Talk:Josiah Priest

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Josiah Priest was a popularizer, not an innovator

Priest’s theses seem bizarre and original to a typical modern reader, but he was not the first writer to make perverse claims that ancient mounds were not built by indigenous North Americans, or that the Bible proved it was God’s will that Africans and their descendants be enslaved forever. Both theories were already commonplace and debated in the USA during his lifetime. It appears to me that his role was to popularize these theories for readers who were not likely to read the “scholarly” or highbrow literature for or against similar claims.

Regarding Priest’s justification of chattel slavery, he may be notable because most books making such claims originated with authors in the southern states who (unlike Priest, as far as I know,) benefitted directly from the slave system. — ℜob C. alias ALAROB 15:58, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]