Description
Anglican priest George Whitefield, an important leader of the First Great Awakening in Great Britain and America, chastises the slave owners in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas for mistreating their slaves and for failing to Christianize them. In his Letter, which was published on April 17, 1740, in Benjamin Franklins The Pennsylvania Gazette, Whitefield wrote: Your Dogs are caress’d and fondled at your Tables --- But your Slaves, who are frequently stiled Dogs or Beasts, have not an equal Privilege. They are scarce permitted to pick up the Crumbs which fall from their Masters Tables: Nay, some, as I have been informed by an Eye-Witness, have been, upon the most trifling Provocation, cut with Knives, and had Forks thrown into their Flesh --- Not to mention what Numbers have been given up to the inhuman Usage of cruel Task-Masters, who by their unrelenting Scourges have ploughed upon their Backs, and made long Furrows, and at length brought them even to Death itself.
