“All Mankind As Equal:”Slavery and Benjamin Rush’s Radical Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World

Putting Philadelphia physician,politician,and abolitionist Benjamin Rush’s Enlightenment and abolitionism together,this article argues that Rush was a radical Enlightenment thinker in the eighteenth century Atlantic world.A close consideration of Rush’s radical abolitionism illustrates his antislavery networks in the broader Atlantic world.Meanwhile,drawing on largely unnoticed correspondence between Rush and his radical friends,it aims to demonstrate his radical character in the transatlantic Enlightenment.A focused study on Rush’s antislavery activities and transatlantic Enlightenment thus hopes to cast recent scholarship highlighting Philadelphia’s Enlightenment and abolitionism in a radical light.