Paper 1 Outline and Notes The Selling of Joseph

Thesis: During the age of Samuel Sewall, a time where both slavery and religion were prevalent aspects of an everyday society, Sewall outlined within a three page pamphlet titled “The Selling of Joseph”, the great differences between Sewall’s views, opinions, and even contradictions of natural rights as well as slavery, where he uses scripture and his own developed worldview pertaining to racism, and the general population’s.

I. Sewall’s devotion to his religion and to the Bible is what backs his opinions and his view of slavery a. public positions address specific concerns about the rights of Native Americans and of African-Americans brought as slaves to the colonies b. “The Selling of Joseph” addresses his position on some of the inhumanities of his “fellow sons of Adam” c. His somewhat literal interpretation of the Bible is what leads him to his opinion about slaves d. What sets Sewall apart from other anti-slave sympathizers is his public opinion II. His views of natural rights can be contrasted to those of the early explorer Christopher Columbus e. Both exaggerated as most did during this time f. Sewall may have exaggerated in asserting that slave resistance had caused “many” to begin thinking about the value of maintaining the institution III. Sewall was a living contradiction in his beliefs g. He wrote the first anti-slavery piece of literary but was he himself a racist h. Very biblically based opinions yet he was a racist i. Points out how the African American slaves attitudes showed sewall how much they didn’t want to be slaves and were not going to work hard with that attitude so basically it was pointless to keep them enslaved j. Use bible quotes to show contradiction between what the bible says and how he actually