Willbur Fisk - Slavery, Temperance and Indian Missions

Slavery, Temperance and Indian Missions

The question of slavery was one of the burning issues of the day, and one that often put Wilbur Fisk at odds with many of his fellow Methodists. He was a colonizationist who favored repatriating America's slaves to Africa. He opposed the abolitionists within the church who sought to deny membership to any slaveholder or any supporter of slavery. Wilbur felt that the abolitionist approach would split the church and prevent those who needed Christian love and teachings the most from receiving it. He endorsed what he believed was a truly Christian, non-violent way of solving this social evil. Many felt his approach would not bring about emancipation. Toward the end of his life he regretted some of his arguments, but still stood on the principle that a unified church was the quickest way to emancipate slaves. Whether his way would have worked is open to debate, however, in one sense he was correct—in 1844 the Methodist church did split along exactly the lines that he predicted, and only twenty years after his death the nation was plunged into war as the time for talking about slavery ended.

Fisk was an early advocate for temperance throughout the 1830s and often wrote and lectured on the "evils of alcohol." He believed that a person should abstain entirely and felt that "drinking rum and going to hell are synonymous terms." (Prentice p. 188)

Fisk was instrumental in securing funds for a translation of the Bible into the Mohawk language in 1831 (the project was completed in 1839).