Calvinism, Proslavery and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw

Abstract

In the autobiography of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, the first black author to be published in Britain, slavery was represented at best neutrally and at worst as spiritually and socially beneficial. Re-reading Gronniosaw's Narrative in the context of the Calvinist and Dutch Reformed confessional networks facilitating its composition and publication enables us to understand how and why a former slave would produce a text apparently advocating proslavery ideology. Gronniosaw's case demonstrates that black intellectuals, far from being solely concerned with abolitionism, participated in a broad array of political, religious and social movements during the eighteenth century, occasionally even those that supported slavery.