The Asbury Journal 77/1: 140-157 © 2022 Asbury Theological Seminary DOI: 10.7252/Journal.01.2022S.08
Philip F. Hardt
The Missional Colonization of Phoebe and Walter Palmer: Poetry, Letters, and the Young Men’s Missionary Society
Abstract: Recent studies of Phoebe and Walter Palmer have focused on their efforts to spread “holiness” while criticizing their apparent disdain of abolitionism. The Palmers, however, believed that colonization was the better approach to both assist free African-Americans and recently emancipated slaves and also to help evangelize the continent of Africa. This article will show their support for both colonization and evangelization through Phoebe’s poems, correspondence from Methodist missionaries to Liberia (some of whom were from Manhattan), and Dr. Palmer’s active role in the Young Men’s Missionary Society.
Keywords: Phoebe Palmer, Walter Palmer, colonization, Methodist missions, New York City Philip Hardt is pastor of Glendale Maspeth UMC in Glendale, NY. He received a Ph.D. in American Historical Theology from Fordham University in 1998.
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