Even a minister who called Africans men advocated their continued enslavement

Evidence

Mather released The Negro Christianized in June 1706. The “Providence of God” sent Africans into slavery and over to Christian America to have the capacity to learn from their masters the “Glorious Gospel.” They “are Men, and not Beasts”, Mather stressed, opposing segregationists. “Indeed their Stupidity is a Discouragement. It may seem, unto as little purpose, to Teach, as to wash” Africans. “But the greater their Stupidity, the greater must be our Application,” he proclaimed. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 172

Categorization

• DEFINE: Mather here is Kendi’s archetype of the assimilationist: he concedes Black humanity yet still justifies slavery — showing how assimilationism operates as a racist position.