Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (Religion in America)

337 Pages·2007·2.2 MB·English

by  Stephen R. Haynes

NOAH’S CURSE
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NOAH’S CURSE
The Biblical Justification of American Slavery
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Haynes,StephenR.
Noah’scurse:thebiblicaljustificationofAmericanslavery/
StephenR.Haynes.
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Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-19-514279-9
1. Bible.O.T.GenesisIX–XI—Criticism,interpretation,etc.
2. Slavery—Justification. 3. Ham(Biblicalfigure) 4. UnitedStates—
Churchhistory. I. Title. II. ReligioninAmericaseries(OxfordUniversityPress)
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Preface
My interest in the book of Genesis as a source for American racial discourse
was piqued about 1990, when, in an informal conversation with erstwhile
colleague Valarie Ziegler, I learned that Benjamin M. Palmer (1818–1902)—
the “father” of Rhodes College—was a vociferous advocate of slavery who
reliedontheso-calledcurseofHamtojustifytheSouth’speculiarinstitution.
When I indicated my desire to learn more about Palmer and his proslavery
worldview, Valarie suggested I consult the “Palmer Memorial Tablet” that
hangs in a dimly lit corner of Palmer Hall, the oldest and most prominent
building on the Rhodes campus. Finding the tablet, I read these dedicatory
words:
To the Glory of God
and
In GratefulRecognition
of the generosityof the peo-
ple of New Orleans by whom
thisbuildingwas erected
In Memoryof
BenjaminMorgan Palmer
for forty five yearspastor of
The FirstPresbyterianChurch
of New Orleans
Born in Charleston,SC 1818
Died in New Orleans1902
The fatherof thisinstitution
which was the first to place the
vi 
Bibleas a requiredtextbookin its
curriculum and whichthrough all
the years continuesto enshrine
thisideal of Christianeducation
A Patriot,A Scholar,An Educator
an EcclesiasticalStatesman
and a pulpit Orator unsurpassed.1
ReflectingonthistributetoPalmer’slegacy,Ibegantoformaquestion:What
“ideal of Christian education” has Palmer bequeathed to my college, and to
what extent is it separable from his use of the Bible to sanction slavery, se-
cession, segregation, and genocide? Though I have not arrivedataconclusive
answertothisquestion,itcontinuestoexercisemymindandsoul.Thisbook
is a public attempt to place it in larger historical, theological, and cultural
perspective.
In this sense, Benjamin Palmer occupies a central place in this study for
reasons that have much to do with the author. For the man provokes in me
complex urges of hostility and desire, just as his portrait on my office wall is
an object of awe and repulsion alike. As I have struggled to come to terms
withmyownidentityasaSoutherner,aPresbyterian,andaclergyman,Palmer
has been my wrestling partner. For years we have grappled over the Bible he
read, the ideas he espoused, and the institutions to which he was dedicated.
One of those institutions is Rhodes College, my first and only home as a
professional academic. Founded in 1848, Rhodes was reorganized under Pal-
mer’s leadership in 1875 as Southwestern Presbyterian University. Until his
death in 1902, the institution remained extremely dear to him.
JustonedocumentfromPalmer’shandhasbeenpreservedintheRhodes
College archives, but it typifies his great fondness for the place. In May of
1889, Palmer wrote from New Orleans to inform Chancellor C. C. Hersman
that lingering illness would prevent him from making the trip to Clarksville,
Tennessee,toattendSPU’scommencement.Thoughhewouldliveforanother
thirteen years, chronically poor health and failing eyesight convinced Palmer
that the days of his association with the university were numbered. He la-
mented that he would be “compelled to decline reappointment”totheboard
ofdirectors.“InthisprospectiveseveranceofmyrelationswiththeDirectors,”
Palmer wrote, “permit me to say to them that, during a long life, no associ-
ation has been more pleasant or profitable than with my Brethren of the
Board...Andthetearsblindme,asIwritetheselinesoffarewelltoBrethren
whom I have learned to love in Christ Jesus....”2
It is not surprising that Palmer wept as he contemplatedthetermination
of his service to Southwestern Presbyterian University. The establishment of
a viable Presbyterian institution of higher learning in the Old Southwest had
been one of his preoccupations since he arrived in the region in 1855. This
heartyandactivemanhadoutlivedhiswifeandallbutoneofhisfivechildren,
 vii
he had survived the Civil War as a refugee and fugitive, and he had bravely
ministered to victims of New Orleans’s yellow fever epidemic in 1858. His
stature as a religious leader was unsurpassed in the region. But now, through
some inscrutable movement of Providence, failing health forced him to sever
official ties with the institution he helped bring to life just as it entered its
heyday.
Given that Palmer probably composed thousands of letters during his
adult life, it is strangely appropriate that this one alone is preserved on the
campus of his beloved college. Not only does it offer a personal glimpse of
themanhonoredastheinstitution’s“father,”butitsreferencetosightlessness
is eerily prophetic. For in the succeeding years physical blindness would dis-
able Palmer and ultimately hasten his death. According to eyewitnesses, Pal-
mer never saw the streetcar that struck him down in 1902whileheattempted
tocrosstherailsnearhisNewOrleanshome.Theimageofblindnessinvoked
by Palmer in 1889 was prophetic in another way as well. A century after his
death, it is impossible to ignore Palmer’s theological myopia. In fact, any
honest reckoning of Palmer’s legacy must conclude that despite the respect
and recognition accorded him during his lifetime, he was profoundly near-
sighted in matters relating to race. Specifically, his worldview lacked utterly
the baptismal vision of Christian unity that has been the church’s ideal since
Paul proclaimed to the Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is
no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). Even if the apostle failed to keep this goalin
sight, it marks the acme of his ascent toward Christ’s kingdom. Palmer is
guiltyofignoringthevisionofunityattheheartofthegospelandofreplacing
it with a myth of racial hierarchy. The infusion of Christian anthropology
withracialornationalmythshasalwaysspelledapostasy,asitdidinPalmer’s
case.
Graciously, Palmer was afforded a final opportunity tocorrecthisflawed
vision. His biographer relates that after being struck by a streetcar near the
intersection of St. Charles and Palmer Avenues, a group of Negro laborers
“hurriedtothescene,tookupthebruisedformofthevenerableoldmanand
bore him tenderly back to his home.”3 If Palmer’s story were to be writtenin
the tragic vein, this episode of “reversal”—the Chosen Race’svenerablepriest
is rescued by “sons of Ham” who may have been former slaves—wouldissue
in a scene of “recognition.” Just before his death, the black men’s humane
deed would move the white victim to an epiphany of the rainbow people of
God.ButPalmer’sbiographeroffersnoevidenceofsucharecognition,forcing
us to conclude that Palmer’s fate, physically and spiritually, was blindness.
The American religious and cultural forces that have obscured the Christian
ideal of community rooted in creation are the subject of this study.
Secondary literature on the religious justification for slavery is voluminous.
Twostudies were particularlyhelpfulasIbegantoexploretheso-calledcurse
viii 
of Ham and its role in American racial discourse. The first is Illusions of
Innocence, in which RichardT. Hughes and C.LeonardAllenanalyzetheway
Noah’s curse functioned for Southern proslavery intellectuals as a “world-
defining myth” whose appeal was based in part on Noah’s traditional asso-
ciation with the invention of agriculture and his role as the patriarch of the
first postdiluvian family.4 The second work is Thomas V.Peterson’sHamand
Japheth in America, which traces the contours of the curse in the collective
mind of the Old South and elucidates the ways it functioned to sustain the
worldview of antebellum Southerners when their peculiar institution came
under attack after 1830.5 Peterson clarifies the “mythic” quality of the curse
bycarefullynotingtheculturalfunctionsofGenesis9:20–27intheOldSouth.
Drawing on the work of anthropologists Clifford Geertz and Claude Le´vi-
Strauss,Petersondefinesmythsassharedculturalsymbolsthatupholdasocial
order.Accordingtothisdefinition,thestoryofNoahandhissonsfunctioned
mythicallyintheOldSouthinasmuchasthecharactersandactionsitnarrated
symbolized Southern cultural beliefs, institutions, and attitudes, successfully
bringingtogetherwhites’“racialstereotypes,politicaltheories,religiousbeliefs
and economic realities.”6
As will be evident in the pages that follow, I am deeply indebted to
Peterson’sfinestudy.Byexploringthecurseinthelightofsymbol,myth,and
sacred history, he clarifies how Noah’s malediction became a pivotal element
in the biblical argument for slavery. Peterson also cites a great many works
by proslavery intellectuals, many of which are referred to in this study. Nev-
ertheless,thisprojectexpandsonPeterson’sworkinimportantways:byplac-
ingAmericanreadingsofGenesis9withinthelonghistoryofWesternbiblical
interpretation; by attending to texts dealing with Nimrod (Genesis 10:6–12)
and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9), without which the role of Noah’s
curse in American history cannot be properly understood; and by analyzing
the way Genesis 9 and its cognate texts were employed in American racial
discourse after the demise of slavery, when white Southerners found them-
selvesmoreinneedthaneverofbiblicalsanctionsfortheinferiorityofblacks,
the evil of miscegenation, and the necessity—or at least permissibility—of
racial segregation.
Thisstudyisthoroughlyandunapologeticallyinterdisciplinary.Itincorporates
methodologies associated with history, biblical studies, literary criticism, the
history of interpretation, theology, and anthropology. In part because aca-
demic forces at the professional and institutional levels mitigate against this
sort of interdisciplinary scholarship, I have made an effort to transgress tra-
ditional boundaries of scholarly inquiry. One of the book’s goals, in fact, is
to foster dialogue between scholars who work in separatecornersofacademe
and who too often are unaware of others’ labors. Our immature scholarly
understanding of Noah’s curse and its role in Americanhistoryisdueinpart
tothedisciplinaryisolationthatdiscouragesstudentsofAmericancultureand
 ix
history from interacting with scholars of the Bible. This study seeks to over-
come this isolation by exploring the intersection between racial readings of
Genesis 9–11 and the history and cultural patterns thathave influencedthem.
Finally, because this book treats biblicaltextsthathavebeenobjectsofexten-
sivehistorical-criticalanalysis,itisnecessarytodefenditsfocusonthehistory
of biblical interpretation—that is, on how Genesis 9–11 has been read, rather
than on how it ought to be read. Modern scholars have been keen to employ
critical tools to defuse the pernicious social influence of the Bible in Western
history. But doing so does not alter the textual forces that have encouraged
misinterpretation or the penchant of Bible readers to read in self-justifying
ways. Among the unifying themes of this study aretheconvictionsthatread-
ers—whatever their qualifications, background, or official status—make
meaning of biblical texts and that the meanings they make, however foreign
theyappeartomindsconditionedbybiblicalliteralismorthehistorical-critical
method, are significant in their own right. They demonstrate how personal,
theological, and social forces affect every act of interpretation.
John Sawyer has recently lamented biblical criticism’s studied ignorance
ofthehistoryofinterpretation:Theconcernofmostmodernbiblicalexperts,
he notes, “has been with the original meaning of the original text: anything
later that that is rejected as at best unimportant, at worst pious rubbish. If
anything, they want their main contribution to the study of the Bible to be a
corrective one, explicitly rejecting what people believe about it: ‘Ah, but that
is not what the original Hebrew meant!’”7 Studies of Noah’s curse by Bible
scholars confirm Sawyer’s observation. Many seek to recover the prehistory
of Genesis 9:20–27asawayoflimitingtheparametersofvalidinterpretation.
In opposition to this narrow interest in uncovering original meanings, how-
ever, the method of analysis employed here foregroundspostbiblicaldata.8As
Sawyer argues, this approach is “no less historical or critical” than the
historical-critical method, because “there is just as much evidence for what
people believe the text means, or what they are told to believe it means, as
there is for what the original author intended, and this can be treated with
just the same degree of sensitivity andscientific rigorasareconstructedorig-
inal Hebrew text or any other ancient near eastern text.” Sawyer adds that
“what people believe a text means has often been far more interesting and
important, theologically, politically, morally and aesthetically,...thanwhatit
originally meant.”9
The focus on Bible readers willbe evidentthroughoutthisstudy.Genesis
9–11’s history of interpretation is explored in detail in part I. Part II analyzes
thedistinctivewaysNoah’scursewasinterpretedandexpandedinantebellum
America. Part III deals with the role played byGenesis 9–11in thetheological
and social thought of influential Presbyterian divine Benjamin Morgan Pal-
mer. And part IV revisits the history of interpretation, focuses on traditions
of counterreading, and offers a redemptive interpretation of Noah’s curse.