To Preach Deliverance to the Captives: Freedom and Slavery in the Protestant Mind of George Bourne, 1780-1845

George Bourne was one of the early American republic’s first immediate abolitionists, an influential figure who paved the way for the campaign against slavery in the antebellum period. His approach to reform was shaped by a conservative Protestant outlook that became increasingly hostile to Catholicism. In To Preach Deliverance to the Captives, Ryan C. McIlhenny examines the interplay of Bourne’s pioneering efforts in abolitionism and his intensely anti­-Catholic views.

McIlhenny portrays B...