After seeing the difficulties that slaves in the US were going through, and the changing circumstances, the need to end slavery in the America was inevitable. Consequently, Thomas Jefferson, the third US president and one of the opponents of slavery, championed the emancipation of slaves. However, emancipation process, according to Jefferson, was going to face a number of difficulties mainly due to the difference between whites and black slaves. Richard Allen was also one of the most influential Black American leaders who started first African Methodist church (“National Humanities Center”, 2007). He went through a lot of experience before finally establishing the church. The paper, therefore, compares Allen’s experience Jefferson’s conclusion about the difficulties of emancipation.
Based on Jefferson’s conclusion, there were three main difficulties of emancipation. First, there was rooted prejudice against blacks slaves by the whites (Forbes, 2012). Secondly, black slaves held a lot of resentment against whites due to the mistreatments that they were going through in the hands of their masters. The third difficulty was the natural difference between blacks and whites. There were a lot of similarities on the difficulties of emancipation and Allen’s experience. Just like Jefferson’s conclusion, Allen and his company faced a lot of prejudice from whites when they were trying to establish the church. For instance, they were degraded and insulted by Rev. Mr. W, a white preacher who opposed the establishment of the African church in the US. In addition, they were looked down upon by black Methodist preachers who favored their white counterparts in the church while disrespecting the black audience. Similar to what Jefferson concluded white preachers believed that blacks were inferior. White preachers could easily condemn black people who were attending the Methodist church while ignoring the mistakes done by white attendees.
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However, contrary to what Jefferson concluded, some of the whites respected black slaves. White people like Dr. Rush and Mr. Robert sympathized with Allen’s challenges and helped him build the church. At the same time, Allen and his brother never showed any resentment towards their master, as they diligently worked for him to accomplish the assigned task, especially after he gave them some freedom of movement and attending religious meetings. Therefore, Jefferson’s conclusion on difficulties of emancipation was partially true.
Allen would have been delighted by Jefferson’s stand on slavery, as the latter believed that slavery was against the law of nature that ensures that every human being has the right to personal liberty. Jefferson advocated for humane treatment of slaves by providing them with food, clothes, protection, and conducive working environment. He also fought for the emancipation of slavery. Therefore, Allen could have supported Jefferson argument of slavery. Nevertheless, he could have rebuked Jefferson’s assertion that whites were superior to blacks because Allen believed in the equality of all races. According to Jefferson, there was the natural difference between whites and black races, and the former had more superior qualities than the latter (Forbes, 2012). Hence, Allen could have responded positively to Jefferson’s argument on slavery, but negatively on race.
In conclusion, ending slavery was not an easy task because the act was supported by ideology and stereotypes. The whites such as Jefferson believed that black was inferior and could not live peacefully with their white counterparts. However, black slaves like Allen and some of the white people were consistent in fighting for their freedom, which led to the end of slavery and freedom of non-whites in the US.
References
Forbes, R. P. (2012). Secular Damnation: Thomas Jefferson and the Imperative of Race. Torrington Articles . 3. http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/torr_articles/3
National Humanities Center. (2007). The Origins of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Richard Allen, The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, 1833_Excerpts. Retrieved from http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/community/text3/allenmethodism.pdf
