Jumpstarter 10 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion

Question 10

Bercot describes how rum and slavery supported virtually every layer of New England society (workers, craftsmen, newspapers, lawyers, families buying silver goods and fancy dresses); when an entire community’s “normal life” is funded by injustice, what would repentance have to look like beyond private feelings—what costly changes in habits, purchases, careers, or church budgets would actually break the cycle?

Another way to ask: If a whole community’s normal life is paid for by injustice, what would real repentance look like beyond feeling sorry? What costly changes in spending, jobs, habits, or church budgets would actually stop the system?

Direct Answer The transcript doesn’t outline a repentance program, but it strongly implies repentance would have to be public and costly: breaking the economic “triangle” would require refusing the profits, jobs, and comforts that depended on rum and slave trafficking.

Support from Transcript:

Bercot says by the Revolution, rum and slave industries were “at the heart of the New England economy,” so change would affect everything.
He lists direct workers: coopers, tanners, sailmakers, sailors, carpenters, dockworkers, ropemakers.
He lists indirect support: lumbermen, shipbuilders, rum distillers and laborers, plus “agents, insurers, lawyers, and clerks.”
Even newspapers benefited through slave ads and help-wanted ads for slave ships.
Profits funded “comfortable homes,” servants, gardeners, and luxury goods like “pewter and silver goods” and “fancy dresses.”
He calls the system “one of the most wicked enterprises ever devised,” making “normal life” morally unacceptable.

Discussion Follow-ups If injustice funds a whole community, what would it mean for churches and families to willingly become poorer—or socially weaker—in order to stop participating?

Jumpstarter 10 of 10

Add your phone number?

Thank you!

Jumpstarter 10 of 10