GROTON, Mass.While looking through the American Baptist archive, Jennifer Cromack came across a little box containing journals from the 18th and 19th centuries. She opened it to reveal a scroll in perfect shape.
Upon closer inspection, the 5-foot (1.5-meter) document was found to be a handwritten proclamation titled “A Resolution and Protest Against Slavery,” which was adopted on March 2, 1847, and signed by 116 New England pastors. Following unsuccessful searches at Harvard and other places, American Baptist authorities were concerned that the document had been lost forever until it was found in May at the archives in Groton, Massachusetts. The last known copy was in a history book from 1902.
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I was simply thrilled and in awe. A retired educator who volunteers at the archive, Cromack said. We discovered something that truly resonates with the state’s and the nation’s citizens. It demonstrates their dedication to keeping individuals safe and out of dangerous situations.
The text provides insight into a developing discussion over slavery in the Northeast throughout the 1800s. As more religious leaders began to voice their opposition to slavery, the statement was signed 14 years before the Civil War broke out.
Disagreement about slavery
A pivotal point in the history of is also highlighted in the document.
It was signed two years after Southern Baptists broke away from Northern Baptists to create the largest Protestant denomination in the country due to the slavery issue. The American Baptist Foreign Mission Society’s decision to forbid slave owners from serving as missionaries led to the split in 1845. Eventually, the Baptists from the north became the American Baptist Churches USA.
The chief pastor of the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts, Rev. Mary Day Hamel, stated that it originates from a pivotal period in American history, just before the Civil War.
“Baptists in Massachusetts took a strong stand and stood for justice in the shaping of this country, which was a unique moment in history,” she said. The tradition of American Baptists embracing variety and standing out for justice has persisted to this day.
A dangerous statement
Many Americans at the period, particularly in the North, were unsure about slavery and unsure of how to react or were afraid to speak out, according to Deborah Bingham Van Broekhoven, executive director emerita of the American Baptist Historical Society.
According to Van Broekhoven, they believed it was a southern issue and had no right to interfere with what they perceived to be the state’s rights. Before this, the majority of Baptists would not have participated in this type of protest. This is an excellent illustration of them taking a risk and attempting to be diplomatic.
According to the letter, ministers had thought that a reformatory movement headed by people involved in slavery would eliminate the need for their involvement. However, they were driven to take action after witnessing, with unpleasant surprise, a growing tendency to defend, expand, and maintain their unjust system.
The document says, “Under these circumstances, we can no longer be silent.” We have a duty to both the oppressor and the oppressed, and justice requires that duty to be performed. We cannot deny the claims that truth, humanity, and public virtue have made upon us.
The preachers’ disapproval and hatred of the American slavery system are explained in the text.
According to the document, we cannot sympathize with such a system. We are forced to view it as an infringement on the rights and happiness of our fellow humans, for which there is no acceptable explanation or apology, after carefully examining its nature and effects and deducting everything that the greatest charity can demand.
The document’s signer?
In order to find what she referred to as the Holy Grail of Baptist records from the abolitionist era, the Rev. John Odams of the First Baptist Church in Boston collaborated with the Rev. Diane Badger, the administrator of the American Baptist Church of Massachusetts, who is in charge of the archive. Her great-grandfather was a Baptist clergyman from the United States.
Badger has listed the names of all the preachers and the churches they served at on a spreadsheet since it was discovered. One of them, Nathaniel Colver, was a member of Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston, which was one of the nation’s earliest integrated congregations. Baron Stow, a member of the state’s anti-slavery association, was another.
In addition, Badger is estimating the document’s worth because it is undamaged and undamaged, and he is planning how to keep it safe. Some of the 230 American Baptist congregations in Massachusetts may someday receive a digital copy.
According to Badger, the voyage has been quite intriguing and is still developing. I’m usually asked, “Okay, I know who signed it, but who didn’t?” I can look through my database and list to see who was working on it, where they were working, and why they didn’t sign it. Thus, conducting the research has been quite fascinating.
The discovery was described as uplifting by the Rev. Kenneth Young, whose mostly Black Calvary Baptist Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, was founded by liberated Blacks in 1871.
The fact that more than a hundred people signed this and that they would demonstrate that freedom for our people is just struck me as fantastic, Young remarked. It carries on the tradition of the abolitionist struggle and standing up to a racist society on behalf of people who might not have had the strength to do so themselves.
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The initial edition of this story appeared on July 3, 2025. On July 4, 2025, it was revised to reflect that the paper focused on the discussion of slavery in the 19th century rather than the 18th.
