Search results
John Witherspoon (February 5, 1723 – November 15, 1794) was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, educator, farmer, slaveholder, and a Founding Father of the United States.
- American/Scottish
- Samuel Stanhope Smith
John Witherspoon (1723-1794) was a Scottish-born clergyman, educator, and founding father of the United States. He owned slaves, tutored free Africans and African Americans, and opposed abolition in New Jersey.
- Joseph Yannielli
- He baptized a young man who was enslaved in Scotland. Before immigrating to America, Witherspoon baptized James Montgomery, who was born in Virginia and sold to a merchant located near Glasgow, Scotland, where Witherspoon was a minister.
- He personally tutored two African men. Enslaved as children in what is now Ghana, Bristol Yamma and John Quamino endured the horrors of the Middle Passage before settling in Newport, Rhode Island.
- He condemned the British for offering freedom to enslaved Africans. Witherspoon preached and argued that American Colonists would become slaves to Britain if they did not break free from British rule.
- Witherspoon’s family profited from slave labor. While the logic of the American Revolution pushed some patriots, such as Princeton graduate Benjamin Rush, to embrace anti-slavery activism, Witherspoon took a different path.
Apr 16, 2024 · John Witherspoon was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University); he was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. After completing his theological studies at the University of Edinburgh (1743), he was called to.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
People also ask
Who was John Witherspoon?
Did John Witherspoon have a relationship to slavery?
Did John Witherspoon sign the declaration of Independence?
Who was John Knox Witherspoon?
June 2006. The forgotten founder: John Witherspoon. by. Roger Kimball. On the most unfairly neglected framer. He is as high a Son of Liberty, as any man in America. —John Adams on John Witherspoon, 1774. ho is the most unfairly neglected American Founding Father?
- Roger Kimball
May 17, 2018 · Protestant theologian, educator. John Witherspoon was an American Founding Father, a noted clergyman, and an educator. He played an influential role in his home country of Scotland and in his adopted country, the United States. Witherspoon was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.
He was a father figure to America’s Founders. A renowned theologian from Scotland, John Witherspoon educated many young men who became prominent leaders of the Founding generation. He went on to embrace the revolutionary cause.
