Samuel Hopkins (theologian)

Hopkins, Jonathan Edwards and Joseph Bellamy together created, perhaps unintentionally, the theological scheme that sometimes bears Hopkins name, i.e. Hopkinsian, but is also known as the New Divinity, New School Theology, New England Theology or Edwardseanism. This religious system is a form of Calvinism, which later adherents called "consistent Calvinism." Their view was developed as a distinct theology that dominated religious thought in New England, which was predominately Calvinist. This theological movement was important in the Second Great Awakening. It was opposed generally by the theologians of Princeton, including Charles Hodge. Hopkins is credited with originating the phrase "disinterested benevolence", though the concept is much older. It was expressed by Jonathan Edwards in his ethical writings as well.

Hopkins held some domestic slaves, as did others in New England. But he was one of the first Congregationalist ministers to denounce the institution of slavery. Preachers and members of the Congregationalist Church were the first religious group in America to withdraw from the slave trade. The Quakers of America were the first to condemn the idea of active church members owning slaves, but Hopkins' church was the first to openly preach against the enslavement of Africans and African Americans.

In this period, Rhode Island passed a law in 1774 prohibiting the importation of slaves into the colony. Hopkins published a pamphlet entitled, "A Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of the Africans" (1776),[1] which was addressed "To the Honorable Members of the Continental Congress, Representatives of the Thirteen United American Colonies". Hopkins referred to slaves as "our brethren and children" and stated that it was the duty of the U.S. and in its interest to free them.[4]

In 1784, after the Revolution, the new state of Rhode Island passed a law granting freedom to all children born to slave mothers after March 1785. Following this, Hopkins proposed sending a small colony of African Americans to Africa for the purpose of evangelisation of the natives there. He had already established a school in Rhode Island for Negro missionaries. During the American Revolutionary War, this school was broken up due to wartime confusion.[1] Paul Cuffee, an African-American shipping magnate, was later inspired by Hopkins's thought to pursue colonization by African Americans of Sherbro Island, near the coast of Sierra Leone, a future colony of Great Britain.

Harriet Beecher Stowe so admired Hopkins that she portrayed him as one of the protagonists of her third historical novel The Minister's Wooing (1859).