Talk:Proslavery thought

Tertullian, Augustine, Errors
I altered what The Article claimed of St. Augustine Of Hippo and Removed a Quote from Tertullian.

I did this because these Misrepresented the Views of Augustine and Tertullian, and in some cases the Views of their Sources.

The Article claimed, for example, "Tertullian condemned the Marcionites for their advocacy of the liberation of slaves: "what is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than to benefit a foreign slave in such a way as to take him away from his master, claim him who is someone else's property".[3]". The 3 refers to the below Citation.

De Wet, C.L. (2016-10-17). "The punishment of slaves in early Christianity: the views of some selected church fathers". Acta Theologica. 23 (1): 263. doi:10.4314/actat.v23i1S.13. ISSN 1015-8758.

But De Wet did not say this, and if One were to Read Tertullian's "Agaisnt Marcion", it is even more clear that Tertullian was not condemning them for their view that Slaves should be Liberated.

Rather Tertullian condemned the Marcionistes using a supposed Liberation of a Slave as a Metaphore.

From Book 1; Against Marcion.

" But what sort of goodness is that which is manifested in wrong, and that in behalf of an alien creature? For peradventure a benevolence, even when operating injuriously, might be deemed to some extent rational, if exerted for one of our own house and home.(1) By what rule, however, can an unjust benevolence, displayed on behalf of a stranger, to whom not even an honest one is legitimately due, be defended as a rational one? For what is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than so to benefit an alien slave as to take him away from his master, claim him as the property of another, and suborn him against his master's life; and all this, to make the matter more iniquitous still whilst he is yet living in his master's house and on his master's garner, and still trembling beneath his stripes? Such a deliverer,(2) I had almost said(3) kidnapper,(4) would even meet with condemnation in the world. Now, no other than this is the character of Marcion's god, swooping upon an alien world, snatching away man from his God,(5) the son from his father, the pupil from his tutor, the servant from his master--to make him impious to his God, undutiful to his father, ungrateful to his tutor, worthless to his master. If, now, the rational benevolence makes man such, what sort of being prithee(6) "

The Issue was not that Marcionites wished to Liberate Slaves, and Tertullian saw that as Wrong. Tertullian was saying it is not good to cause disaffection from Moral Good in the guise of a false benevolence.

In other words, they gave a seeming Freedom, but in Actuality, only gave liscence to Sin which brought about the Ruon of Life.

That is not condemnation for the Advocacy of Freeing Slaves.

I also took the Time to Read De Wet's Article. The Wiki Article said "According to Augustine, God approved of the flogging of disobedient slaves: "You must use the whip, use it! God allows it. Rather, he is angered if you do not lash the slave. But do it in a loving and not a cruel spirit."[3]"

But Augustine did not say this was about Disobedient Slaves, and certainly didn't mean it how most would think. Augustine did not say it was OK to Whip a Slave fvor merely not doing as cmmanded. Rather, he limited it to Acting Badly, which is not the same Thing. Today, if One Reads this, it may seem the same,but its not.

“if you see your slave living badly, how else will you punish him if not by the whip?”

I Have not been able to coberste if Augustine even said this.

I Shall return. But this was sloppy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SKWills (talk • contribs) 23:31, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Having looked at several Resources, though admitedly not enough for a Final Determination, I also removed the Line that said George Whitfield was Instrumental in the Legalization of Slavery in Georgia Colony. I have found no Evidence of this, unless repeating the Claim is Evidence, and in His own Words, specifically in a Letter to John Wesley, He said He had nothing to do with the Legalization. The Claim seems to have been based on a Letter to the Georgia Colonial Board of Trustees in which he Requested more land, 500 Acres, and said He wished a Negro or a few Negroes to aid in the Work in His Bethesda Orphanage. Nothing suggests the Board of Trustees gave Whitfield more weight than others, or any at all, and it seems the Letter was Written more to gain Aid from The Colonial Government than as a Campaign.

SKWills (talk)§SKW

I removed and extensively edited the claim that Whitfield believed Slaves had Souls. I did this not because it was not True, but because it is misleading. I also see several Articles saying Religious Leaders who supported Slavery argued that The Negro had No Soul. I Find this to be rather odd, given I have seen this claim often but never from an 18th or 19th Century Source.

In fact, theologians such as Charles Hodges or John Miller remained consistent in their Systematic Theology with Traditional Christian Views that All Life had a Soul, and it was impossible to be Alive without a Soul.

Some argued that Humans had Immortal Souls and Animals had only Mortal Souls, and this seems in Popular Imagination to have become Humans have Souls and Animals do not, but I have yet to find this being taught in Official Church Doctrines of any Church of the Period.

Given Whitfield died in 1770, it is even less likely anyone held the View that Negros had no Souls.

I am presently researching Historical Views on Slavery, and so I have many materials I have reviewed for this, and I do feel the Period is poorly understood. Especially in terms of Religious Attitudes and Arguments.

SKWills (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:15, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Also, I removed where he Campaigned for Slavery and replaced it with Supported, which is more accurate as Whitfild seems not to have actively Campaigned for Slavery to be Legalized in Georgia, He simply supported the Idea.

SKWills (talk) 22:44, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Untitled
By its title, the article is significantly misleading. Proslavery men lived in Northern States, too. The northern voters controlled the political power in the Union by weight of their numbers. Northerners elected proslavery Democrats to governmental offices. Today, the myopic view of slavery is that Southerners supported slavery while Northerners were against it. Someone ought to compose an article titled Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old North. Keep history in balance, do not skew it. GhostofSuperslum 15:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Religious arguments
I came here looking for the religious arguments for slavery, and for citations to back up this quotation: "Defenders of slavery noted that in the Bible, Abraham had slaves. They point to the Ten Commandments, noting that "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, ... nor his manservant, nor his maidservant." In the New Testament, Paul returned a runaway slave, Philemon, to his master, and, although slavery was widespread throughout the Roman world, Jesus never spoke out against it." - http://www.ushistory.org/us/27f.asp Who were the prominent religious defenders of slavery? Any high-ranking clergy? --Hugh7 (talk) 21:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

POV tag
Few of no "destitute whites" lived in the antebellum South. Many white people deserted the Southern states and moved North into new states where 400 acres of land was available for about $500. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois attracted thousands of such southerners. For example, Abraham Lincoln moved to Illinois. Some of them brought their slaves North with them. Southerners were not obliged to continue to live in the southern states as "destitute whites." As time passed, more states were created. Many southerners moved west into those states, too, where they purchased land for about one dollar per acre. Oklahoma, Texas, and California became occupied by slaveowners, too. Basically, the reference to "destitute whites" is phantasmic rhetoric. GhostofSuperslum 20:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that if you see something wrong, just edit it...

However, the idea that there were enough pro-slavery men in the Old North is also skewed; popular opinion heavily weighed in favor of abolishing slavery.Ed1t0r0wn4g3 04:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

south vs north
This is about support for slavery, not slaveholding itself. Support for it existed in the north too and one editor says that it existed in indiana in 1840s. BillMasen (talk) 17:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep. See History of slavery in Indiana.-- Gen. Bedford  his Forest 17:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Badly needs revision - Many states abolished slavery in the 1770s, 80s, and 90s
If abolitionist sentiment did not spread until the early 1800s, why did every state in the North abolish it during, or immediately following, the Revolution?

For another - re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Indiana - Indiana only took as long as it did to fully abolish slavery because of the role of Southerners in that state. Stop trying to whitewash a terrible history.

This article is filled with neo-Confederate bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.210.62.36 (talk) 18:15, 22 November 2009 (UTC)


 * So, change it. I did the best that I could with an article that was in terrible shape before I edited it. BillMasen (talk) 19:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Edits of 12-19-2009
I started providing material and sourcing to the section that is basically background for the opposition that would develop later. This section, IMO, needs to set the stage for showing, when finished, how the South transitioned from defending slavery as a necessary evil to defending it as a positive good.

In the article as a whole, there needs to be a lot of "fill in" before Calhoun and Hammond are discussed. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 02:25, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is so US-centric
The United States is not the only nation in history wherein slavery has been practised; it is not the only nation in history wherein slavery has been abolished; I am sure it was not the only nation in history in which the abolition was contested, with some opposing abolition (although admittedly the US is unique in that the debate became so heated that it became a cause of war.) So I am sure there is a history of proslavery outside the antebellum US, both geographically elsewhere and historically prior or subsequent; given that slavery is still practised in some parts of the world today, there surely must be people in the world today who still support it. (One article on this site suggests that the Wahabbis still defend slavery as part of Islamic law.) This article should try to give a less US-centric focus 143.238.26.194 (talk) 08:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually many contemporary libertarians are pro-slavery. Here are some relevant resources discussing the relationship between libertarianism and slavery, including libertarian defences of (some forms of) slavery:, , , , , , , , 143.238.26.194 (talk) 10:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I added a brief section mentioning Nozick's defence of "voluntary" slavery, quoting Nozick and Ellerman's pseudonymous paper. Obviously much more could be said on that topic, but I stuck to Nozick and Ellerman because they are both arguably reliable sources (even if we doubt the reliability of a pseudonymously published paper, it was published in a respected peer reviewed journal which is notable enough to have its own WP article). (For the claim that Philmore=Ellerman, I have sources but possibly not the most reliable ones, but I'm hoping we don't need one, since it is an open secret, which Ellerman more or less admits by hosting the paper at his own website). I kept it under the "United States" section, since they are both US authors–and even though Nozick's arguments are meant as universally valid philosophy, not intended as specific to any country, quoting the views of an American philosopher does nothing to answer the allegations of US-centricity for this article. Something from a completely non-US perspective, such as Wahabbi or Daesh views, would be needed to make it non-US-centric, and Nozick is not that. SJK (talk) 06:36, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * And I added some mention of Rushdoony supporting legal slavery as well. Once again I put it under the heading of "United States", since he is an American author, and once again an American author does little to address claims of US-centircity, but it is broadening the topic beyond 18th/19th century pro-slavery thinkers to include 20th century ones. (Both Nozick and Rushdoony are clearly notable, Rushdoony while notable is quite a fringe figure, Nozick is much more mainstream.) Still looking for non-American authors who advocate slavery in recent times (this century or last century), but I'm sure we can find some such authors writing from an Islamist perspective. SJK (talk) 07:10, 20 February 2016 (UTC)


 * So we can rename this article to Proslavery in the United States and another article can be created for all other locations when someone cares to write it. Hmains (talk) 18:06, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I added a section mentioning Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas' views. I think rather than renaming this to be a US-specific article, it is better to expand it with non-US content. SJK (talk) 10:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Thomas Aquinas, John locke
I'm having trouble finding anything about Thomas Aquinas thoughts about slavery, and in the page for john locke, it specifically says he opposed slavery and aristocracy. So why are they put in there as examples of supporters of slavery? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.184.180.27 (talk) 03:34, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I've added cites for both Aquinas and Locke's views on slavery. For both thinkers, while they didn't necessarily agree with every instance of the practice of slavery, both saw it as permissible in some circumstances. SJK (talk) 05:41, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

"Predecessors"
, I reverted your adding of this section heading. This article always has a problem with being US-centric and that heading was just making it worse. Slavery has been around for thousands of years, and on almost every continent – pro-slavery opinion has never been limited to the United States. SJK (talk) 21:13, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Which article are you talking about? deisenbe (talk) 22:17, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

, this article, the article whose talk page we are on. SJK (talk) 07:45, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with you, the topic is pro-slavery in the United States. There was nothing anything like it at any other time or place. How about changing the title? Like Pro-Slavery Movement in the United States. deisenbe (talk) 11:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * but the idea that pro-slavery only ever existed in the United States is simply false. Pro-slavery existed in other countries as well. The article already says that, when it cites the historian Larry E. Tise's argument that pro-slavery was not unique to the American South but found in the British Empire as well. Indeed, it cites the chapter of his book, entitled "Proslavery Heritage of Britain and the West Indies, 1770–1833" – – which discusses proslavery in the British West Indies and the UK Parliament. It also mentions (without going into details about) proslavery in Brazil. SJK (talk) 20:25, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * And here's a whole book discussing proslavery in the British Empire – . And here's a paper on how the British proslavery movement used the Bible – . SJK (talk)
 * I wasn't aware of this. Thanks. deisenbe (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

"Notorious racist"
Special:Diff/1045343323 removes content that I was about to restore, however it would seem to be a stretch to use the voice of wikipedia as the removed text comes from a quote in the Tennessean article and not any published analysis of the subject. This would appear to make it only useable with attribution. Dropping here for other opinions. Slywriter (talk) 03:36, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 23 February 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. While the hyphen version does seem more intuitive, corpus evidence for the current title is persuasive. No such user (talk) 08:05, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Proslavery → Pro-slavery –

In the article itself 17 no hyphen, 24 hyphen Google gives 1M no hyphen, 125M hyphen Http://worldcat.org has 2152 no hyphen and 5608 hyphen The article Slavery as a positive good in the United States has 13 no hyphen and 16 hyphen deisenbe (talk) 23:22, 23 February 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. feminist🇺🇦 (talk) 04:05, 8 March 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk&#124;contribs) 14:57, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Support move. The reading with the hyphen is more intuitive.  O.N.R.  (talk) 18:07, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. As shown by the nominator, the hyphenated version seems to be used more often (and secondarily, as mentioned by User:Old Naval Rooftops above, the hyphenated version is, quite frankly, a little bit more intuitive, and easier to parse when briefly glancing at the word). Paintspot Infez (talk) 23:35, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Webster's Dictionary, Dictionary.com, and TheFreeDictionary.com all spell it "proslavery" and the Google Ngrams show that "proslavery" is the more common spelling in English sources. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:29, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per ngrams; the current title is still the WP:COMMONNAME. BilledMammal (talk) 03:27, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Looks very odd without a hyphen and the hyphenated version is far more common. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:21, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The ngram evidence is persuasive. It's also worth keeping in mind that nouns are preferred over other parts of speech in titles. "Proslavery" is used as a noun in the article (e.g. the first sentence, Proslavery is an ideology that..., and the section heading "Political proslavery"), and is also used as such in RS. For example, I find a 2021 academic book titled "When Slavery Was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War". OTOH, all uses of the hyphenated form in the article are as an adjective and it seems that modern RS rarely use the hyphenated form as a noun. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a compound title like "Pro-slavery thought", though it would depend on the degree to which it found support in RS usage. Colin M (talk) 15:28, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:USEENGLISH - in English, pro demands a hyphen as a prefix when it means "in favor of" Red   Slash  21:13, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The very first sentence of WP:USEENGLISH says "The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject that is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources", which is clearly the current title based on the sources I cited above. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article title: noun proslavery vs. defense of slavery vs. justification of slavery
The article title uses proslavery as a noun; adjectival article titles are unusual. I find the noun proslavery unnatural, but I am not a native speaker. The -ery suffix seems to double as a kind of -ism suffix, as if the noun was (pro-slave)-ery rather than pro-slavery. The noun is absent from multiple dictionaries including Merriam-Webster, which has only adjective proslavery; however, the noun seems attested in use, and thus exists; and Collins has it as a noun as well.

The frequency of proslavery (noun) can be determined using Google Ngram Viewer: GNV: proslavery_ADJ,proslavery_NOUN,defense of slavery,justification of slavery. If one believes GNV, the noun is not all that uncommon, although it is unclear how reliable the Google tagging with part of speech is.

I find the terms defense of slavery and justification of slavery more natural and better fitting the subject since proslavery refers to any support, whether articulate or not, whereas defense and justification are by definition the articulations of reasons. However, proslavery_NOUN is a little bit more common in GNV than defense of slavery. If we could suppose that the part of speech tagging with NOUN is unreliable, we could use defense of slavery as the title, and I would find it more natural, but I am not sure how to support the unreliability hypothesis.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 18:06, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Spelling of the adjective proslavery vs. pro-slavery
Believing the Google Ngram Viewer, the adjective tends to be spelled more often proslavery than pro-slavery. Thus, proslavery forces, proslavery advocates and and proslavery arguments are more common than their pro-slavery variants. Dan Polansky (talk) 13:21, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 12 March 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Please feel free to create any redirects that are deemed helpful. Dekimasu よ! 05:28, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Proslavery → Support for slavery – The page title is a bit odd, using an adjective instead of a noun. I think that changing this to be a noun (rather than an adjective) would be an improvement and be more consistent with how we generally title articles. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 04:24, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Strong Support Don't move, create redirect from Support for slavery. The current name makes absolutely no sense. Apparently it's more common than I thought. I stand corrected 〜 Festucalex • talk • contribs 16:44, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. The current title is the most common term for this topic. And "proslavery" can be a noun or an adjective. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:55, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose, first instinct was to support, but it appears the (academic) sources used here use the term 'proslavery'. :3 F4U (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose: "proslavery" is the standard term in academic literature. Whole books have been written on the topic, using that title:
 * The most notable arguably is Larry E. Tise's Proslavery: A history of the defense of slavery in America, 1701-1840 (University of Georgia Press, 1990) – to which the article already refers.
 * Paula E. Dumas' Proslavery Britain: fighting for slavery in an era of abolition (Springer, 2016) is very valuable in making clear that (contrary to what many assume), proslavery was never an exclusively American viewpoint, but had its advocates in the British Empire as well–and the article cites it too.
 * Other academic monographs and edited volumes including that word in their title include:
 * Faust, Drew Gilpin, ed. The ideology of slavery: Proslavery thought in the antebellum South, 1830–1860 (LSU Press, 1981)
 * Brophy, Alfred L. University, court, and slave: Pro-slavery thought in southern colleges and courts and the coming of civil war (Oxford University Press, 2016)
 * Irons, Charles F. The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2009)
 * Smith, John David. An Old Creed for the New South: Proslavery Ideology and Historiography, 1865-1918 (SIU Press, 2008)
 * Daly, John Patrick. When slavery was called freedom: evangelicalism, proslavery, and the causes of the Civil War (University Press of Kentucky, 2002)
 * Ericson, David F. The debate over slavery: Antislavery and proslavery liberalism in Antebellum America (NYU Press, 2000)
 * Roberts-Miller, Patricia. Fanatical schemes: Proslavery rhetoric and the tragedy of consensus (University of Alabama Press, 2010)
 * Matthewson, Tim. A Proslavery Foreign Policy: Haitian-American Relations during the Early Republic (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003)
 * I will stop here but I could go on and on and on. It is also worth noting that this is not a term invented by historians, it was commonly used in the 19th century United States to describe one side of the contemporary debate over slavery. See for example, The Pro-slavery Argument: As Maintained by the Most Distinguished Writers of the Southern States (1853). The main difference you'll notice between 19th century sources, and 20th/21st century ones, is dropping the hyphen (pro-slavery becomes proslavery), which I think is part of a broader trend in English usage towards less hyphenation. And, maybe you are right that at some point people started using an adjective as a noun (pro-slavery arguments becomes just plain proslavery), but that's a common development in English too, even if it sounds more odd to some people's ears than to others. Among academic sources, Tise seems to stand out in making a noun out of an adjective (at least in the title of his book)–but his work has been very influential in this field. And Tise is not alone in this – John Patrick Daly's 2002 book I mention above does the same. Even the other books, just because they only use it as an adjective in the book title, doesn't mean they don't use it as a noun inside the book, I think it is likely some of them do (although quite possibly not all of them). SomethingForDeletion (talk) 00:12, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"anti-religious slant"
you keep on changing the lede in order to remove an alleged "anti-religious slant". I don't see any "anti-religious slant", I don't see how your changes reduce one, and I don't see how your changes are an improvement. As requested before, you can you please discuss it here rather than just making the change again. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 02:26, 11 April 2023 (UTC)


 * What makes you above other editors? You’re no better than anyone else editing on here. Stop being tyrannical and acting as if you are. SamMitchell45 (talk) 22:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I see no good reason to single out the bible in the lead. Having said that, this is a pretty poor article that lacks proper citations and finesse. I don't even understand the title, which isn't a regular noun (it's usually applied predicatively or attributively, not as the head of a noun phrase), or the move request, or why it was moved. Drmies (talk) 22:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I really don't care if the lede mentions just the Bible, or both the Bible and the Quran, or just leaves it at "religious texts"; but none of those choices is an "anti-religious slant".
 * As far as the article title goes, please see my comment above in which "Proslavery" is used as the word to describe this idea in a great deal of the academic literature.
 * You are right though that a lot of that does use it as an adjective rather than a noun. Maybe proslavery thought? That's what the Encyclopedia of the New American Nation calls its article on the topic, and the same phrase is used in the titles of two academic works on it: Faust, Drew Gilpin, ed. The ideology of slavery: Proslavery thought in the antebellum South, 1830–1860 (LSU Press, 1981); Brophy, Alfred L. University, court, and slave: Pro-slavery thought in southern colleges and courts and the coming of civil war (Oxford University Press, 2016).
 * While that encyclopaedia article and those books are focusing on "proslavery thought" in an antebellum American context, "proslavery thought" is broader than just the US – which is the whole focus of Paula E. Dumas' book Proslavery Britain: fighting for slavery in an era of abolition (Springer, 2016), and is also an important point made in the text of Larry E. Tise's Proslavery: A history of the defense of slavery in America, 1701-1840 (University of Georgia Press, 1990). And both the American and British proslavery movements, as well as drawing on each other for ideas, also drew on a long background of proslavery thought in Western culture, going back to the Middle Ages, the early Church, the Bible and the ancient Greeks.
 * And of course there is also a certain current of proslavery thought in Islam, but the history of Islamic proslavery thought is largely independent of the history of Western proslavery thought–although they share certain common influences, including the Bible and ancient Greeks.
 * If you wanted to move the article from "Proslavery" to "Proslavery thought", I would have no objection. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 01:24, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * By saying “the Bible endorses slavery” that in itself is a claim that needs citations. There are other scholars who say that while slavery is in the Bible, it does not endorse it; in other words, it acknowledges its existence given the Judaic timeframe of the period. Therefore, to simply say the Bible endorsed slavery, i.e. “it is good to own slaves” (which it doesn’t) would at least need multiple sources citing it as proof, or at least an argument made for it. I think a better way to put it is to say “it is used by various interpretations from religious groups” because that is true. SamMitchell45 (talk) 05:09, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Many Proslavery Christians claimed that the Bible endorses slavery. I think it is perfectly fine to say – even in the lede – that proslavery people used passages in the Bible to justify slavery. Whether those passages were being correctly interpreted by them or not is beyond the scope of the article. This article is specifically about what proslavery people understood the Bible to be saying, not about what antislavery people understood it to say, or what the original authors of the Bible meant by what they wrote. There are plenty of other articles to cover those topics (e.g. The Bible and slavery, Christian views on slavery, Jewish views on slavery, etc). I think it is fine to briefly refer the reader to those other articles for competing interpretations, but I think that kind of detail doesn't belong in the lede, whereas the higher-level point that "people interpreted the Bible to justify slavery" more arguably does. I see no evidence that any editor of this article was ever trying to argue that "the Bible endorses slavery". I think you are wrongly assuming other editors have an "anti-religious slant". SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:47, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You’re being a tryrant though, and I hope you see that. I don’t care about people’s personal biases, whether for or against religion, but about truth. Your bias is showing. SamMitchell45 (talk) 05:10, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't have any bias against religion – in fact I am a religious believer myself. You are just accusing other people of having biases, when I think the bias you accuse others of having is all in your head. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:48, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 17 April 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 21:43, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Proslavery → Proslavery thought – I know a lot of editors object to the title "proslavery" because it is generally viewed as an adjective, and we generally prefer nouns to adjectives as article titles. Yes, there is some usage of it as a noun, and even a few dictionaries which include it as a noun, but the adjectival usage predominates. If you look at the academic literature, "proslavery" is the predominant term for this (sometimes hyphenated, especially in older sources, but nowadays more often not); while many think it is something specific to the antebellum US, academic research on the opposition to slavery abolition in the UK uses the term "proslavery" there as well. But, if you look at all that research, the vast majority of it uses "proslavery" as an adjective: Proslavery Britain, Proslavery thought, Proslavery Christianity, Proslavery Ideology, proslavery liberalism, Proslavery rhetoric, Proslavery Foreign Policy, The Pro-Slavery Argument; a few academic researchers do use it as a noun, but the impression I formed in my (far from exhaustive) dive into the literature, is that the noun usage is occasional and vastly outweighed by the adjective.

In an attempt to satisfy those editors who dislike the current title, I am proposing Proslavery thought. That's what the Encyclopedia of the New American Nation calls its article on the topic, and the same phrase is used in the titles of two academic works on it: Faust, Drew Gilpin, ed. The ideology of slavery: Proslavery thought in the antebellum South, 1830–1860 (LSU Press, 1981); Brophy, Alfred L. University, court, and slave: Pro-slavery thought in southern colleges and courts and the coming of civil war (Oxford University Press, 2016). While all three of those sources are focused on the antebellum US, proslavery thought is sufficiently broad to encompass the UK proslavery movement as well (see Paula Dumas' book Proslavery Britain).

Another option would be proslavery movement. However, I think proslavery thought is superior because: (a) there wasn't a single proslavery movement, so it would really have to be proslavery movements–there was the US one, there was the UK one – and while they borrowed ideas from each other, they were distinct; there were also proslavery movements in other countries which had legal slavery, for example Brazil, although it is much harder to find English language sources on that; (b) there is a long history of proslavery thought in Western culture going back to ancient times, and all those proslavery movements drew on that thought for inspiration – which I think means it makes more sense to make the article scope be the history of proslavery thought overall (incorporating the various proslavery movements within it), rather than just limiting it to those times in history when proslavery became an organised political movement.

All that said, I have no objection to leaving the title as-is too. I am just proposing this in the spirit of compromise. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 00:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Notifying users who participated in previous discussions on this topic:, , , , , , , , , , , . SomethingForDeletion (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The more research I do into this topic, the more I'm convinced that the current title is the most appropriate. 〜 Festucalex  •  talk  00:30, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I absolutely have sympathy for your position. I think, while most researchers use proslavery as an adjective, as in proslavery X, the X is so variable, it is very hard to find a common value for X which does justice to all those different usages. I picked thought because I think it was the most inclusive of the options available, but is A Proslavery Foreign Policy (the title of Tim Matthewson's 2003 book on the early history of US-Haiti relations) really an instance of proslavery thought? Not really, although obviously proslavery thought must have played some role in motivating it. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 00:36, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:CRITERIA. The proposed name is clear, unambiguous, and consistent with how we name other articles on Wikipedia. As such, I that the proposed name is better than the current name. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 00:32, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * This has already been discussed in a rejected move request last month. 〜 Festucalex  •  talk  09:15, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per Red-tailed hawk but I think Support for slavery would have been a better title. --Killuminator (talk) 09:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Moving All Contents to Slavery Page
I move that we move the entire contents of this page onto the “slavery” page. Doesn’t make sense to have an entirely separate page. Plus this is a pretty poorly written and cited article. SamMitchell45 (talk) 05:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Slavery is a massive part of human history, it still exists today, and it needs lots of articles to cover it. The point of this article is to cover proslavery beliefs and their advocates in particular. There are many other articles to cover other aspects of the topic. The Slavery article should only give a high-level overview of the subject, which could include a brief mention of the existence of proslavery thinkers, but this article would then provide more details on them. I agree the article could be better written, but the solution to that is to improve its writing, not get rid of it. Entire books have been written on this specific topic, many books in fact, so there is no shortage of material. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)