Discovery of 178-Year-Old Baptist Antislavery Document Elates Faith Leaders

New York Times

09-07-2025

The Rev. John Odams, pastor of the oldest Baptist church in Boston, was building shelves for the American Baptist archives on a Saturday in May when a volunteer brought him something unusual that she had just found in a box.
'It looked like a prop from a Christmas pageant or something, a little scroll rolled up — but then we opened it,' Mr. Odams said. He recognized a name on the list of signatures as that of the pastor who led his church, the First Baptist Church of Boston, in the 1800s. He instantly knew that this was a momentous document from Baptist history — one that was thought to have been lost.
The scroll was handwritten in 1847, just two years after Baptists in the United States split, with the Southern congregations breaking off over their Northern counterparts' condemnation of slavery.
Using forceful language, 116 Baptist ministers in Massachusetts had signed their name to what they called 'A Resolution and Protest Against Slavery,' condemning the system as 'entirely repugnant.'
The document had largely been forgotten until the Rev. Diane Badger, an American Baptist minister in Massachusetts who works to record and preserve the Church's history, read a copy several years ago in a book that was published in 1902. She searched in vain for the scroll in archives across New England but did not find it. The discovery in May, reported earlier by The Associated Press, was a surprise, as was the fact that the 178-year-old scroll was in pristine condition.
'The ink on the signatures was really strong,' Ms. Badger said. The discovery has elated American Baptists and faith leaders in Massachusetts, who say they draw inspiration from the document, which is emblematic of the nation's evolving attitude toward slavery.
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