ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the evolution of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's views on slavery and race alongside the abolitionist theologies of John Woolman and Olaudah Equiano. It deals with direct lines of influence than with tracing the movement of certain ideas and ways of thinking. The democratic impartiality of conversion was the main emphasis and concern of Equiano, who, though he claimed to have been born in what is now Nigeria in 1745, was likely born in South Carolina in 1747. In terms of genre, Equiano follows the blueprint of Woolman's Journal, which is not only a spiritual autobiography but also an abolitionist tract. Equiano followed Woolman and Edwards in his belief that nothing could take place, including salvation, without God having allowed it, willed it, or in some way facilitated it. Woolman tended to attribute his capacity for moral action, as well as his good fortune and general state of well-being, to the influence of God.