I think you need to give a better summary of this, because most readers will freak out. What Franklin was doing was saying that, supposing that apologies for slavery were applied to Christians, how would people feel about it?
That said, it’s a bizarre thing, because the Latin countries, with the exception of Portugal, were not involved in the slave trade except tangentially. For example, in the case of the Amistad, the Spanish captain did not transport slaves, and certainly didn’t sell them, but had taken this “cargo” on because something had happened to the original ship...and the only reason the Amistad had a rebellion is that he felt bad for the future slaves, did not manacle them, let them have recreation and sleep on deck, and forbid the crew to watch them. I think he was perfectly right in doing this, but it was a little naïve, and that’s why the ship was overrun and the captain was killed.
You can’t blame the slaves for doing this, but in terms of the slave trade, chattel slavery at that point was entirely an American institution. The British had practiced it but abandoned it in the 18th century, the Spanish and Italians had never practiced it.
Chattel slavery means the slave is a possession (chattel) with no rights, but slaves in Spain had usually been bought from the Arabs, where they were chattel, but then were given basic legal and religious rights and were supposed to be able to earn money, save, marry, receive religious instruction, and be able to buy their freedom or be freed by their owner.
In the US, it was forbidden in certain counties in SC and GA to even preach to the Africans, let alone baptize them, because that meant they were human beings and much of the South subsisted on the “two creations” theory. This was based on the two Creation accounts in Genesis, interpreted to mean that whites had been created first and everybody else had been created to serve them.
But of course since the Dems and Obama have a vested interest in our knowing nothing about the reality of slavery and attitudes here, most Americans are completely ignorant of this.
Obama blaming slavery on Christianity!!! Gimme a break! For one thing, even the most liberal “Christians,” the Quakers, who were big in the slave trade, bought their product from the Muslim slave hunters in Africa.
"The first thing we need to understand is Ben Franklin was petitioning Congress for the abolition of slavery in the USA:"
As well as in the last two paragraphs of Theodore Parkers quotes:
"This petition was the last public act of Franklin, the last public document he ever signed. He had put his hand to the Declaration of Independence; to the treaties of alliance with France and Prussia; to the treaty of peace with Great Britain, now he signs the first petition for the abolition of slavery. Between 1783 and 1790 what important events had taken place! For three years he had been President of Pennsylvania, unanimously elected by the Assembly every time save the first, when one vote out of seventy-seven was cast against him. He had been a member of the Federal Convention, which made the Constitution, and, spite of what he considered to be its errors, put his name to it. Neither he, nor Washington, nor indeed any of the great men who helped to make that instrument, thought it perfect, or worshiped it as an idol. But now, as his last act, he seeks to correct the great fault, and blot, and vice of of the American government – the only one which, in seventy-six years, has given us much trouble. The petition was presented on the 12th of February, 1790. It asked for the abolition of the
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slave trade, and for the emancipation of slaves. A storm followed; the South was in a rage, which lasted till near the end of March. Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, defended the “peculiar institution.” The ancient republics had slaves; the whole current of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, proved that religion was not hostile to slavery. On the 23rd of March, 1790, Franklin wrote for the National Gazette the speech in favor of the enslavement of Christians. He put it into the mouth of a member of the Divan of Algiers. It was a parody of the actual words of Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, as delivered in Congress a few days before; the text, however, being taken out of the Koran. It was one of the most witty, brilliant, and ingenious things that came from his mind. This was the last public writing of Dr. Franklin ..."
What he said was, "Are not Spain, Portugal, France and the Italian states, governed by despots, who hold all their subjects in slavery, without exception?" I think that was a subtle dig at Roman Catholicism, not at chattel slavery.
Franklin was a deist, and is buried in a Quaker churchyard in Philadelphia, where I have visited his remains several times.