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- GLC#
- GLC07533
- Type
- Letters
- Date
- 26 June 1825
- Author/Creator
- Adams, John, 1735-1826
- Title
- to William Smith Shaw
- Place Written
- Quincy, Massachusetts
- Pagination
- 3 p. : address ; Height: 25.1 cm, Width: 20.1 cm
- Primary time period
- National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
- Sub-Era
- The First Age of Reform
Former President Adams discusses Native American and African religion with Shaw, his nephew and former private secretary. States "Dr. Jarvis has assigned some good causes of the too general inattention to the religion of the indians. But those causes do not apply to the negroes. We have thousands if not millions of them domesticated with us. We might examine them. But who asks them a question? Or studies their languages ... Why are not Bibles translated into negro and sent to the gold coast?" Refers to a slave named Glasgow owned by Boston pastor Samuel Cooper. States that when Cooper educated Glasgow in Christianity, Glasgow related an African story that mirrored Christianity's explanation of the origin of evil. Of Glasgow's explanation, states "It is as rational an attempt to account for the origin of Evil as that of the great Frederick, [Soames] Jennings, or Dr. Edwards" (referring to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia and Jonathan Edwards, an early American theologian). Adds the phrase "[s]ecret things belong not to Us," which is a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 29:29 in the Bible. Stresses the similarities between Christianity and some facets of the African religion discussed by Glasgow. Written at Montezillo, Adams' estate. Contains a tear, possibly from seal.
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