Abstract

This essay presents a systematic reconstruction of the problem of divine providence in Quobna Ottobah Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery. I argue that reading Thoughts and Sentiments in this frame allows interpreters to take Cugoano at his word without compromising on the religious and political sophistication of his argument. Cugoano, I show, develops an innovative account of providence’s relationship to slavery by engaging both contemporary apologies for slavery and abolitionist arguments for divine retribution. His theory of providence accounts for slavery as a social inequality as well as the difficulty of making restitution for modern slavery.