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North Carolina Office of Archives and History
The Bonds of Wickedness: American Evangelicals against Slavery, 1770-1808 by James D. EssigReview by: Gerald J. GoodwinThe North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 60, No. 4 (October 1983), pp. 518-519Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23520734 .
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518 Book Reviews
England's efforts to tighten its control of the American plantations and to pave the way for the expanding influence of colonial assemblies in the decades ahead.
English America and the Revolution of 1688 is an important and iconoclastic
interpretation of America's first critical period. Unfortunately, the author's wooden style, a mechanical organization that yields annoying repetition, and careless proofreading may discourage readers from giving the volume the critical attention it deserves.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill John K. Nelson
The Bonds of Wickedness: American Evangelicals against Slavery, 1770-1808. By James
D. Essig. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982. Preface, notes, index. Pp. xiv, 208. $24.95.)
This study supplements the work of David Brion Davis and others on the re
lationship between Protestant evangelicalism and antislavery. It does so by fill
ing in a neglected chapter in the history of evangelical antislavery from 1770 to the end of American participation in the foreign slave trade. It asks: Why did
antislavery become a central concern of American evangelicals after 1770, and
why did it cease to concern most of them by 1808? The author suggests that the decisive consideration in the rise and decline of
evangelical antislavery was the interaction between evangelical spirituality and its social setting. Evangelical religion, he points out, encouraged converts to re
ject worldly vanities, to cultivate simplicity and humility, to express piety with
open sentiment, and to act benevolently toward others. Antislavery conviction welled up out of the evangelical experience under the stimulus of special social circumstances. Southern evangelicals, themselves the victims of religious op pression by the slave-owning gentry, came to see slaveholding as a sign of proud worldliness and the slave as another victim of abusive authority. Increasing numbers of evangelicals decided in the 1770s that slavery represented yet an other colonial sin and then in the 1780s that slavery threatened the Christian re
public. If primitive Christian simplicity was to be restored, slavery had to be eliminated. The author strengthens his case by arguing that Connecticut's
evangelical Congregationalists, who functioned in a supportive environment as a favored religious group, developed a different kind of antislavery ideology than did southern evangelicals.
After achieving some modest successes within and without the churches, evangelical antislavery lost its momentum. In the 1790s southern evangelicals, no longer religious outcasts, were establishing denominations and securing re
spectability. A minority demanded that antislavery thought be made an ex
plicit part of the Christian testimony. But the evangelical majority disagreed, defined slavery as a political problem, and relied on foreign and domestic mis sions to evangelize blacks. Success and social acceptance by 1808 meant that
evangelicals shared responsibility for justifying the social system. Distinguished by vigorous prose, coherent explanations, and an inter
denominational perspective, this is a stimulating and enjoyable book. It ex pands historians' knowledge of the connections between evangelical religion and
THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW
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Book Reviews 519
antislavery dogma. And its insights and conclusions suggest fresh ways of look
ing at the social consequences of religious phenomena in other periods.
University of Houston Gerald J. Goodwin
The Continental Army. By Robert K. Wright, Jr. (Washington: Center of Military
History, United States Army, 1983. Frontispiece, foreword, preface, bibliography,
tables, charts, maps, illustrations, glossary, index. Pp. xvii, 451. Paper, $15.00.)
Robert K. Wright's The Continental Army is primarily a reference work that
will be of particular interest to genealogists and military historians. Wright has
organized his study into two nearly equal parts. The first is a detailed narrative
of the organization and deployment of the Continental Army's regimental units.
Attributing the origins of the Continental Army's organizational patterns to the
colonial military—a mixture of local militia and provincial volunteers—Wright
proceeds to demonstrate how under the control of the Continental Congress the
army was transformed by 1779 into a unified, national force. Central to the
transformation of the Continental Army was Congress's reliance on European
professional soldiers and on European military doctrine in reforming the organi zation of support troops. In particular, the army benefited from the services of
the skilled French engineer Louis le Bègue de Presle Duportail, the Polish mili
tary engineer Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and especially the Prussian veteran
"Baron" Friedrich von Steuben, whose simplified set of drill procedures and
uniform drill manual were instrumental in professionalizing Continental
soldiers. On the whole, Wright's theme is a familiar and narrow one that is
marred by what may be called organizational determinism. Wright too often at
tributes victories in the field and successful retreats to changes in military or
ganization without taking into account all the other factors—strategy, leader
ship, esprit de corps, experience, weather, terrain, and luck—that invariably
shape the outcome of battles and wars.
The second part of Wright's study contains lineages of every permanent unit
of the Continental Army—177 in all—grouped into eighteen sections (by state
regiment and then by function). Each of these sections includes an outline map
showing county boundaries as of July 4, 1776, a selected bibliography, and a list
of the engagements in which the units fought. By identifying regiments that
served outside their home regions, this part of the study will be extremely valuable to future researchers who are interested in the extent to which the
Revolutionary War was a nationalizing experience. An excellent bibliography and several useful appendixes complete the volume.
The United States Army's Center of Military History is to be commended for
publishing such a handsomely illustrated, scholarly work, documented with ex
tensive notes at the bottom of the page where they belong. Copies of The Con
tinental Army can be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Gov
ernment Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 20402.
Princeton University
E. Wayne Carp
VOLUME LX. NUMBER 4, OCTOBER, 1983
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