On Cugoano on Hume on Race, and the Protestant Work Ethic

But as a hindrance to this, the many Anti-christian errors which are gone abroad into the world, and all the popish superstition and nonsense, and the various assimilations unto it, with the false philosophy which abounds among Christians, seems to threaten with an universal deluge; but God hath promised to fill the world with a knowledge of himself, and he hath set up his bow, in the rational heavens, as well as in the clouds, as a token that he will stop the proud ways of error and delusion, that hitherto they may come, and no farther. The holy arch of truth is to be seen in the azure paths of the pious and wise, and conspicuously painted in crimson over the martyrs tombs. These, with the golden altars of truth, built up by the reformed churches, and many pious, good and righteous men, are bulwarks that will ever stand against all the forts of error. Teaching would be exceeding necessary to the pagan nations and ignorant people in every place and situation; but they do not need any unscriptural forms and ceremonies to be taught unto them; they can devise superstitions enough among them|selves, and church government too, if ever they need any.

And hence we would agree in this one thing with that erroneous philosopher, who has lately wrote An Apology for Negro Slavery,

But if the slave is only to be made acquainted with the form, without the substance; if he is only to be decked out with the external trappings of religion; if he is only to be taught the uncheering principles of gloomy superstition; or, if he is only to be inspired with the intemperate frenzy of enthusiastic fanaticism, it were better that he remained in that dark state, where he could not see good from ill.

But these words temperate, frenzy, enthusiastic, and fanaticism may be variously applied, and often wrongfully; but, perhaps never better, or more fitly, than to be ascribed as the genuine character of this author's brutish philosophy; and he may subscribe it, and the meaning of these words, with as much affinity to himself, as he bears a relation to a Hume, or to his friend Tobin. The poor negroes in the West-Indies, have suffered enough by such religion as the philosophers of the North produce; Protestants, as they are called, are the most barbarous slave-holders, and there are none can equal the Scotch floggers and negroe-drivers, and the barbarous Dutch cruelties. Perhaps as the church of Rome begins to sink in its power, its followers may encrease in virtue and humanity; so that many, who are the professed adherents thereof, would even blush and abhor the very mention of the cruelty and bloody deeds that their ancestors have committed; and we find slavery itself more tolerable among them, than it is in the Protestant countries.--Ottobah Cugoano (1787), Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and wicked traffic of the slavery: and commerce of the human species, humbly submitted to the inhabitants of Great-Britain, 144-146. [HT Chike Jeffer's "Rights, Race, and the Beginnings of Modern Africana Philosophy"]

In the context of the quoted passage (which is close to the culmination of his argument), Cugoano (recall) is very clear that philosophers writing at the center of maritime power are co-responsible in creating the conditions of the horrors of slavery. What they call 'philosophy' is really "brutish" and de facto an ideology of exploitation and imperialism. I use 'ideology' to capture Cugoano's use of 'religion' in order to avoid confusion. For most of Cugoano's arguments in the book convey the idea that the possible (and providential) spread of true religion is just  about only valuable thing to come out of slavery which is a part and parcel of a (false and) anti-christian religion (characterized by frenzy/enthusiasm/fanaticism and inhumanity). 

The reference to Hume caught my attention. Hume is, of course, a great critic of enthusiasm and fanaticism in religion. I am familiar with Hume's racist (and even anti-semitic) writings (recall here, and here). Even so, I was unsure how to take the sentence in which he figures because I did not understand the "relation" between Hume and the passage quoted from Gordon Turnbell's (1786)* An Apology for Negro Slavery. ("Tobin" is a reference to James Tobin's (1785) Cursory Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Ramsay's Essay.) For, while Hume was not against the extension, even violent extension, of 'civilization,' Hume would have little interest in turning anybody into a true Christian (unless he could be allowed to redefine true Christianity.) Moreover, Hume was a genuine critic of slavery.+ But a turn to Turnbull clarifies the situation at once. The one and only reference to Hume occurs in the following passage:

IT is not without the ſemblance, at leaſt, oſ probable conjecture, or reaſonable hypothefis, that Mr. Hume, and ſome other eminent writers, imagined the negro-race to be an inferior ſpecies oſ mankind. But, allowing that they are born equal with white men, yet, a minute obſervation, or thorough knowledge of their character and diſpoſition, ſeems to evince, that they are not at all fitted to fill the ſuperior ſtations, or more elevated ranks in civil ſociety.

Turnbull is clearly aware of Hume's footnote in "Of National Character." And, in larger context, he treats the inferiority and lack of work ethic of negroes ("very idly disposed) as part of his justification of slavery. I'll spare you the details but it turns ethnic/race based slavery -- with a nod to the great chain of being (which gives the 'chain' in it a whole new association for me) -- into something that fits the proper order of nature. 

As an aside, on the next page Turnbull quotes (from Chapter XVI of the Spirit of the Laws) Montesquieu to compare the (purported) lenient slavery on the plantations of the West-Indian islands with the (purported) lenient kind of slavery found in classical Athens. Some other time I return to Turnbull's use of Montesquieu because Montesquieu's views on the natural causes of slavery clearly frame his whole argument (but recall here).

Be that as it may, Cugoano's criticism of Turnbull points us to the fact that the very idea of a work ethic as a mark of superiority is developed by protestant authors, in part, to justify race-based slavery.** Cugoano clearly thinks that such ideology is a predictable consequence of great inequalities of power. (He hopes, for example, that the Catholic Church's reduced power will lead to a more humanitarian philosophy among it.) But he also thinks that it is a duty, even a true Christian duty, to combat the spread of oppressive ideologies of one's age.

 

*I am unsure when the first edition of Turnbull's book appeared, but it seems to be 1786. I have only access to the second edition which appeared in 1786.

+Here is the relevant passage from "Of Populousness of Ancient Nations:"

Some passionate admirers of the ancients, and zealous partizans of civil liberty...cannot forbear regretting the loss of this institution; and whilst they brand all submission to the government of a single person with the harsh denomination of slavery, they would gladly reduce the greater part of mankind to real slavery and subjection. But to one who considers coolly on the subject it will appear, that human nature, in general, really enjoys more liberty at present, in the most arbitrary government of EUROPE, than it ever did during the most flourishing period of ancient times. As much as submission to a petty prince, whose dominions extend not beyond a single city, is more grievous than obedience to a great monarch; so much is domestic slavery more cruel and oppressive than any civil subjection whatsoever. The more the master is removed from us in place and rank, the greater liberty we enjoy; the less are our actions inspected and controled; and the fainter that cruel comparison becomes between our own subjection, and the freedom, and even dominion of another. The remains which are found of domestic slavery, in the AMERICAN colonies, and among some EUROPEAN nations, would never surely create a desire of rendering it more universal. The little humanity, commonly observed in persons, accustomed, from their infancy, to exercise so great authority over their fellow-creatures, and to trample upon human nature, were sufficient alone to disgust us with that unbounded dominion. Nor can a more probable reason be assigned for the severe, I might say, barbarous manners of ancient times, than the practice of domestic slavery; by which every man of rank was rendered a petty tyrant, and educated amidst the flattery, submission, and low debasement of his slaves.

It is notable that Hume's criticism anticipates the spirit of Kant's formula of the universal law of nature. Also, the target of this passage is clearly Montesquiu who had suggested that Athenian slavery was lenient (in a passage quoted by Turnbull in the next page).

**On the use of 'race'--it is pretty clear that Turnbull and Cugoano (and others) are debating the effects of a color line on political practices. How their geographically based ethnic contrast maps onto more nineteenth century scientific racism is a complex question. But as regular readers know (recall) ethnic population based eugenics is clearly present in Berkeley so we should not overstate the contrast between eighteenth and nineteenth century views. (See Justin Smith's book for a useful conceptual and historical apparatus.)