James Drummond MacGregor (1759-1830) was a Presbyterian minister in Pictou, Nova Scotia, who became the first published abolitionist in Canada through his A Letter to a Clergyman Urging Him to Set Free a Black Girl He Held in Slavery (1788). This work is not only regarded as the first of its kind in Canada but also as one of the most brilliant pieces of anti-slavery literature in the Americas.
The letter was written to one Reverend Daniel Cock of Truro, who held a Black girl as a slave and had already sold her mother. MacGregor, citing scripture throughout, argues that it is against God's will to buy and sell human beings, who are born free as God's children. MacGregor later spent 20 of his 27 pounds yearly salary as a minister to purchase the freedom of a slave girl, but whether this was the girl held by Reverend Cock is unclear.
Throughout his life in Pictou, MacGregor championed abolition, purchasing the freedom of slaves, aiding fugitives, and ministering to the slave population. He died of a stroke in 1830. A monument in his honor still stands in Pictou.
Slavery in Canada & MacGregor
Slavery was long practiced in the region that would become Canada by Native American First Nations, including the Haida and Tlingit, who enslaved prisoners of war or raided villages, primarily along the coast of modern-day Canada and the USA, specifically for that purpose. The Haida, especially, were renowned as slave-traders.
During the Colonial Period, slavery was expanded under the British, circa 1783. Scholar Winfried Siemerling comments:
Slavery was practiced…in what is now Canada, including New France, Nova Scotia (which originally comprised New Brunswick), the Island of St. John (now Prince Edward Island), and Upper and Lower Canada (later called Canada West and East, and now Ontario and Quebec, respectively). In 1793, the importation of new slaves was prohibited in Upper Canada; slavery in Lower Canada was halted by court decisions between 1798-1800. Formally, however, slavery ended only with abolition in the British Empire in 1834.
(Oxford Handbook of the African Slave Narrative, 351)
James Drummond MacGregor was born in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1759, the son of a well-to-do farmer, attended grammar school and the University of Edinburgh, and embarked on a career as a Presbyterian minister. He was expecting to be called as the pastor of a congregation in Aberdeenshire when, in 1784, the Scottish Presbyterians of Pictou, Nova Scotia, petitioned the Presbytery Synod of Perth for a minister who spoke both English and Gaelic, and, since MacGregor was fluent in both and had not yet been called to serve a specific congregation, he was chosen to go, arriving in Pictou in 1786.
MacGregor quickly set himself at odds with the established Presbytery of Truro as he objected to their practices and what he considered a 'lax doctrine.' MacGregor, refusing to compromise with those he felt had strayed from 'true Christianity' as well as the established rules and order of the Presbyterian Church, isolated himself from fellow clergy in Nova Scotia and devoted himself to his parishioners. According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography:
Upon arrival in Pictou, he found no town, no church, no school, and widely scattered settlers. He postponed celebration of the Lord's Supper for two years while he preached to his parishioners – each sermon four times, in English and Gaelic at two separate stations – taught in their houses, and catechized them, for he had to assure himself of the sincerity of the celebrants before he admitted them to the communion table.
(6)
His refusal to compromise with established practices in Nova Scotia extended to slavery, which he consistently denounced. He ministered to all people, not just his Presbyterian parishioners, including the slave community, and so it was only a matter of time before he came into conflict with fellow clergymen who were also slaveholders and, by the nature of that institution, slave-traders.
In 1788, MacGregor wrote his now-famous letter to Reverend Daniel Cock of Truro detailing the immorality of slavery and requesting he free his slave girl, both for her sake, and that of his immortal soul. The letter was published in Halifax and created some controversy. There is no record of a reply from Cock, but his colleague, Reverend David Smith, responded publicly for Cock, dismissing MacGregor's argument and completely separating MacGregor from the Presbytery of Truro.
There is no evidence that MacGregor was at all bothered by this development, and he continued on as he had before, advocating for the abolition of slavery and an adherence to 'true Christianity' based on the Bible and communion with God through prayer which, according to the arguments he had presented in his letter to Cock, made clear that the institution of slavery was contrary to the will of God and a sin, separating the slaveholder and slave-trader from God's Grace.
Text
The following is taken from A Letter to a Clergyman Urging Him to Set Free a Black Girl he Held in Slavery (1788) by James Drummond MacGregor, retrieved from Hathi Trust, digitized by Internet Archive of the University of Alberta, Canada. The letter has been edited for space, indicated by ellipses, and original spelling has been modernized.
Reverend Sir,
Permit me to speak to you freely of one matter in which, I am persuaded, you offend your God. I dare appeal to him who searches the heart, that, so far as I know my own heart, I have no sore design in speaking of it than regard for the glory of God and love to your person; and, therefore, I hope you will take what I have to say in good part. The matter I mean is, the concern you have in the most infamous and accursed of all commerce, the buying and selling of man who "is the image and glory of God."
Is it so, then, that one man is born a slave and another a Lord? Or (to use an old metaphor) are one part of mankind born saddled and bridled, and another part booted and spurred, ready to mount their harnessed brethren? No, Reverend Sir, all men at their birth are equally naked, helpless, and destitute of marks of authority. You could not distinguish between his royal highness and the child of the poorest beggar that walks the streets.
It is a maxim equally agreeable to scripture and reason, and peculiarly dear to every British subject, that all mankind are born upon a level, and that no man can rule over another but by mutual consent. As, therefore, you have not the consent of that Girl over whom you rule, I would desire you to give a solid answer to this question: "By what authority do thou these things; and who gave thee this authority?"
For my own part, I see no authority you can have, but that you are able to do it. I confess, it would be esteemed very good authority in a world of tyrants; the fame by which the great fishes devour the small, but it will never satisfy the conscience of a tender Christian. If you have more power or wealth than your slave, it is owing to this cause only – that God hath been more liberal to you than to her.
His superior liberality to you or me should be a powerful incitement to us to be more compassionate and helpful to our poor, oppressed brethren, and particularly to exert ourselves to the utmost for the redemption, protection, and education of slaves; but that it should be employed for the purpose of oppression and slavery is, without doubt, a most horrid abuse of the kindness of God and a lasting reproach to ourselves.
Tell me, Reverend Sir, why you do not tell me? I am your brother; your slave is your sister. You are not able. I bless God for his kindness to me, which hath put it out of your power to deal with me as you have done with my sister. Tell me, why may not your slave sell you? What right does she want, that you have, but power? I hope she wants inclination, too.
The Apostle Paul presseth us to hospitality, from this consideration, that "Some have thereby entertained Angels unawares." Preposterous as it may seem to you, I must confess that I would be afraid to engage in the slave trade, lest I should be found to injure some superior beings, angelic or divine, in disguise. Had you lived when Angels visited the earth in human form, you would not have fore born to buy and sell them if you had an opportunity.
Had you lived eighteen hundred years ago, you would not have scrupled to buy and sell my blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ if, at least, he had been born black, and you had met with him before the fame of his miracles began to arise; for, as "he was not only made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man, but, moreover, made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and became obedient."
How could you have distinguished between him and such as you do enslave? But be that as it will, it is plain you buy and sell Christ mystically, that is, those who are united to him by faith and are in the scriptures commonly called "the body of Christ" and "the members of his body." Charity requires me to hope, Reverend Sir, that your girl whom you hold a slave, and her mother whom you sold, are members of the body of Christ; because you could not fail to be touched with more than ordinary compassion towards these poor, ignorant creatures, to use uncommon diligence to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and to pour out many a fervent prayer for God's blessing upon the means you used with them, all which I trust would not be in vain.
But if they be members of the body of Christ, does not he account them precious as himself? Are they not one spirit with the Lord, of his flesh, and of his bones? Does not he who touches them, touch the apple of his eye, and wound him in the tenderest part? Yes, Reverend Sir, for "in all their afflictions, he is afflicted; in his love and in his pity, he redeemed them and bears them and carries them all their days." He cries from Heaven to all who hurt them in their liberty or property, as he did to him of Tarsus – Saul, Saul, why persecutest me?
Take heed, then, lest he should resent what you do to them as much, if not more, than if it had been done to himself, and lest, when he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and all nations are gathered before him, he should say to you, "Depart from me, thou cursed into everlasting fire; for I was in prison, and thou visited me not, but detained me a captive." In vain you will reply, "When did I see thee in prison and visited thee not, but detained thee captive?" For he will answer, "In as much as thou didst it unto the least, the very least of these, thou didst it unto me."
But if you tell me your slaves cannot be members of Christ because they are ignorant, obstinate, and wicked, I will answer thee and thy companions with thee: Be it so, yet they may be converted from the error of their way. Others who were as desperate, like as they, are now singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. And if, in any future time, they shall be united to Christ, your guilt will be accounted the very same as if they were in him already; for he loves them now as dearly as he will then; because he has loved them with an everlasting love, whether they be saved or lost, for aught you know, they may be saved.
Besides, by consenting, in one instance, to the buying and selling of man, you subscribe your approbation of the whole of the slave trade, ancient and modern, and yet, certainly, some slaves have been good Christians; so, you are a buyer and seller of Christ.
Reverend Sir, if these things are so, may not your sin bear a comparison with that of Judas? Did he sin knowingly? Surely yours cannot be through ignorance. Did he sin from covetousness? I appeal to you own conscience, if yours proceed not from the same source. Was he an Apostle? So are you. Did he sell his master? So have you. Judas sold the natural body of Christ for the very price appointed by the law of Moses for a slave, thirty pieces or shekels of silver; you have sold his mystical body at the very same rate…
Therefore, set free your slave directly. I declare to you, in the name of the Lord, that, until she be free, all her labor and her gain to you will be cursed, and the Lord will not cease to have a controversy with your soul. Sell her not; her price will be most cursed. By selling her, you become a partaker of another man's sin, instead of wiping away your own.
Her liberty is your first duty, and till this is performed, none other will be acceptable. Though you treat her like a queen, without this, you but offer sacrifice for robbery. Say not, "What shall I do for her price?" The Lord is able to give thee much more than that.
I never saw a man of any learning or sense who had the confidence to defend that infamous practice of which I have been speaking, nor, indeed, any man whatsoever, but such as were themselves most evidently enslaved to avarice. Like profane swearing, drunkenness, and whoredom, there are many to practice it, but it has few defenders…
I shall conclude with the words of a fine writer: "Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in humanity against considering our fellow creatures as a part of our possessions." Reverend Sir, I have perhaps been too free. The subject must be my excuse. If it be not a sufficient one, I sincerely beg your pardon. I did not mean to offend you, but to provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, that I might save them from this sin and disgrace.
I am, Reverend Sir, Yours, & etc.
