In March 1844, Melissa Botsford of Meriden, Connecticut, defiantly left her local Methodist church because it supported slavery and other “sins” that permeated America.
Botsford was among one hundred thousand other abolitionists who abandoned their evangelical churches throughout the decade. These protesters came out with a stern apocalyptic warning: God would soon judge America ― and its churches ― for the sins of slavery and race prejudice.
It has long been assumed that apocalypticism is antithetical to social reform. Yet in Apocalyptic Abolitionism: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America (NYU Press, 2026) Kevin M. Burton uncovers the untold story of how apocalypticism shaped the abolitionist cause and helped destroy slavery in the United States.
Contrary to popular opinion Burton explains that the revival fires of the Second Great Awakening (c. 1790-1840) did not drive most evangelicals to progressive social reforms like abolitionism. Neither were the denominational schisms during that period a fight between northern abolitionists and southern slaveholders.
Rather, before the Methodist and Baptist denominations split along sectional lines, most abolitionists, particularly members of the Adventist movement, had already left their churches in what was likely the largest mass exodus from mainstream evangelicalism in American history, precisely because most evangelicals opposed radical social reform movements.
The book highlights Millerite Adventists, who played a crucial, often forgotten role in the American anti-slavery movement between 1840 and 1844. These were the followers of William Miller, a Baptist preacher from Washington County, NY, who predicted the Second Coming of Jesus Christ around 1843–1844.
This interdenominational movement gained up to 100,000 followers in the United States, culminating in the “Great Disappointment” on October 22, 1844, when Christ did not return.
This volume makes the case that evangelicals receive undeserved credit for antislavery, and that it was apocalyptic abolitionists such as the Millerites who actually led the way.
Drawing from rare and overlooked sources to create a database of biographies of nearly 2,000 people to track their religious affiliations and activism over time, Burton offers invaluable data to develop a robust framework for understanding apocalypticism, evangelicalism, and social reform politics of the nineteenth century.
Kevin M. Burton is Assistant Professor of Church History, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, where he also directs the Center for Adventist Research.
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