. John Marrant. Cf. Hinks and Kantrowitz, “The Revolution in Freemasonry,” 4; Peter P. Hinks, “John Marrant and the Meaning of Early Black Freemasonry,” The William and Mary Quarterly 64 (2007) 105–16. There is, however, no indication that Marrant used the concept of imago Dei on this or other occasions. See John Marrant, A sermon preached on the 24th day of June 1789, being the festival of St. John the Baptist, at the request of the Right Worshipful the Grand Master Prince Hall, and the rest of the brethren of the African Lodge of the Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons in Boston. By the Reverend Brother Marrant, Chaplain (Boston: Thomas and John Fleet, 1789). See further, John Saillant, “ ‘Wipe away All Tears from Their Eyes’: John Marrant’s Theology in the Black Atlantic, 1785–1808,” Journal of Millennial Studies 1 (1999), http://www.mille.org/publications/winter98/saillant.PDF, above n. 12. Christine Levecq assumes that in fact Hall helped Marrant write his sermon; see Christine Levecq, Slavery and Sentiment: The Politics of Feeling in Black Atlantic Antislavery Writing 1770–1850 (Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2008) 165. Probably, Hall (and Marrant) used The Constitution, History, Laws, Charges, Orders, Regulations, and Usages of the Right Worshipful Fraternity of Accepted Free-Masons (ed. James Anderson; London, 1723; repr., ed. Benjamin Franklin; Philadelphia, 1734), especially for the history of Masonry. There is one occurrence of the image of God (ibid., 7), which, however, is not used in an egalitarian sense.

⁸¹ Later, Black abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass opposed Freemasonry. See Hinks and Kantrowitz, “The Revolution in Freemasonry,” 11.

⁸² John Telemachus Hilton, Address Delivered Before the African Grand Lodge, Boston, No. 459, June 24, 1828 (Boston: David Hooton, 1828) 14. Cf. Peter P. Hinks, “To Commence a New Era in the Moral World: John Telemachus Hilton, Abolitionism, and the Expansion of Black Freemasonry, 1784–1860,” in All Men Free (ed. Hinks and Kantrowitz), 40–62, at 41.

⁸³ The Liberator, 25 March 1864; quoted in Hinks, “Commence a New Era,” 57.

⁸⁴ See Hinks, “Commence a New Era,” 50.

⁸⁵ The emerging racist literature, arguing that people of African descent would not resemble the image of God and thus were supposedly inferior, seems to confirm the importance of the imago Dei concept in founding equality. See H. Shelton Smith, In His Image, but … : Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1972). It was, ironically, Channing’s book on slavery from 1835 that did not endorse immediate and full emancipation, which triggered the critique of the usage of image of God (137–43). This seems to be a clear reaction to the growing importance of the concept. In addition, in the context of the reception of so-called scientific racism, the egalitarian understanding of imago Dei was criticized (152–66). These racist arguments, however, did not end with slavery. See Charles Carroll, “The Negro a Beast” or “In the Image of God” (St. Louis: American Book and Bible House, 1900).

⁸⁶ It is also applicable to gender. See the commentary above on Maria W. Stewart.