THE HISTORY OF THE NEGRO CHURCH BY CARTER G. WOODSON, Ph.D.

Editor of the Journal of Negro History, author of A Century of Negro Migration, and of the Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

THE ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS
WASHINGTON, D. C.

Copyright, 1921

By THE ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS

TO
THE CHERISHED MEMORY OF
MY MOTHER

ANNE ELIZA WOODSON

PREFACE

The importance of the church in the life of the Negro justifies the publication of this brief account of the development of the institution. For many years the various denominations have been writing treatises bearing on their own particular work, but hitherto there has been no effort to study the achievements of all of these groups as parts of the same institution and to show the evolution of it from the earliest period to the present time. This is the objective of this volume.

Whether or not the author has done this task well is a question which the public must decide. This work does not represent what he desired to make it. Many facts of the past could not be obtained for the reason that several denominations have failed to keep records and facts known to persons now active in the church could not be collected because of indifference or the failure to understand the motives of the author. Not a few church officers and ministers, however, gladly coöperated with the author in giving and seeking information concerning their denominations. Among these were Mr. Charles H. Wesley, Prof. J. A. Booker, and Dr. Walter H. Brooks. For their valuable assistance the author feels deeply grateful.

CARTER G. WOODSON.

Washington, D. C., September, 1921.

CONTENTS

[I.—Early Missionaries and the Negro] 1

[II.—The Dawn of the New Day] 23

[III.—Pioneer Negro Preachers] 40

[IV.—The Independent Church Movement] 71

[V.—Early Development] 100

[VI.—The Schism and the Subsequent Situation] 123

[VII.—Religious Instruction Revived] 148

[VIII.—Preachers of Versatile Genius] 167

[IX.—The Civil War and the Church] 185

[X.—Religious Education as a Preparation] 202

[XI.—The Call of Politics] 220

[XII.—The Conservative and Progressive] 247

[XIII.—The Negro Church Socialized] 266

[XIV.—The Recent Growth of the Negro Church] 286

[XV.—The Negro Church of To-day] 300

[Index] 315

ILLUSTRATIONS

A Christianized African [Frontispiece]

Directing the Wanderer in the right Way [11]

The Oldest Negro Baptist Church in the United States [23]

Lemuel Haynes [32]

Andrew Bryan [40]

Richard Allen [71]

James Varick [82]

Peter Williams [95]

Christopher Rush [100]

Lott Cary [123]

M. C. Clayton [129]

Sampson White [140]

Josiah Henson [148]

Noah Davis [158]

Samuel R. Ward [167]

Alexander Crummell [175]

J. W. C. Pennington [178]

Henry Highland Garnett [180]

Daniel A. Payne [185]

Richard DeBaptiste [190]

W. H. Miles; [196]

Wilberforce University During the Civil War [202]

William J. Simmons [206]

James Poindexter [210]

J. C. Price [214]

H. M. Turner [220]

B. W. Arnett [227]

W. B. Derrick [231]

J. W. Hood [236]

L. H. Holsey [240]

Rufus L. Perry [243]

Charles T. Walker [247]

John Jasper [255]

E. K. Love [260]

W. R. Pettiford [266]

M. C. B. Mason [274]

George W. Lee [286]

Alexander Walters [300]

A CHRISTIANIZED AFRICAN.

CHAPTER I THE EARLY MISSIONARIES AND THE NEGRO

ONE of the causes of the discovery of America was the translation into action of the desire of European zealots to extend the Catholic religion into other parts. Columbus, we are told, was decidedly missionary in his efforts and felt that he could not make a more significant contribution to the church than to open new fields for Christian endeavor. His final success in securing the equipment adequate to the adventure upon the high seas was to some extent determined by the Christian motives impelling the sovereigns of Spain to finance the expedition for the reason that it might afford an opportunity for promoting the cause of Christ. Some of the French who came to the new world to establish their claims by further discovery and exploration, moreover, were either actuated by similar motives or welcomed the coöperation of earnest workers thus interested.

The first persons proselyted by the Spanish and French missionaries were Indians. There was not any particular thought of the Negro. It may seem a little strange just now to think of persons having to be converted to faith in the possibility of the salvation of the Negro, but there were among the colonists thousands who had never considered the Negro as belonging to the pale of Christianity. Negroes had been generally designated as infidels; but, in the estimation of their self-styled superiors, they were not considered the most desirable of this class supposedly arrayed against Christianity. There were few Christians who did not look forward to the ultimate conversion of those infidels approaching the Caucasian type, but hardly any desired to make an effort in the direction of proselyting Negroes.

When, however, that portion of this Latin element primarily interested in the exploitation of the Western Hemisphere failed to find in the Indians the substantial labor supply necessary to their enterprises and at the suggestion of men like las Casas imported Negroes for this purpose, the missionaries came face to face with the question as to whether this new sort of heathen should receive the same consideration as that given the Indians. Because of the unwritten law that a Christian could not be held a slave, the exploiting class opposed any such proselyting; for, should the slaves be liberated upon being converted, their plans for development would fail for lack of a labor supply subject to their orders as bondmen. The sovereigns of Europe, once inclined to adopt a sort of humanitarian policy toward the Negroes, at first objected to their importation into the new world; and when under the pressure of the interests of the various countries they yielded on this point, it was stipulated that such slaves should have first embraced Christianity. Later, when further concessions to the capitalists were necessary, it was provided in the royal decrees of Spain and of France that Africans enslaved in America should merely be early indoctrinated in the principles of the Christian religion.

These decrees, although having the force of law, soon fell into desuetude. There was not among these planters any sentiment in favor of such humanitarian treatment of the slaves. Unlike the missionaries, the planters were not interested in religion and they felt that too much enlightenment of the slaves might inspire them with the hope of attaining the status of freemen. The laws, therefore, were nominally accepted as just and the functionaries in the colonies in reporting to their home countries on the state of the plantations made it appear that they were generally complied with. As there was no such thing as an inspection of these commercial outposts, moreover, no one in Europe could easily determine exactly what attitude these men had toward carrying out the will of the home countries with respect to the Christianization of the bondmen. From time to time, therefore, the humanitarian world heard few protests like that of Alfonso Sandoval in Cuba and the two Capucin monks who were imprisoned in Havana because of their inveighing against the failure on the part of the planters to provide for the religious instruction of the slaves. Being in the minority, these upright pioneers too often had their voices hushed in persecution, as it happened in the case of the two monks.

It appears, however, that efforts in behalf of Negroes elsewhere were not in vain; for the Negroes in Latin America were not only proselyted thereafter but were given recognition among the clergy. Such was the experience of Francisco Xavier de Luna Victoria, son of a freedman, a Panama charcoal burner, whose chief ambition was to educate this young man for the priesthood. He easily became a priest and after having served acceptably in this capacity a number of years was chosen Bishop of Panama in 1751 and administered this office eight years. He was later called to take charge of the See of Trujillo, Peru.

In what is now the United States the Spanish and French missionaries had very little contact with the Negroes during the early period, as they were found in large numbers along the Atlantic coast only. In the West Indies, however, the Latin policy decidedly dominated during the early colonial period, and when the unwritten law that a Christian could not be held a slave was by special statutes and royal decrees annulled, the planters eventually yielded in their objection to the religious instruction of the slaves and generally complied with the orders of the home country to this effect.

Maryland was the only Atlantic colony in which the Catholics had the opportunity to make an appeal to a large group of Negroes. After some opposition the people of that colony early met the test of preaching the gospel to all regardless of color. The first priests and missionaries operating in Maryland regarded it their duty to enlighten the slaves; and, as the instruction of the communicants of the church became more systematic to make their preparation adequate to the proper understanding of the church doctrine, some sort of instruction of the Negroes attached to these establishments was provided in keeping with the sentiment expressed in the first ordinances of the Spanish and French sovereigns and later in the Black Code governing the bondmen in the colonies controlled by the Latins.

Although the attitude of the Catholic pioneers was not altogether encouraging to the movement for the evangelization of the Negroes, still less assistance came from the Protestants settling the English colonies. Few, if any, of the pioneers from Great Britain had the missionary spirit of some of the Latins. As the English were primarily interested in founding new homes in America, they thought of the Negroes not as objects of Christian philanthropy but rather as tools with which they might reach that end. It is not surprising then that with the introduction of slavery as an economic factor in the development of the English colonies little care was taken of their spiritual needs, and especially so when they were confronted with the unwritten law that a Christian could not be held a slave.

Owing to the more noble example set by the Latins, however, and the desirable results early obtained by their missionaries, the English planters permitted some sort of religious instruction of the bondmen, after providing by royal decrees and special statutes in the colonies that conversion to Christianity would not work manumission. Feeling, however, that the nearer the blacks were kept to the state of brutes that the more useful they would be as laborers, the masters generally neglected them.

The exceptions to this rule were the efforts of various clergymen in coöperation with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. This organization was established in London in 1701 to do missionary work among the heathen, especially the Indians and the Negroes. Its function was to prepare the objects of its philanthropy for a proper understanding of the church doctrine and the relation of man to God. This body operated through the branches of the established church, the ministrations of which were first limited to a few places in Virginia, New York, Maryland, and the cities of Boston and Philadelphia. From the very beginning this society felt that the conversion of the Negroes was as important as that of bringing the whites or the Indians into the church and such distinguished churchmen as Bishops Lowth, Fleetwood, Williams, Sanderson, Butler, and Wilson, persistently urged this duty upon their subordinates. In 1727 Bishop Gibson sent out two forceful pastoral letters outlining this duty of the missionaries, Bishop Secker preached a soul-stirring sermon thereupon in 1741, and in 1784 Bishop Porteus published an extensive plan for the more effectual conversion of the slaves, contending that "despicable as they are in the eyes of man they are, nevertheless, the creatures of God."

The first successful worker in this field was the Rev. Samuel Thomas of Goose Creek Parish in the colony of South Carolina. The records show that he was thus engaged as early as 1695 and that ten years later he reported 20 black communicants who, with several others, well understood the English language. By 1705 he had brought under his instruction as many as 1,000 slaves, "many of whom," said he, "could read the Bible distinctly and great numbers of them were engaged in learning the scriptures." When these blacks approached the communion table, however, some white persons seriously objected, inquiring whether it was possible that slaves should go to heaven anyway. But having the coöperation of a number of liberal slaveholders in that section and working in collaboration with Mrs. Haig, Mrs. Edwards, and the Rev. E. Taylor, who baptized a number of them, the missionaries in that colony prepared the way for the Christianization of the Negro slaves.

Becoming interested in the thorough indoctrination of these slaves, Mr. Taylor planned for their instruction, encouraging the slaveholders to teach the blacks at least to the extent of learning the Lord's Prayer. Manifesting such interest in these unfortunate blacks, their friends easily induced them to attend church in such large numbers that they could not be accommodated. "So far as the missionaries were permitted," says one, "they did all that was possible for their evangelization, and while so many professed Christians among the whites were lukewarm, it pleased God to raise to himself devout servants among the heathen, whose faithfulness was commended by the Masters themselves." In some of the congregations the Negroes constituted one-half of the communicants.

This interest in proselyting the Negroes was extended into other parts. In 1723, Rev. Mr. Guy of St. Andrew's Parish reported that he had baptized a Negro man and woman. About the same time Rev. Mr. Hunt, in charge of St. John's Parish, had among his communicants a slave, "a sensible Negro who can read and write and come to church, a catechumen under probation for baptism, which he desires."

A new stage in the progress of this movement was reached in 1743 when there was established at Charleston, South Carolina, a special school to train Negroes for participation in this missionary work. This school was opened by Commissary Garden and placed in charge of Harry and Andrew, two young men of color, who had been thoroughly instructed in the rudiments of education and in the doctrines of the church. It not only served as the training school for missionary workers, but directed its attention also to the special needs of adults who studied therein during the evenings. From this school there were sent out from year to year numbers of youths to undertake this work in various parts of the colony of South Carolina. After having accomplished so much good for about a generation, however, the school was, in 1763, closed for various reasons, one of them being that one of the instructors died and the other proved inefficient.

Farther upward in the colony of North Carolina, the same difficulties were encountered. There the motive was the fear that, should the slaves be converted, they would, according to the unwritten law of Christendom, become free. Some planters, however, were very soon thereafter persuaded to let these missionaries continue their work. "By much importunity," says an annalist, Mr. Ranford of Chowan, "in 1712 we prevailed upon Mr. Martin to let him baptize three of his Negroes, two women and a boy. All the arguments I could make use of," said he, "would scarce effect it till Bishop Fleetwood's sermon in 1711 turned ye scale." These workers then soon found it possible to instruct and baptize more than forty Negroes in one year, and not long thereafter some workers reported as many as 15 to 24 in one month, 40 to 50 in six months and 60 to 70 in a year. Rev. Mr. Newman, proclaiming the new day of the Gospel in that colony, reported in 1723 that he had baptized two Negroes who could say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and gave good sureties for their fuller information. According to the report of Rev. C. Hall, the number of conversions there among the Negroes for eight years was 355, including 112 adults; and "at Edenton the blacks generally were induced to attend service at all these stations where they behaved with great decorum."

In the middle colonies the work was given additional impetus by the mission of Dr. Thomas Bray. The Bishop of London sent this gentleman to the colony of Maryland for the purpose of devising plans to convert adult Negroes and educate their children. Having also the influential support of M. D'Alone, the private secretary of King William, who gave for its maintenance a fund, the proceeds of which were to be used to employ catechists, the Thomas Bray Mission decidedly encouraged these missionaries. The catechists appointed, however, failed; but the work was well extended throughout Maryland, into neighboring colonies, and even into the settlements of Georgia, through certain persons assuming the title of Dr. Bray's Associates. Traveling in North Carolina, Rev. Mr. Stewart, a missionary, found there a school maintained by Dr. Bray's Associates for the education of Indians and Negroes. They were supporting such a school in Georgia in 1751; but in 1766 the Rev. S. Frink, a missionary trying to secure a hearing in Augusta, found that he could neither convert the Indians nor the whites, who seemed to be as destitute of religion as the former; but he succeeded in converting some Negroes.

DIRECTING THE WANDERER IN THE RIGHT WAY.

In Pennsylvania the missionary movement among the Negroes found apparently less obstacles. There are records showing the baptism of Negroes as early as 1712. One Mr. Yates, a worker at Chester, was commended by the Rev. G. Ross "for his endeavors to train up the Negroes in the knowledge of religion." Mr. Ross himself had on one occasion at Philadelphia baptized as many as twelve adult Negroes, who were examined before the congregation and answered to the admiration of all who heard them. "The like sight had never been seen before in that church." Giving account of his efforts in Sussex County in 1723, Rev. Mr. Beckett said that many Negroes constantly attended his services, while Rev. Mr. Bartow about the same time baptized a Negro at West Chester. Rev. Richard Locke christened eight Negroes in one family at Lancaster in 1747 and another Negro there the following year. In 1774 the Rev. Mr. Jenney observed a great and daily increase of Negroes in this city, "who with joy attend upon the catechist for instruction." He had baptized several but was unable to add to his other duties.

The Society, ever ready to lend a helping hand to such an enterprise, appointed the Rev. W. Sturgeon as catechist for the Negroes in Philadelphia. At the same time the Rev. Mr. Neal of Dover was meeting with equally good results, having baptized as many as 162 Negroes within eight months. Now and then, however, as in the case of Rev. Mr. Pugh, a missionary at Appoquinimmick, Pennsylvania, the missionaries received very few Negroes, because their masters here, as elsewhere, were prejudiced against their being Christians.

The Society did not operate extensively in the State of New Jersey. The Rev. Mr. Lindsay mentions his baptizing a Negro at Allerton in 1736. The missions of New Brunswick reported a large number of Negroes as having become attached to their churches, but this favorable situation was not the rule throughout the State. The missionary spirit was not wanting, however, and the accession of Negroes to the churches followed later in spite of local opposition and the general apathy as to the indoctrination of the blacks.

In those colonies further north where the Negroes were not found in large numbers, little opposition to their indoctrination was experienced; and their evangelization proceeded without interruption, whereas in most southern colonies the proselyting of the Negroes was largely restricted to what the ministers and missionaries could do during their spare time. There was in New York a special provision for the employment of 16 clergymen and 13 lay teachers for the conversion of free Indians and Negro slaves. Elias Neau, a worker in these ranks, established in New York City in 1704 a catechizing school for Negro slaves. After several years of imprisonment in France because of his Protestant faith he had come to New York as a trader. Upon witnessing, however, the neglected condition of the blacks, who, according to his words, "were without God in the world and of whose souls there was no manner of care taken," he proposed the appointment of a catechist to undertake their instruction. Finally being prevailed upon to accept the position himself, he obtained a license from the Governor, resigned his position as elder in the French church, and conformed to the established church of England. At first he served from house to house but very soon secured a regular place of instruction, after being commended by the Society to Mr. Vesey, as a constant communicant of the church and a most zealous and prudent servant of Christ in proselyting the Negroes and Indians to the Christian religion whereby he did great service to God and his church. There was a further expression of confidence in him in a bill to be offered to Parliament "for the more effectual conversion of the Negroes and other servants in the plantations, to compel owners of slaves to cause their children to be baptized within three months after their birth and to permit them, when come to years of discretion, to be instructed in the Christian religion on our Lord's Day by the missionaries under whose ministry they live."

Neau's school suffered considerably in the Negro riot in that city in 1712, when it was closed by local authority and an investigation of his operations ordered. Upon learning, however, that the slaves primarily concerned in this rising were not connected with his school but had probably engaged in this enterprise because of their neglected condition, the city permitted him to continue his operations as a teacher, feeling that Christian knowledge would not necessarily be a means of more cunning and aptitude to wickedness. The Governor and the Council, the Mayor, the Recorder, and Chief Justice informed the Society that Neau had "performed his work to the great advancement of religion and particular benefit of the free Indians, Negro slaves and other heathen in these parts, with indefatigable zeal and application."

Neau died in 1722; but his work was continued by Huddlestone, Whitmore, Colgan, Auchmutty, and Charlton. The last mentioned had undertaken the instruction of the blacks while at New Windsor and found it practical and convenient to throw into one class his white and black catechumens. Mr. Auchmutty served from 1747 to 1764 and finally reported that there was among the Negroes an ever-increasing desire for instruction and not one single black "that had been admitted by him to the holy communion had turned out bad or been in any way a disgrace to our holy profession."

This good work done in the city of New York extended into other parts of the colony. We hear of Rev. Mr. Stoupe in 1737 baptizing four black children at New Rochelle. At New Windsor, Rev. Charles Taylor, a school-master, kept a night school for the instruction of the Negroes. Rev. J. Sayre, of Newburgh, promoted the education of the two races in four of the churches under his charge. In 1714 Rev. T. Barclay, an earnest worker among the slaves in Albany, reported a great forwardness among them to embrace Christianity and a readiness to receive instruction, although there was much opposition among some of the masters. Sixty years later Schenectady reported among its members eleven Negroes who were sober and serious communicants.

These missionaries met with some opposition in New England among the Puritans, who had no serious objection to seeing the Negroes saved but did not care to see them incorporated into the church, which then being connected with the state, would grant them political as well as religious equality. There had been an academic interest in the conversion of the Negroes. John Eliot had no particular objection to slavery but regretted that it precluded the possibility of their instruction in the Christian doctrine and worked a loss of their souls. Cotton Mather, taking the task of evangelization seriously, drew up a set of rules by which masters should be governed in the instruction of their slaves. He had much fear of the prodigious wickedness of deriding, neglecting and opposing all due means of bringing the poor Negroes unto God. He did not believe that Almighty God made so many thousand reasonable creatures for nothing but "only to serve the lusts of epicures or the gains of mammonists." In the protest of Jonathan Sewell set forth in his Selling of Joseph, there was an attack on slavery because the servants differed from those of Abraham, who commanded his children and his household that they should keep the way of the Lord. In this they were standing upon the high ground taken by Richard Baxter, an authority among the Puritans, who, denouncing the use of the slaves as beasts for their mere commodity, said, that their masters who "betray or destroy or neglect their souls are fitter to be called incarnate devils than Christians though they be no Christian whom they so abuse."

The opposition there, however, was not apparent everywhere among the ministers of other sects. From Bristol, Rev. J. Usher of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, wrote in 1730 that several Negroes desired baptism and were able to "render a very good account of the hope that was in them," but he was forbidden by their masters to comply with the request. Yet he reported the same year that among others he had in his congregation "about 30 Negroes and Indians," most of whom joined "in the public service very decently." At Newton, where greater opposition was encountered, J. Beach seemed to have baptized by 1733 many Indians and a few Negroes. Dr. Cutler, a missionary at Boston, wrote to the Society in 1737 that among those he had admitted to his church were four Negro slaves. Endeavoring to do more than to effect nominal conversions, Dr. Johnson, while at Stratford, gave catechetical lectures during the summer months of 1751, attended by "many Negroes and some Indians, as well as whites, about 70 or 80 in all." And said he: "As far as I can find, where the Dissenters have baptized two, if not three or four, Negroes or Indians, I have four or five communicants." Dr. Macsparran conducted at Narragansett a class of 70 Indians and Negroes whom he frequently catechized and instructed before the regular service. J. Honyman, of Newport, had in his congregation more than 100 Negroes who "constantly attended the Publick Worship."

The real interest in the evangelization of the Negroes in the English colonies, however, was manifested not by those in authority but by the Quakers, who, being friends of all humanity, would not neglect the Negroes. In accepting these persons of color on a basis of equality, however, the Quakers, in denouncing the nakedness of the religion of the other colonists at the same time, alienated their affections and easily brought down upon them the wrath of the public functionaries in these plantations. Believing that such influence would not be salutary in slaveholding communities, many of them, as they did in Virginia, prohibited the Quakers from taking the Negroes to their meetings. Such opposition was but natural when we find that their leader, George Fox, was advocating the instruction of Negroes in 1672 and boldly entreating his coworkers to instruct and teach the Indians and Negroes in 1679 how that "Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man." When George Keith in 1693 began to promote the religious training of the slaves as preparation for emancipation and William Penn actually advocated the abolition of the system to commit the whole sect to a definite scheme to return the Negroes to Africa to Christianize that continent, such opposition easily developed wherever the Friends operated.

These people, however, would not be deterred from carrying out their purpose. The results which followed show that they were not frustrated in the execution of their plans. John Woolman, one of the fathers of the Quakers in America, always bore testimony against slavery and repeatedly urged that the blacks be given religious instruction. We hear later of their efforts in towns and in the colonies of Virginia and North Carolina to teach Negroes to read and write. Such Negroes as were accessible in the settlements of the North came under the influence of Quakers of the type of John Hepburn, William Burling, Elihu Coleman, Ralph Sandiford, and Anthony Benezet, who established a number of successful missions operating among the Negroes. As the Quakers were, because of their anti-slavery tendencies, the owners of few slaves and were denied access to those of others, what they did for the evangelization of the whole group was little when one considers the benighted darkness in which most Negro slaves in America lived. The faith of the Quakers, their religious procedure, and peculiar customs, moreover, could not be easily understood and appreciated by the Negroes in their undeveloped state.

Generally speaking, then, one should say that the Negroes were neglected. The few missionaries among them stood like shining lights after a great darkness. They, moreover, faced numerous handicaps, among which might be mentioned the conflicts of views, and especially that of the established church with the Catholics and later with the evangelical sects. There were also the difficulties resulting from dealing with a backward pioneering people, the scarcity of workers, and the lack of funds to sustain those who volunteered for this service.

Some difficulty resulted too from the differences of opinion as to what tenets of religion should be taught the Negro and how they should be presented. Should the Negroes be first instructed in the rudiments of education and then taught the doctrines of the church or should the missionaries start with the Negro intellect as he found it on his arrival from Africa and undertake to inculcate doctrines which only the European mind could comprehend? There was, of course, in the interest of those devoted to exploitation, a tendency to make the religious instruction of the Negroes as nearly nominal as possible only to remove the stigma attached to those who neglected the religious life of their servants. Such limited instruction, however, as the slaves received when given only a few moments on Sunday proved to be tantamount to no instruction at all; for missionaries easily observed in the end that Christianity was a rather difficult religion for an undeveloped mind to grasp.

As long as these efforts were restricted to the Anglican clergy, moreover, there could be little question among the British as to the advisability of the procedure. When, however, upon the expansion of the territory of the Catholics and other sects the Negroes came under the influence of different sorts of religion promoted by men of a new thought and new method, some conflict necessarily arose. There was another handicap in that the Anglican clergymen in America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not of the highest order. Their establishments were maintained by a tax on the colonists in keeping with the customs and laws of England, so that their income was assured, whether or not they wielded an influence for good among the people. The colonial clergy, therefore, too often became corrupt in this independent economic position. They spent much of their time at games and various sports, tarried at the cup and looked upon the wine when it was red, in fact, became so interested in the enjoyment of the things inviting in this world that they had in some cases little time to devote to the elevation of the whites, to say nothing about the elevation of the Negroes. They did not feel disposed to undertake this work themselves and in adhering to their rights as representatives of the established church precluded the possibility of a more general evangelization of the Negroes by the other sects. One might expect from a country, the religious affairs of which were thus administered, a number of protests from those thus served. There was such a general lack of culture among these backward colonists, however, that no such complaint followed. Interest in religion must come from the promoters of religion. If the clergymen themselves did not manifest interest in this work, it was out of the question to expect others to do so.

Another difficulty was the lack of workers. The colonies were not rapidly becoming densely populated and it was not then an easy matter to induce young clergymen to try their fortunes in the wilderness of the western world for such remuneration as the colonists in their scattered and undeveloped economic state were able to give. As many of the white settlements, therefore, were neglected, it would naturally follow that the Negroes suffered likewise. Some of these workers volunteering to toil in this field as missionaries were, of course, supported by funds raised for that purpose; but the difficulty in raising money for missions is still a problem of the church. At that time the people were generally more disinclined to contribute to such causes than they are to-day. That was the age of commercial expansion and available funds were drawn into that field, much at the expense of the higher things of life. The intelligent Christians, therefore, with a clear understanding of the Bible and the doctrines derived therefrom were not legion even among the whites prior to the American Revolution. The slaves with the handicap of bondage, of course, could not constitute exceptions to this rule.

THE FIRST COLORED BAPTIST CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA

CHAPTER II THE DAWN OF THE NEW DAY

THE new thought at work in the minds of the American people during the second half of the eighteenth century, especially after the Seven Years' War, aroused further interest in the uplift of the groups far down. By this time the colonists had become more conscious of their unique position in America, more appreciative of their worth in the development of the new world, and more cognizant of the necessity to take care of themselves by development from within rather than addition from without. How to rehabilitate the weakened forces and how to minister to those who had been neglected became a matter of concern to all forward-looking men of that time.

The clergy thereafter considered the Negro more seriously even in those parts where slaves were found in large numbers. Among those directing attention to the spiritual needs of the race were Rev. Thomas Bacon and Rev. Jonathan Boucher of the Anglican Church. The former undertook to arouse his people through a series of sermons addressed to masters and slaves about the year 1750. He said: "We should make this reading and studying the Holy Scriptures and the reading and explaining of them to our children and servants or the catechising and instructing them in the principles of the Christian religion a stated duty. If the grown up slaves from confirmed habits of vice are hard to be reclaimed, the children surely are in our power and may be trained up in the way they should go, with rational hopes that when they are old, they will not depart from it." In 1763 Jonathan Boucher boldly said: "It certainly is not a necessary circumstance essential to the condition of the slave that he be not indoctrinated; yet this is the general and almost universal lot of the slaves." He said, moreover: "You may unfetter them from the chains of ignorance, you may emancipate them from the bondage of sin, the worse slavery to which they could be subjected; and by thus setting at liberty those that are bruised though they still continue to be your slaves, they shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

The accomplishment of the task of more thoroughly proselyting the Negroes, however, belongs to the record of other sects than the Anglican Church. Even if the Negroes had been given the invitation to take a part in the propagation of the gospel as promoted by the first sects in control, the organization of these bodies, the philosophical foundation of their doctrines, and the controversial atmosphere in which their protagonists lived in this conflict of creeds, made it impossible for persons of such limited mental development as the slaves were permitted to experience, to participate. The Latin ceremonies of the Catholic church and the ritualistic conformity required by the Anglicans too often baffled the Negro's understanding, leaving him, even when he had made a profession of faith, in a position of being compelled to accept the spiritual blessings largely on the recommendation of the missionary proffering them. The simplicity of the Quakers set forth as an attack on the forms and ceremonies of the more aristocratic churches equally taxed the undeveloped intellect of certain Negroes who often wondered how matters so mysterious could be reduced to such an ordinary formula.

During the latter part of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth, there were rising to power in the United States two sects, which, because of their evangelical appeal to the untutored mind, made such inroads upon the Negro population as to take over in a few years thereafter the direction of the spiritual development of most of the Negroes throughout the United States. These were the Methodists and Baptists. They, together with the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, imbibed more freely than other denominations the social-compact philosophy of John Locke and emphasized the doctrines of Coke, Milton, and Blackstone as a means to justify the struggle for an enlargement of the domain of political liberty, primarily for the purpose of securing religious freedom denied them by the adherents of the Anglican Church.

Neither the Baptists nor the Methodists, however, were at first especially interested in the Negro. Whitefield in Georgia advocated the introduction of slaves and rum for the economic improvement of the colony. He even owned slaves himself, although Wesley, Coke, and Asbury opposed the institution and advocated emancipation as a means to thorough evangelization. The work of the Methodists in behalf of the Negroes, moreover, was still less directed toward their liberation in the West Indies than on the continent, doubtless because of the fact that in that section there did not develop the struggle for the rights of man as an attack upon the British government as it happened in the colonies along the Atlantic. But it is said that out of the 352,404 signatures to memorials sent by Dissenters to Parliament praying for the abolition of slavery, 229,426 were the names of Methodists.

The missionaries, however, seemed to be trying to stir between Scylla and Charybdis. They were forbidden to hold slaves but they were required to promote the moral and religious improvement of the slaves without in the least degree, in public or private, interfering with their civil condition. One who served for twenty years in the West Indies said: "For half a century from the commencement of Methodism the slaves never expected freedom, and the missionaries never taught them to expect it; and when the agitation of later years unavoidably affected them more or less, as they learned chiefly through the violent speeches of their own masters or overseers what was going on in their favor in England; it was missionary influence that moderated their passions, kept them in the steady course of duty, and prevented them from sinning against God by offending against the laws of man. Whatever outbreaks or insurrections at any time occurred, no Methodist slave was ever proved guilty of incendiarism or rebellion for more than seventy years, namely, from 1760 to 1833. An extensive examination of their correspondence throughout that lengthened period, and an acquaintance with their general character and history, enables me confidently to affirm that a more humble, laborious, zealous, and unoffending class of Christian missionaries were never employed by any section of the church than those sent out by the British conference to the West India Isles. They were eminently men of one business, unconnected with any political party, though often strongly suspected by the jealousies so rife in slaveholding communities. A curious instance of this jealousy occurred in regard to one who was firmly believed to be a correspondent of the Anti-Slavery Society in England. "I did not know," said Fowell Buxton, in the House of Commons, "that such a man was in existence, till I heard that he was to be hung for corresponding with me."

In what is now the United States, on the contrary, there developed among the Baptists and Methodists a number of traveling missionaries, seemingly like the apostles of old, who in preaching to blacks and whites alike won most Negroes by attacking all evils, among which was slavery. Freeborn Garretson, one of the earliest Methodist missionaries, said to his countrymen that it was revealed to him that "it is not right for you to keep your fellow creatures in bondage; you must let the oppressed go free." He said in 1776: "It was God, not man, that taught me the impropriety of holding slaves: and I shall never be able to praise him enough for it. My very heart has bled, since that, for slaveholders, especially those who make a profession of religion; for I believe it to be a crying sin."

Bishop Asbury recorded in his Journal in 1776: "I met the class and then the black people, some of whose unhappy masters forbid their coming for religious instruction. How will the sons of oppression answer for their conduct when the great proprietor of all shall call them to account?" In 1780 he records that he spoke to some select friends about slave keeping but they could not bear it. He said: "This I know. God will plead the cause of the oppressed though it gives offense to say so here.... I am grieved for slavery and the manner of keeping these poor people."

With these missionaries attacking slavery, the church as an organization had to take some position. In 1780 the church required traveling preachers to set their slaves free, declaring at the same time that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man and nature, and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and doing that which we would not that others should do to us and ours. In 1784 the conference took steps for the abolition of slavery, viewing it as "contrary to the golden laws of God, on which hang all the law and the prophets; and the inalienable rights of mankind, as well as every principle of the Revolution, to hold in the deepest abasement in a more abject slavery, than is, perhaps, to be found in any part of the world, except America, so many souls that are all capable of the image of God." Every slaveholding member of their society was required to liberate his bondmen within twelve months. A record was to be kept of all slaves belonging to masters within the respective circuits and further records of their manumissions. Any person who would not comply with these regulations would have liberty quietly to withdraw from the society within twelve months, and, if he did not, he would be excluded at that time.[1] Persons thus withdrawing should not partake of the Lord's Supper and those holding slaves would be excluded from this same privilege.

[1] At a love feast conducted by Bishop Asbury at the Virginia Conference in 1783, strong testimonials were borne in favor of African liberty. He said in 1785, speaking of the Virginia Conference: "I found the minds of the people greatly agitated with our rules against slavery and a proposed petition to the General Assembly for the emancipation of the blacks. A colonel and Dr. Coke disputed on the subject and the colonel used some threats; next day brother O'Kelly let fly at them, and they were made angry enough; we, however, came off with whole bones." Working in this field against slavery, these Methodists waited upon George Washington, who politely received them and gave his opinion against slavery. This conference, however, did not bring striking results. Saying that he was much pained in mind, Bishop Asbury asserted: "I am brought to conclude that slavery will exist in Virginia perhaps for ages. There is not a sufficient sense of religion nor liberty to destroy it." In Georgia in 1741 he said, "Away with the false cant that the better you use the Negroes, the worse they will use you! Make them good; then, teach them the fear of God, and learn to fear him yourselves, ye masters. I understand not the doctrine of cruelty."

The Methodists who had taken this advanced position on slavery in 1784, however, soon found that they were ahead of the majority of the local members. Much agitation had been caused by this discussion in the State of Virginia and in 1785 there came several petitions asking for a suspension of the resolution passed in 1784 and it was so ordered in 1785 in the words: "It is recommended to all our brethren to suspend the execution of the minute on slavery till the deliberations of a future conference; and that an equal space of time be allowed to all our members for consideration when the minute shall be put in force." The conference declared, however, that it held in deepest abhorrence the practice of slavery and would not cease to seek its destruction by all wise and prudent means. These rules of 1784 were thereafter never put in effect but in 1796 the conference took the position of requiring the Methodists to be exceedingly cautious what persons they admitted to official stations in the church; "and in case of future admission to official stations, to require such security of those who hold slaves for the emancipation of them immediately, or gradually, as the laws of the States respectively and the circumstances of the case will admit." A traveling preacher becoming the owner of a slave forfeited his ministerial position. No slaveholder should be received in the society until the preacher who has oversight of the circuit had spoken to him freely and faithfully upon the subject of slavery. Every member who sold a slave should immediately after full proof be excluded from the society, and if any member purchased a slave, the quarterly meeting should determine the number of years in which the slave so purchased would work out the price of his purchase. The preachers and other members of the society were requested to consider the subject of Negro slavery with deep attention and to impart to the General Conference through the medium of yearly conferences, or otherwise, any important thought upon the subject. The annual conferences were directed to draw up addresses for the gradual emancipation of the slaves to the legislatures of those States in which no general laws had been passed for that purpose.

Locally the Baptists were winning more Negroes than the Methodists by their attack on slavery during these years, but because of the lack of organized effort the Baptists did not exert as much antislavery influence as the early Methodists. Through their conferences they often influenced the local churches to do more against slavery than they would have done for fear that they might lose their status among their brethren. As the Baptist church emphasized above all things local self-government, each church being a law unto itself, it did not as a national body persistently attack slavery. The Baptists reached their most advanced position as an anti-slavery body in 1789 when they took action to the effect "that slavery is a violent depredation of the rights of nature and inconsistent with a republican government, and therefore, recommend it to our brethren, to make use of their local missions to extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the great jubilee consistent with the principles of good policy."

REV. LEMUEL HAYNES, A.M.
Signature: Sincerely yours
Lemuel Haynes

From this position most Baptists gradually receded. Yet, although not working as an organized body, the Baptists in certain parts of the country were unusually outspoken and effective in waging war on slavery. As there were a number of disputes, owing to the fact that the denomination as a body was far from unanimity on this subject, some dissension in the ranks followed. Those who believed in the abolition of slavery by immediate means styled themselves the Emancipating Baptists or the Emancipating Society in contradistinction to the remaining Calvinistic Baptists who desired to be silent on the question.

The most outspoken of the former was David Barrow.[2] He was a native of Virginia, where he commenced his ministry in 1771, passing through the period of much insolence and persecution of the rude countrymen then denying the liberal sects religious freedom. He early became attached to the antislavery school and consequently emancipated his own slaves in Virginia without at first having so very much to say against the institution. After distinguishing himself in the State of Virginia for his unusual piety and great ability, he moved to Kentucky in 1798 and settled in Montgomery County. When the antislavery dispute became very ardent soon thereafter, he carried his opposition to the extent of alienating the support of his coworkers, who, sitting as an advisory council, expelled him from the ministry for preaching emancipation, and preferred similar charges against him that his local church at Mount Sterling might act accordingly. After having taken this drastic step, however, the Association at its next session voted to rescind this action; but Barrow had then joined with the emancipators and did not desire to return. Among those whom he found sufficiently companionable in the new work which he had undertaken were Rev. Donald Holmes, Carter Tarrant, Jacob Grigg, George Smith, and numerous other ministers, some of whom were native Americans and others native Europeans.

[2] He published a pamphlet entitled Involuntary, Unmerited, Perpetual, Absolute, Hereditary Slavery, examined on the principles of Nature, Reason, Justice, Policy, and Scripture. The work is written in grave and manly style and with nice discriminations and candid reasons set forth the claims of the emancipating Baptists in a creditable manner.

In 1778, Mr. Barrow received an invitation to preach at the house of a gentleman who lived on Nansemond River, near the mouth of James River. A ministering brother accompanied him. They were informed on their arrival, that they might expect rough usage, and so it happened. A gang of well-dressed men came up to the stage, which had been erected under some trees, as soon as the hymn was given out, and sang one of their obscene songs. They then undertook to plunge both of the preachers. Mr. Barrow was plunged twice. They pressed him into the mud, held him long under the water, and came near drowning him. In the midst of their mocking, they asked him if he believed? and throughout treated him with the most barbarous insolence and outrage. His companion they plunged but once. The whole assembly was shocked, the women shrieked, but no one durst interfere; for about twenty stout fellows were engaged in this horrid measure. They insulted and abused the gentleman who invited them to preach, and every one who spoke a word in their favor. Before these persecuted men could change their clothes, they were dragged from the house, and driven off by these outrageous churchmen. But three or four of them died in a few weeks, in a distracted manner, and one of them wished himself in hell before he had joined the company, &c.

In Mr. Barrow's piece against slavery, we find the following note: "To see a man (a Christian) in the most serious period of all his life—making his last will and testament—and in the most solemn manner addressing the Judge of all the earth—In the name of God, Amen.—Hearken to him—he will very shortly appear before the Judge, where kings and slaves have equal thrones!—He proceeds:

"Item. I give and bequeath to my son ——, a negro man named ——, a negro woman named —— with five of her youngest children.

"Item. I give and bequeath to my daughter ——, a negro man named ——, also a negro woman named ——, with her three children.

"Item. All my other slaves, whether men, women or children, with all my stock of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, I direct to be sold to the highest bidder, and the monies arising therefrom (after paying my just debts) to be equally divided between my two above-named children!!!

"The above specimen is not exaggerated; the like of it often turns up. And what can a real lover of the rights of man say in vindication thereof?

"Suppose for a moment, that the testator, or if the owner, dies intestate (which is often the case), was ever so humane a person, who can vouch for their heirs and successors? This consideration, if nothing else, ought to make all slaveholders take heed what they do, 'for they must give an account of themselves to God.'"

These emancipators began by inquiring: "Can any person whose practice is friendly to perpetual slavery be admitted a member of this meeting?" They thought not. They inquired, moreover: "Is there any case in which persons holding slaves may be admitted to membership into the church of Christ?" They said: "No, except in the case of holding young slaves with a view to their future emancipation when they reach the age of responsibility, in the case of persons who have purchased slaves in their ignorance and desire to leave it to the church to say when they may be free, in the case of women whose husbands are opposed to emancipation, in the case of a widow who has it not in her power to liberate them, and in the case when the slaves are idiots or too old to maintain themselves." Another query was: "Shall members in union with us be at liberty in any case to purchase slaves?" The answer was negative, except it was with a view to ransom them in such a way as the church might approve. These emancipators in Kentucky constituted themselves some years later an organized body and finally became known as the "Baptized Licking-Locust Association." In the course of time, however, feeling that that mode of association or the consolidation of churches was unscriptural and ought to be laid aside, they changed their organization to that of an abolition society.

It is interesting to note the attitude of the Presbyterians toward the amelioration of the condition of the Negroes. In 1774 when abolition was agitated in connection with the struggle for the rights of man, the Presbyterians were early requested to take action. A representation from Dr. Ezra Stiles and Rev. Samuel Hopkins respecting the sending of two natives of Africa on a mission to propagate Christianity in that land, brought before that body a discussion of all aspects of Negro slavery. In this debate a committee was requested to bring in a report on Negro slavery. The Assembly concurred in the proposal to send the missionaries to Africa, but deferred further consideration of slavery.

The first action taken on the subject came, after delay from year to year, in 1787. The committee on overtures brought in a report to the effect that the "Creator of the world having made of one flesh all the children of men, it becomes them as members of the same family, to consult and promote each other's happiness. It is more especially the duty of those who maintain the rights of humanity, and who acknowledge and teach the obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power to extend the blessings of equal freedom to every part of the human race." Convinced of these truths, and sensible that the rights of human nature are too well understood to admit of debate, the Synod recommended in the warmest terms to every member of their body, and to all the churches and families under their care, to do everything in their power consistent with the rights of civil society, to promote the abolition of slavery, and the instruction of Negroes, whether bond or free.

After some consideration, however, the Synod reached the conclusion of expressing very much interest in the principles in favor of universal liberty that prevailed in America and also in that of the abolition of slavery. Yet inasmuch as it would be difficult to change slaves from a servile state to a participation in all the privileges of society without proper education and previous habits of industry, it recommended to all persons holding slaves to give them such education as might prepare them for the better enjoyment of freedom, and recommended further that in those cases in which the masters found the slaves disposed to make just improvement of the privilege they should give them "a peculium or sufficient time and sufficient means for procuring their liberty at a moderate rate."

There was some agitation of the question in 1793, when a memorial was addressed to the General Assembly by Warner Mifflin, a member of the Society of Friends; but no action of importance was taken again until 1795, when there arose the question as to whether the church should uphold communion with slaveholders. After due deliberation the General Assembly passed a resolution referring the memorialists to the action that the Assembly had already taken with reference to slavery in 1787 and 1793. As it seemed that the Presbytery of Transylvania was primarily concerned in this affair, Mr. Rice and Dr. Muir, ministers, and Mr. Robert Patterson, an elder, all of that section, were appointed a committee to draft the following pacifist letter to that Assembly, which determined for generations thereafter the policy of the Presbyterians with reference to slavery:

"To our brethren, members of the Presbyterian Church, under the care of Transylvania Presbytery.

"Dear Friends and Brethren—The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church hear with concern from your Commissioners, that differences of opinion with respect to holding Christian communion with those possessed of slaves, agitate the minds of some among you, and threaten divisions which may have the most ruinous tendency. The subject of slavery has repeatedly claimed the attention of the General Assembly, and the Commissioners from the Presbytery of Transylvania are furnished with attested copies of these decisions, to be read by the Presbytery when it shall appear to them proper, together with a copy of this letter, to the several Churches under their care.

"The General Assembly have taken every step which they deemed expedient or wise, to encourage emancipation, and to render the state of those who are in slavery as mild and tolerable as possible.

"Forbearance and peace are frequently inculcated and enjoined in the New Testament. 'Blessed are the peace-makers.' 'Let no one do anything through strife and vainglory.' 'Let such esteem others better than himself.' The followers of Jesus ought conscientiously to walk worthy of their vocations, 'with all lowliness, and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' If every difference of opinion were to keep men at a distance, they could subsist in no state of society, either civil or religious. The General Assembly would impress this upon the minds of their brethren, and urge them to follow peace, and the things which make for peace.

"The General Assembly commend our dear friends and brethren to the grace of God, praying that the peace of God, which passeth all understanding may possess their hearts and minds."

ANDREW BRYAN

CHAPTER III PIONEER NEGRO PREACHERS

THE new stage reached in the development of religious freedom in America in securing toleration for the evangelical denominations, meant the increasing importance of the Negro in the church. Given access to the people in all parts of the country by virtue of this new boon resulting from the struggle for the rights of man, the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians soon became imbued with the idea of an equality of the Negro in the church although they did not always militantly denounce slavery. Negroes were accepted in these congregations on this basis and when exhibiting the power of expounding the scriptures were sometimes heard with unusual interest. Such elevation of the blacks by these more liberal denominations, of course, incurred the displeasure and opposition of the aristocratic churchmen to the extent that these liberal denominations could not grant the Negroes as much freedom of participation in the church work as they were disposed to do.

In those cases in which Negroes were permitted to preach, they found themselves confronting not only the opposition of the more aristocratic sects but violating laws of long standing, prohibiting Negro ministers from exercising their gifts. When their ministrations were of a local order, and they did not seemingly stir up their fellow men to oppose the established order of things, not so much attention was paid to their operations. When, however, these Negroes of unusual power preached with such force as to excite not only the blacks but the whites, steps were generally taken to silence these speakers heralding the coming of a new day. This opposition on the part of the whites apparently grew more strenuous upon the attainment of independence. As British subjects, they had more feeling of toleration for the rise of the Negro in the church than they had after the colonies became independent. While struggling for liberty themselves, even for religious freedom, these Americans were not willing to grant others what they themselves desired. The attitude of most Americans then, unlike that of some of the British, seemed to be that the good things of this life were intended as special boons for a particular race.

The efforts to establish the early churches of South Carolina and Georgia are cases in evidence. The first Negro Baptist Church in America, according to Dr. W. H. Brooks, was founded by one Mr. Palmer at Silver Bluff across the river from Augusta, Georgia, in the colony of South Carolina, some time between the years 1773 and 1775. This group was fortunate in having the kind master, George Galphin, who became a patron of this congregation. He permitted David George to be ordained for this special work after having formerly allowed George Liele to preach there during these early years. Upon the evacuation of Savannah by the Americans in 1778, the Silver Bluff Church was driven into exile. Called upon to decide whether they would support the American or British cause, friend separated from friend and sometimes master from slave. When Galphin, a patriot, abandoned his slaves in his flight for refuge from the British, David George and fifty of these slaves went over to the British in Savannah where they were freed. David George returned to South Carolina and resided for a time in Charleston, from which he went, in 1782, to Nova Scotia, where he abode for ten years, preaching to Baptist congregations at Shelburn, Birchtown, Ragged Island, and in St. John, New Brunswick. Because of the inhospitable climate, the Negro slaves who had escaped with their loyal masters crossing the Canadian border to these points in Nova Scotia, went in 1792 to Sierra Leone where they constituted themselves a colony, with David George the founder of their first Baptist Church. After peace was made in 1783, the Silver Bluff Church was revived under the direction of the Rev. Jesse Peter who, unlike George Liele in having departed with his master when the British evacuated Savannah in 1782, remained as a slave here in South Carolina to carry forward the work across the river from Augusta in South Carolina.

According to Dr. Walter H. Brooks, a portion of this Silver Bluff Church brought into Savannah, Georgia, at the time of the departure of certain Americans to join the British in 1778, took shape as an organized body under George Liele, who had been the servant of a British officer. It is highly probable that David George and Jesse Peter, who had served these people at Silver Bluff, did not have sufficient influence to secure a permit to preach to them in Savannah, although they did unite with the church there. Out of this effort of George Liele developed what Dr. Brooks considers the first Negro Baptist Church in the city of Savannah, which flourished during the British occupancy from 1779 to the year 1782. The oldest Negro Baptist Church in this country, however, was that of the Silver Bluff Church which, in another meeting place and under a new name, became established at Augusta, having existed from the year 1773 to 1793 before the time of Andrew Bryan's organizing efforts in Savannah.

The struggles of George Liele and Andrew Bryan throw additional light on these early efforts. George Liele was born in Virginia about the year 1750, but soon moved with his master, Henry Sharpe, to Burke County, Georgia, a few years before the Revolutionary War. As his master was a deacon of the Baptist church of which Matthew Moore was pastor, George, upon hearing this minister preach from time to time when accompanying his owner, became converted and soon thereafter was baptized by this clergyman. Not long thereafter upon discovering that he had unusual ministerial gifts, this church permitted him to preach upon the plantations along the Savannah river and sometimes to the congregation of the white church to which he belonged. As his master was much more liberal than most of his kind, Liele was permitted to extend his operations down the Savannah river as far as Brampton, Savannah, and Yamacraw, where he preached to the slaves.

His ministerial work became so important that his master finally liberated him that he might serve without interference; but his work was interrupted by the Revolutionary War, during which his master was killed. Upon the death of his master, moreover, some of the heirs to the estate, not being satisfied with the manumission of George Liele, had him thrown into prison, hoping to reënslave him; but Colonel Kirkland, of the British Army, then in control of Savannah, came to his rescue by securing his release from prison. When the British evacuated that city, George Liele went with them to Jamaica, indenturing himself to Colonel Kirkland as a servant for the amount of money necessary to pay his transportation.[3] Before leaving Savannah, however, fortune brought it to pass that the vessel in which he embarked was detained for some weeks near Tybee Island, not far from the mouth of the Savannah river. While waiting there he came to the city of Savannah and baptized Andrew Bryan and his wife Hannah, Kate Hogg, and Hagar Simpson, who became the founders of the first African Baptist Church in Savannah.

[3] Departing under similar circumstances at the same time, went Rev. Mr. Amos, a product of the same Christian environment, directing his course to New Providence, Bahama Islands, British West Indies, where he established a flourishing Baptist Church.

When George Liele landed at Kingston he was, upon the recommendation of Colonel Kirkland to General Campbell, the Governor of Jamaica, employed to work out the money for which he had been indentured. Upon discharging the debt he obtained for himself and family a certificate of manumission and was free in 1784 to begin his work as a preacher. He preached first in a private home to a small congregation and then organized a church with four men who had emigrated from the American colonies. Delivering with power a message of such telling effect as the first dissenter to undertake the establishment of a liberal sect in the midst of communicants of the established church of England, he soon found his meetings interrupted and himself cruelly persecuted. Frequently memorialized for a grant of religious freedom, however, the Jamaica Assembly finally permitted George Liele to proceed with his work. Within a few years he had a following of about 500 communicants, and with the help of a number of inspired deacons and elders extended the work far into the rural districts. In addition to his ministerial work he administered the affairs of these various groups, taught a free school, and conducted a business at which he earned his living.

At first this work was largely inspirational, stirring up the people here and there; and many thought that it would be a movement of short duration: but becoming convinced that this was the real way of salvation and life, persons adhering to this new creed contributed sufficiently to its support to give it a standing in the community. Within a few years we hear of the purchase for a sum of nearly 155 pounds of about three acres of land at the east end of Kingston, on which they built a church. When success had crowned his efforts in Jamaica, he took steps toward the establishment of an edifice at Spanish Town, which was completed a few years later. The records show too that he interested in his cause some men of influence like Mr. Steven A. Cook, a member of the Jamaica Assembly, who solicited funds for him in England. Of him Mr. Cook bears this testimony: "He is a very industrious man, decent, humble in his manners, and, I think, a good man." Contemporaries speak of his family life as pleasant. He had a wife and four children, three boys and a girl. He was not a well educated man, but he found time to read some good literature.

The unusual tact of George Liele was the key to his success. He seemed to know how to handle men diplomatically, but some of his policy may be subject to criticism. Unlike so many Baptist and Methodist missionaries who came forward preaching freedom of body and mind and soul to all men and thereby stirring up the slaves in certain parts, George Liele would not receive any slaves who did not have permission of their owners, and instead of directing attention to their wrongs, conveyed to them the mere message of Christ. His influence among the masters and overseers became unusual, and the membership of his church rapidly increased. No literature was used and no instruction given until it had at first been shown to the members of the legislature, the magistrates, and the justices to secure their permission beforehand. One of the masters, speaking of the wholesome influence of Liele's preaching, said that he did not need to employ an assistant nor to make use of the whip whether he was at home or elsewhere, as his slaves were industrious and obedient, and lived together in unity, brotherly love, and peace.

The next pioneer preacher of worth among the Negroes was Andrew Bryan, George Liele's successor in Georgia. Andrew Bryan was born a slave in 1737 at Goose Creek, South Carolina, about sixteen miles from Charleston. He was later brought to Savannah, Georgia, where, as stated above, he came under the influence of the preaching of George Liele. He at first commenced by public exhortations and prayer meetings at Brampton. Nine months after the departure of George Liele, Bryan began to preach to congregations of black and white people at Savannah. Moved by his convincing message, his master and other whites encouraged him in his chosen field, inasmuch as the influence he had upon slaves was salutary. He was thereafter permitted to erect on the land of Mr. Edward Davis at Yamacraw a rough wooden building of which his group was soon artfully dispossessed. As his ministrations were opposed by others who did not like this simple faith, unusual persecution soon followed. Bryan's adherents were not permitted to hold frequent meetings, and in trying to evade this regulation by assembling in the swamps, they ran the risk of rigid discipline. With the aid of his brother Sampson, Andrew Bryan, however, gradually held this group together. At first it was small; but finally sufficiently large to receive the attention of the Rev. Thomas Burt in 1785, and that of the Rev. Abraham Marshall of Kioke in 1788. The latter then baptized forty-five additional members of this congregation, and on January 20, 1788, organized them as a church and ordained Andrew Bryan as a minister with full authority to preach the gospel and to administer the ordinances of the Baptist church.

This recognition of Bryan as a minister, however, did not solve all of his problems. The greater his influence among the slaves, the more the masters were inclined to believe that his work could result only in that of servile insurrection. It became more difficult, therefore, for slaves to attend his meetings; the patrols whipped them sometimes even when they had passes, and finally a large number of the members were arrested and severely punished. The culmination was that Andrew Bryan, their pastor himself, and his brother, Sampson Bryan, one of the first deacons, were "inhumanly cut and their backs were so lacerated that their blood ran down to the earth as they, with uplifted hands, cried unto the Lord; but Bryan, in the midst of his torture, declared that he rejoiced not only to be whipped but would freely suffer death for the cause of Jesus Christ." Accused of sinister plans, Andrew Bryan and his brother Sampson were, upon the complaint of their traducers, imprisoned and dispossessed of their meeting house. Lorenzo Dow, an eccentric itinerant preacher appearing in Savannah about this time, preached at Bryan's church to show not only his compassion for Bryan's waiting congregation, but his disapproval of the persecution to which this apostle was subjected.

Jonathan Bryan, the master of Andrew and Sampson, insisting that they were the victims of prejudice and wickedness, however, secured for them a hearing. They came before the Justices of the Inferior Court of Chatham County, Henry Osborne, James Haversham, and James Montague, who, finding no criminal intent in their efforts, ordered that they be released. They were then permitted by their master to resume worship in the barn on his plantation, but persecution followed them even there, where they were surrounded by spies and eavesdroppers. This continued until one of the eavesdroppers, upon listening to what was going on among these communicants at Andrew Bryan's private home, heard this man of God earnestly praying for the men who had so mercilessly used him. This enlisted so much sympathy among the people kindly disposed that the chief justice of the court, before whom they had been brought, granted them permission to continue their worship of God at any time between sunrise and sunset. They held meetings at Brampton about two years, during which they made a number of influential friends among the whites, who, along with the communicants of this group, assisted Bryan in raising funds to purchase a lot upon which to begin the erection of a church in 1794. The first African church stood for years on this lot on what is now known as Mill Street, running to Indian Street Lane in Savannah.

Andrew Bryan faced another crisis upon the death of Jonathan Bryan, his master. He succeeded, however, in emerging as a free man, the heirs of the estate having given him an opportunity to purchase his freedom for fifty pounds. Fortune prospered him thereafter to the extent that he soon bought in Yamacraw a lot on which he built a residence not far from the place of worship. Upon the final division of the Bryan estate it developed that the church building was still controlled by that family, but the worship of these communicants continued there under the supervision of the whites without serious interruption. The membership had then reached 700.

Bryan soon obtained a position of influence in spite of all of his difficulties, as is evidenced by his own testimony in addressing his coworker, Dr. Rippon, in 1800. He said: "With much pleasure I inform you, dear sir, that I enjoy good health, and am strong in body, at the age of sixty-three years, and am blessed with a pious wife, whose freedom I have obtained, and an only daughter and child, who is married to a free man, though she, and consequently under our laws, her seven children, five sons and two daughters, are slaves. By a kind Providence I am well provided for, as to worldly comforts (though I have had very little given me as a minister), having a house and lot in this city, besides the land on which several buildings stand, for which I receive a small rent, and a fifty-acre tract of land, with all necessary buildings, four miles in the country, and eight slaves; for whose education and happiness I am enabled through mercy to provide."

As this congregation continued to increase, Andrew Bryan secured the services of his brother as an assistant pastor. He planned, moreover, to divide the church whenever the membership became too large for him to serve it efficiently. This was what led to the organization of the Second African Baptist Church of Savannah, with Henry Francis, a slave of Colonel Leroy Hamilton, as pastor. As the head of this congregation, Francis manifested power of remarkable leadership, and soon thereafter purchased his freedom to devote all of his time to his congregation. Bryan's church was further divided upon reaching the stage of having an unwieldy number, when there emerged from it the Third African Baptist Church. Bryan's church, moreover, became in the course of time the beacon light in the Negro religious life of Georgia. From this center went other workers into the inviting fields of that State, as to Augusta, where a flourishing Baptist church was established. This condition obtained until the Negro preacher became circumscribed during the thirties and forties by laws intended to prevent such disturbances as were caused by Nat Turner in Southampton County, Virginia. Andrew Bryan, however, did not live to see this. He passed away in 1812, respected by all who knew him and loved by his numerous followers. The position which he finally attained in the esteem and the respect of the community is well illustrated by the honor shown him by the following resolutions of the Savannah Baptist Association (white) on the occasion of his death:

"The Association is sensibly affected by the death of the Rev. Andrew Bryan, a man of color, and pastor of the First Colored Church in Savannah. This son of Africa, after suffering inexpressible persecutions in the cause of his divine Master, was at length permitted to discharge the duties of the ministry among his colored friends in peace and quiet, hundreds of whom, through his instrumentality, were brought to a knowledge of the truth as 'it is in Jesus.' He closed his extensively useful and amazingly luminous course in the lively exercise of faith and in the joyful hope of a happy immortality."

In those parts of the South where the pro-slavery sentiment was not developed so early as in Georgia, the Baptists were able to give their Negro communicants more consideration. After this denomination had won toleration in Virginia, its leaders experienced much less difficulty in proselyting Negroes than in the case of other communicants. From 1770 to 1790 Negro preachers, thanks to the pioneer work of a man of color, Rev. Mr. Moses, were in charge of congregations in Charles City, Petersburg, Williamsburg, and Allen's Creek, in Lunenburg County. In 1801 Gowan Pamphlet of that State was the pastor of a progressive Baptist church in Williamsburg, some members of which could read, write and keep accounts. William Lemon was about this time chosen by a white congregation to serve at the Pettsworth or Gloucester church in that State.

In Portsmouth, Virginia, a Negro Baptist preacher attained unusual distinction. There the blacks and whites belonging to the same Baptist church experienced very little difficulty in their acceptance of each other on the basis of religious equality. They were constituted a church by the Association held in Isle of Wight County in 1789, and after the service of a number of pioneer ministers the church called one Thomas Armistead. The church fell into bad hands a few years thereafter and suffered a decline under one Frost, a Baptist preacher, who in the propagation of the doctrines of free will caused unusual excitement. This did not subside until he, according to the contemporaries, was stricken by the hand of God. While looking out for another pastor there came to this community, in 1795, from Northampton County, a black preacher whose name was Josiah Bishop. He preached with such fervor and with such success that the whites as well as the blacks hung, as it were, upon his words. He easily rallied the scattered forces of the church, revived their spirits, and lifted high the banner of the gospel. So impressed was the congregation with his work that the church gave Josiah Bishop the money with which to purchase his freedom and soon thereafter bought his wife and his eldest son.

It is said that his preaching was much admired by both saints and sinners wherever he went. "As a stranger," say Lemuel Burkett and Jesse Reed in their Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association, "few received equal degree of liberality with him." They were, therefore, advised, "that whereas the black brethren in the church seemed anxious for a vote in the conference that it would be best to consider the black people as a wing of the body, and Josiah Bishop to take over sight of them, as this church, at that time, fellowshiped a number of Negroes. The black people at first seemed pleased with the proposition, but soon repented and came and told the deacons they were afraid that matters might turn up disagreeable to them and dishonoring to God, and said that they would be subordinate to the white brethren, if they would let them continue as they were, which was consented to." Josiah Bishop, of course, could not long remain as the pastor of a mixed church in the slaveholding colony of Virginia. After toiling successfully for a short period in that city, he moved to Baltimore, where he helped to promote the cause of the rising Baptists in that city. When his work was well done there, he moved to the city of New York, where during 1810 and 1811 he served as the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Pioneering in this same field in 1792 was the famous "Uncle Jack," a full-blooded African, recognized by the whites as a forceful preacher of the gospel in the Baptist Church. For some years he preached from plantation to plantation, moving so many to repentance that the white citizens in appreciation of his worth had him licensed to preach and raised a fund with which they purchased his freedom. They bought him a small farm in Virginia, where for more than 40 years he continued his ministry as an instrument in the conversion of a large number of white people.

Contemporaneous with Uncle Jack was Henry Evans, a free Negro of Virginia. On his way to Charleston, South Carolina, to work at the trade of shoemaking, Evans happened to stop at Fayetteville, North Carolina. Having been licensed as a local preacher in the Methodist Church, he tarried there to work among the people, whose deplorable condition excited his sympathy. At first he worked at his trade and preached on Sunday. The town council, feeling that he was a public danger, ordered him to refrain from preaching. Whereupon he began to hold secret meetings. His preaching became so effective, however, and so many white persons attended his meetings, that the official opposition yielded sufficiently to have a regular Methodist Church organized there in 1790. The edifice was so constructed as to provide quarters for Evans, who remained there until his death in 1810, although a white minister was in actual charge of the church.

From the Methodists there emerged another such preacher, Black Harry, who, accompanying Mr. Asbury, learned from him to preach more forcefully than Asbury himself. According to a contemporary, Harry was "small, very black, keen-eyed, possessing great volubility of tongue; and, although illiterate so that he could not read," was one of the most popular preachers of that age. Upon hearing Harry preach, Dr. Benjamin Rush pronounced him the greatest orator in America. Desiring Harry to accompany him in 1782, Bishop Asbury made the request, saying that the way to have a very large congregation was to give out that Harry was to preach, as more would come to hear Harry than to hear Bishop Asbury. On one occasion in Wilmington, Delaware, where the cause of the Methodist was unpopular, a large number of persons came out of curiosity to hear Bishop Asbury. But, as the auditorium was already taxed to its fullest capacity, they could only hear from the outside. At the conclusion of the exercises, they said, without having seen the speaker: "If all Methodist preachers can preach like the Bishop, we should like to be constant hearers." Some one present replied: "That was not the Bishop, but the Bishop's servant that you heard." This, to be sure, had the desired effect, for these inquirers concluded: "If such be the servant, what must the master be?" "The truth was," says John Ledman in his History of the Rise of Methodism in America, "that Harry was a more popular speaker than Mr. Asbury or almost any one else in his day." In this same capacity Harry accompanied and preached with not only Mr. Asbury but with Garretson, Watcote, and Dr. Coke.

"After he had moved on the tide of popularity for a number of years," says John Ledman, "he fell by wine, one of the strong enemies of both ministers and people. And now, alas! this popular preacher was a drunken ragpicker in the streets of Philadelphia. But we will not leave him here. One evening Harry started down the Neck, below Southwark, determined to remain there until his backslidings were healed. Under a tree he wrestled with God in prayer. Sometime that night God restored to him the joys of his salvation. From this time Harry continued faithful; though he could not stand before the people with that pleasing confidence as a public speaker that he had before his fall. About the year 1810 Harry finished his course; and, it is believed, made a good end. An unusually large number of people, both white and colored, followed his body to its last resting place, in a free burying ground in Kensington."

Among the pioneer Negro preachers one of the most interesting was John Stewart. He was born of free parents in Powhatan County, Virginia, where he received some religious training and attended a school during the winter, thus securing to him so much mental development by the time of reaching maturity that he could make a living much more easily than some of his fellows. This early training, however, did not seem to restrain him from certain temptations of this life; for, in going away from home to make his career, he fell a victim to bad habits, becoming a dissolute drunkard, drifting here and there. Finally he came to Marietta, Ohio, where under the influence of the gospel as it was preached among his lowly people in that center, he was converted and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church. He then became a man of very regular habits and devoted much of his time to meditation and prayer. On a certain occasion he said, "I heard a voice like a woman's singing and praising the Lord, while straight from the northern sky, which was filled with a great radiance, came a man's voice, saying, 'You must declare my counsel faithfully,' and I found myself standing on my feet speaking as to a congregation." He felt that this was a call to preach, but at first resisted the influence, hoping to escape therefrom. Having fallen sick not long thereafter, however, he looked upon this as a punishment and responded to the voices that he heard, overcoming his fears. Having his mind thoroughly made up, he set off then to preach the gospel, steering, as he said, "my course sometimes by the road, sometimes through the cities, until I came to Goshen, where I found the Delaware Indians."

He preached and sang among these people for a short period, and finally returned to Marietta. He was again summoned by the voices in the night impelling him to make another pilgrimage. This time he drifted into a settlement of whites, to whom he preached with much success, moving many of them to repentance and organizing them as a church. He then proceeded to Upper Sandusky, the home of the Wyandot Indians, who, having never received the gospel, although the Roman Catholics had unsuccessfully tried to evangelize them, had fallen back into a worse state of heathenism and especially drunkenness, resulting from the vices imported by traders. Here he had the opposition of William Walker, the government agent, who did not take well to his message, but on being converted very soon thereafter, Walker gave Stewart less trouble in reaching the Indians. Another great hindrance, however, was the coming of the other white traders, who prospered by the liquor traffic that they carried on with these Indians. At first they tried to show that Stewart was not properly authorized as a minister and should be denied the right to preach; but having then the support of William Walker, the zealous missionary succeeded in delivering his message. Some of the Indians, too, felt that the gospel which he preached was not intended for the Indians but for the white man, although Stewart endeavored to show that this boon was for all nations and for all people. He persisted in holding his position, and in the end success crowned his efforts in bringing about the conversion of all of the prominent chiefs of this tribe.

It is said that because of this success his enemies contrived to discourage him. They prepared for an unusually great celebration in accordance with the festive ideas of the Indians, trying to bring them back to their old habits. Becoming discouraged, John Stewart preached his farewell sermon and returned to Marietta. But he came back to Upper Sandusky after an absence of a few months and devoted the rest of his life to work among the Wyandot Indians. Fortunately he was then filled with enthusiasm and the word which he preached did not return void. As his mission was then a success, he appealed for help to the higher conference, then meeting at Urbana, in March, 1817. J. B. Finley was chosen to work in this field. Stewart had planned for a thorough elevation of these people, including industrial training, which centered around the erection of a sawmill and the purchase of a farm upon which he taught agriculture. A log structure was soon built for school purposes, and there soon followed Miss Harriet Stubbs, who volunteered to teach the Indians. Subsequent reports show that the work was in good condition in 1822. The religion of Jesus Christ was flourishing and everywhere the Indians were living upright lives. At this time, however, Stewart's health had failed him, as he had well run his course, having been exposed to all sorts of hardships. He passed away on the 17th of December, his hand in that of his wife. His last words, addressed to the sorrowing people about his bed, were: "Oh, be faithful."

Lemuel Haynes, another pioneer preacher, was born July 18, 1753, at West Hartford, Connecticut. His father was a man of unmingled African extraction and his mother a white woman of respectable New England ancestry. As he was a natural son, the mother abandoned him in infancy, but he fortunately found asylum at the home of one Haynes, whose name he took and with whom he lived until at the age of five months, when he was bound out to David Rose of Granville, Massachusetts, where Lemuel grew to manhood.

Lemuel was given the rudimentary training in the backwoods schools of the community, in which he learned to read and write. These meager advantages led him to seek an extension of his knowledge through the reading of good books. As these were scarce, he had to be content with the Bible, the Psalter, the writings of Watts and Doddridge, and Young's Night Thoughts. Before his education could be completed, however, Lemuel, having been prostrated with grief because of the loss of the wife of his kind master, entered the continental army, first as a minute man in 1774 and then as a regular soldier after the battle of Lexington.

Returning from the war, Lemuel engaged in agriculture; but he had early been given a pious trend and soon decided to study theology in anticipation of the designs of Providence concerning him. For some time he had been accustomed to read the Bible and sermons of others on the occasions of conducting family prayers in the home of David Rose. From this exercise he mustered sufficient courage to read one of his own sermons, and finally to preach before the local congregations, which marveled at the power of his words. To prepare himself thoroughly to preach, Haynes once planned to attend Dartmouth College, but shrank from it. After studying privately under Daniel Farrand of Canaan, Connecticut, and William Bradford of Wintonbury, Haynes spent a short period teaching a school for whites. He was licensed to preach in the Congregational Church in 1780 and was ordained soon thereafter, beginning his ministry at Middle Granville, where he labored five years. Here Bessie Babbit, a white woman of considerable education and piety, offered him her heart and they were married in 1783.

From this small charge Haynes was called to Torrington, Connecticut. A leading citizen was much displeased that the church should have a "nigger minister," and to show his lack of respect for the new incumbent this man went into the church and sat with his hat on. "He had not preached far," said the man, "when I thought I saw the whitest man I ever knew in that pulpit, and I tossed my hat under the pew." Haynes was then called to take charge of the Congregational Church in West Rutland. Here his usefulness was appreciated and his efforts were extended to other towns through his revivals, one of the most successful of which he conducted in Pittsfield. Having developed such power, he was employed, in 1804, by the Connecticut Missionary Society to labor in the destitute sections of Vermont. In 1809 he was appointed to a similar service by the Vermont Missionary Society. In 1814 he preached extensively in Connecticut, appearing before crowded houses, having in his audience on one occasion President Dwight of Yale.

With such standing in the church Haynes was expected to manifest interest in the great questions at issue in New England. One of these was the Stoddardian principle of admitting moral persons without credible evidences of grace, to the Lord's Supper, and the half-way covenant by which parents though not admitted to the Lord's Supper were encouraged to offer their children in baptism. In this debate Haynes, with his eloquence and logic, vanquished the famous Hosea Ballou by his powerful sermon based on the text Ye shall not surely die. There was also a difference of opinion with respect to the operations of the Holy Spirit, but Haynes stood with Edwards and Whitefield. Being thus active in dispelling clouds of doubt, he brought many back to a more righteous conduct.

Becoming involved in the partisan strife which characterized the rise of political parties after Washington's inauguration, Haynes alienated the affections of some of his communicants by his bold advocacy of the principle conducive to a strong national government as administered in the beginning by George Washington, whose policies Haynes admired. He then left West Rutland and preached a while in Manchester, Vermont, until 1822, when he accepted a call to Granville, New York. There he spent usefully the last eleven years of his life.

In spite of the fact that Lemuel Haynes was working altogether among white people, however, he was successful wherever he was stationed. His eloquence and Christian nobility won him much attention. "He always showed himself a man of a feeling heart, sensibly affected by human suffering," says Cooley, his biographer. "At home he was industrious, his family government was parental. He was the embodiment of piety and honesty." Churches and associations were strengthened by his labors. Their membership increased and the influence of the gospel was extended. So lived and died one of the noblest of the New England Congregational ministers of a century ago. Of illegitimate birth, and of no advantageous circumstances of family, rank or station, he became one of the choicest instruments of Christ. His face betrayed his race and blood, and his life revealed his Lord.

There served as a pioneer worker for the Presbyterians John Gloucester, who founded the first African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1807. According to Gillett's History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, this church owed its existence, and for many years its continued support, largely to the "Evangelical Society of Philadelphia," organized upon the recommendation and influence of Dr. Alexander. "Its first pastor, although never installed," says Gillett, "was John Gloucester, a slave of Dr. Blackburn of Tennessee. He had attracted the attention of the latter, under whose preaching he was converted, by his piety and natural gifts, and by him was purchased, and encouraged to study with a view to the ministry. After having been licensed and ordained by the Union Presbytery, he was, in 1818, received from that body by the Philadelphia Presbytery, and, under the patronage of the 'Evangelical Society,' continued in charge of the African Church until his death in 1822. The house of worship, located on the corner of Shippen and Seventh Streets, was completed in 1811."

"Mr. Gloucester first commenced his missionary efforts by preaching in private houses," continues Gillett, "but these were soon found insufficient to accommodate his congregations. A schoolhouse was procured near the site of the future edifice; but in clear weather he preached in the open air. Possessed of a strong and musical voice, he would take his stand on the corner of Shippen and Seventh Streets, and while singing a hymn would gather around him many besides his regular hearers, and hold their attention till he was prepared to commence his exercises. Possessed of a stout, athletic frame, and characterized by prudence, forbearance, and a fervent piety, he labored with unremitting zeal, securing the confidence and respect of his brethren of the Presbytery, and building up the congregation which he had gathered. His freedom was granted him by Dr. Blackburn, and by his own application he secured the means in England and this country to purchase his family. He is said to have been a man of strong mind, mighty of prayer, and of such fervor and energy in wrestling supplication that persons sometimes fell under his power, convicted of sin."

To this class of Negro preachers in the South belongs John Chavis, mentioned in another connection below. Chavis was a full-blooded Negro of dark brown color, born probably near Oxford, Granville County, North Carolina, about 1763. From a youth he impressed the public as a man of unusual power and was, therefore, sent by his friends to Princeton to see if a Negro could take a collegiate education. Some have said that he was never a regularly enrolled student at Princeton. The records, however, show that he was under the direction of Dr. Witherspoon, who was soon convinced that the experiment "would issue favorably." In keeping with the course of study of that time, he was chiefly interested in the classics. In these fields he easily took rank as a good Latin and a fair Greek scholar. Exactly how much work he did in the field of theology is not known, but as the line drawn between theology and classical studies at that time was not very definite, he could easily lay a foundation for work in the ministry, and especially so if his instruction were under the direction of one man, who would shape his course of study in keeping with his practical needs rather than in conformity with the formal training of the school.

Whether Chavis was sent to Princeton to make a minister of him or not, however, he very soon bestirred himself in that direction. From Princeton he went to Lexington, Virginia, to preach. In the records of the Presbyterians for 1801, Chavis is referred to as "a black man of prudence and piety." "For his better direction in the discharge of duties which are attended with many circumstances of delicacy and difficulty" some prudential instructions were issued to him by the General Assembly, "governing himself by which the knowledge of religion among the Negroes might be made more and more to strengthen the order of the society." The annals of the year 1801 report him in the service of the Hanover Presbytery as a "riding missionary under the direction of the General Assembly." He was very soon stationed in Lexington as a recognized preacher of official status working among his own people. In 1805, however, he returned to his native State, where as a result of the close relations existing between the whites and blacks and his power as an expounder of the gospel, he preached to large congregations of both races.

Referring to his career, Paul C. Cameron, a son of Judge Duncan of North Carolina, said: "In my boyhood life at my father's home I often saw John Chavis, a venerable old Negro man, recognized as a freeman and as a preacher or clergyman of the Presbyterian Church. As such he was received by my father and treated with kindness and consideration, and respected as a man of education, good sense and most estimable character." Mr. George Wortham, a lawyer of Granville County, said: "I have heard him read and explain the Scriptures to my father's family repeatedly. His English was remarkably pure, containing no 'Negroisms'; his manner was impressive, his explanations clear and concise, and his views, as I then thought and still think, entirely orthodox. He was said to have been an acceptable preacher, his sermons abounding in strong common sense views and happy illustrations, without any effort at oratory or sensational appeals to the passions of his hearers."

In North Carolina the disastrous result of the reaction against the Negroes handicapped Chavis in his work. As a result of the fear of servile insurrection among the slaves after Nat Turner's uprising, the exercise of the gift of preaching was prohibited to Negroes in North Carolina. Chavis thereafter devoted himself to teaching, maintaining classical schools for white persons in Granville, Wake, and Chatham counties. He was patronized by the most aristocratic white people of that State. In the end he counted among his former students W. P. Mangum, afterward United States Senator; P. H. Mangum, his brother; Archibald and John Henderson, sons of Chief Justice Henderson; Charles Manly, later Governor of that commonwealth, and Dr. James L. Wortham of Oxford, North Carolina.

BISHOP RICHARD ALLEN
Founder of the A. M. E. Church.

CHAPTER IV THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH MOVEMENT

THE facts set forth above easily lead to the conclusion that the rise of the Negroes in the church was impeded by connection with their self-styled superiors. At first the whites had seriously objected to the evangelization of the Negroes, feeling that they could not be saved and, when the latter had been convinced of this error, many of them were far from the position of conceding to the blacks equality in their church organizations. Negroes in certain parts, however, were at first accepted in the congregations with the whites and accorded equal privileges. During the American Revolution when there was a tendency to give more consideration to all persons suffering from restriction, this freedom was enlarged. After the reaction following the American Revolution when men ceased to think so much of individual or natural rights and thought more frequently of means and measures for centralized government, the Negroes, like most elements far down, were forgotten or ignored even by the church. In this atmosphere of superimposed religious instruction the Negro was called upon merely to heed the Word and live. Experience soon taught, however, that it is difficult for a people to maintain interest in a cause with the management of which they have nothing to do.

Having enjoyed for some time the boon of freedom in the church, moreover, the Negroes were loath to give up this liberty. The escape of a young Negro, a slave of Thomas Jones, in Baltimore County in 1793 is a case in evidence. Accounting for his flight his master said: "He was raised in a family of religious persons commonly called Methodists and has lived with some of them for years past on terms of perfect equality; the refusal to continue him on these terms gave him offense and he, therefore, absconded. He had been accustomed to instruct and exhort his fellow creatures of all colors in matters of religious duty." Another such Negro, named Jacob, ran away from Thomas Gibbs of that same State in 1800, hoping to enlarge his liberty as a Methodist minister; for his master said in advertising him as a runaway: "He professed to be a Methodist and has been in the practice of preaching of nights." Still another Negro preacher of this type, named Richard, ran away from Hugh Drummond in Anne, Arundel County, that same year, while another called Simboe escaped a little later from Henry Lockey of Newbern, North Carolina.

This was the beginning of something more significant. The free Negroes in the North began to assert themselves after the manumissions incident to the American Revolution, as they were not necessarily obligated to follow the fortunes of the white churches. Such self-assertion early culminated in the protest of Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Richard Allen was the very sort of man to perform this great task. He was born a slave of Benjamin Chew of Philadelphia but very soon thereafter was sold with his whole family to a planter living near Dover, Delaware, where he grew to manhood. Coming under Christian influence, he was converted in 1777 and began his career as a minister three years later. Struck with the genuineness of his piety, his master permitted him to conduct prayers and to preach in his house, he himself being one of the first converts of this zealous messenger of God. Feeling after his conversion that slavery was wrong, Allen's master permitted his bondmen to obtain their freedom. Allen and his brother purchased themselves for $2,000 in the depreciated currency of the Revolutionary War.

Richard Allen then engaged himself at such menial labor as a Negro could then find, cutting wood and hauling, while preaching at his leisure. Recognizing his unusual talent, Richard Watcoat on the Baltimore circuit permitted Allen to travel with him, and Bishop Asbury frequently gave him assignments to preach. Coming to Philadelphia in 1786, Allen was invited to preach at the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church and at various other places in the city. His difficulties, however, had just begun. Yet he could not but succeed because he was a man of independent character, strict integrity, business tact, and thrifty habits. When he spoke a word, it was taken at its face value. His rule was never to break a promise or violate a contract.[4]

[4] When he purchased the property for the Bethel Church on Lombard Street near Sixth and the majority of the committee refused to accept, Allen having given his word so to do, kept it at a great personal loss.

The special needs of his own people aroused him to action in their behalf. He said, "I soon saw a large field open in seeking and instructing my African brethren who have been a long forgotten people, and few of them attended public worship." Starting a prayer meeting in Philadelphia, he soon had 42 members. Encouraged thus, he proposed to establish a separate place of worship for the people of color, but was dissuaded therefrom by the protest of the whites and certain Negroes unto whom he ministered, only three of whom approved his plan. Preaching at this church, however, with such power as to move his own people in a way that they had never been affected before, he attracted them in such large numbers that the management proposed to segregate the Negroes. When, moreover, the management of the church undertook to carry out this plan so drastically even to the extent of disturbing Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and William White by pulling them off their knees while they were in the attitude of prayer, the Negroes arose and withdrew from the church in a body.

This was the beginning of the independent Free African Society organized by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. It appeared that Jones and Allen soon had differing plans; for the former finally organized the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, while the majority of the persons seceding from the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church followed the standard of Allen in effecting the independent organization known as Bethel Church. Allen purchased an old building for the Bethel church and had it duly dedicated in 1794, when he organized a Sunday school and a day and night school, to which were sent regular ministers by the Methodist Conference. Richard Allen was ordained deacon by Bishop Asbury in 1799, and later attained the status of elder. Negroes of other cities followed this example, organizing what were known as African Methodist Episcopal churches in Baltimore; Wilmington; Attleboro, Pennsylvania; and Salem, New Jersey.

Having maintained themselves independently for some time, these African societies developed sufficient leaders to effect the organization of a national church. In Philadelphia there were in coöperation with Richard Allen such workers as Jacob Tapsico, Clayton Durham, James Champion, and Thomas Webster. In Baltimore there were Daniel Coker, Richard Williams, Henry Harding, Stephen Hall, Edward Williamson and Nicholson Gilliard; in Wilmington, Delaware, Peter Spencer, the popular leader of the Union Church of Africans, established in 1813; in Attleboro, Pennsylvania, Jacob Marsh, Edward Jackson and William Anderson; and in Salem, New Jersey, Peter Cuff. These met in Philadelphia on the 9th day of April, 1816, to establish the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the moving spirits being Richard Allen, Daniel Coker and Stephen Hall, an intelligent layman of Baltimore, Maryland. Equally interested in the same movement were Morris Brown, Henry Drayton, Charles Corr, Amos Cruickshanks, Marcus Brown, Smart Simpson, Henry Bull, John Matthews, James Eden, London Turpin and Alexander Harper of Charleston, who could not attend because of the restrictions there upon the travel of Negroes and the effort in the South to proscribe the independent church movement among persons of color.

The most important transaction of the Philadelphia meeting was the election of the bishop. Upon taking the vote the body declared Daniel Coker bishop-elect; but for several reasons he resigned the next day in favor of Richard Allen, who was elected on the 10th and consecrated the following day by regularly ordained ministers. The conference resolved, moreover, that the people of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and all other places, who might unite with them should become one body under the name of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Hoping that this national church might have accessions from other ranks in which the Negroes were not welcome or at best tolerated, this conference passed a resolution to the effect that ministers coming from another evangelical church should be received in the same standing which they held in the connection from which they came. This body adopted a book of discipline with its articles of religion and general rules just as it had been drafted by the Wesleyans, following the general principles of government as had been in vogue among the Methodists already. The church then began its career with seven itinerants and Bishop Allen as the exponents of a new thought.

Much progress thereafter was noted. The Baltimore district under the direction of Daniel Coker reported 1,066 members in 1818, 1,388 in 1819, 1,760 in 1820, and 1,924 in 1822, while there were in Philadelphia about 4,000. With the establishment of the New York conference the limits of the connection extended eastward as far as New Bedford, westward to Pittsburgh and southward to Charleston, South Carolina. Thereafter, however, there was little hope of success in the South. The African Methodists had with some difficulty under the leadership of Rev. Morris Brown established in Charleston a church reporting 1,000 members in 1817, and increasing by 1822 to 3,000 in spite of the intolerant laws and the police regulations making it difficult for slaves and free persons of color to attend. In 1822, however, because of the spirit of insurrection among Negroes following the fortunes of Denmark Vesey, who devised well laid plans for killing off the masters of the slaves, the African Methodists were required to suspend operation. Their pastor, Morris Brown, was threatened and would have been dealt with foully, had it not been for the interference of General James Hamilton, who secreted Brown in his home until he could give him safe passage to the North, where he very soon reached a position of prominence, even that of bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Another secession of the Methodists from the white connection was in progress in other parts. A number of Negroes, most of whom were members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, in New York City, took the first step toward separation from that connection in 1796. They had not been disturbed in their worship to the extent experienced by Richard Allen and his coworkers in Philadelphia, but they had a "desire for the privilege of holding meetings of their own, where they might have an opportunity to exercise their spiritual gifts among themselves, and thereby be more useful to one another." Such permission was obtained from Bishop Francis Asbury by a group of intelligent Negro Methodists, chief among whom were Francis Jacobs, William Brown, Peter Williams, Abraham Thompson, June Scott, Samuel Pontier, Thomas Miller, William Miller, James Varick and William Hamilton. Three of these persons, Abraham Thompson, June Scott, and Thomas Miller, were at that time recognized preachers, and William Miller was an exhorter, all of them officiating in this capacity as opportunities presented themselves in their connection and under the supervision of the white Methodists.

These workers continued in this situation until the year 1799, when, with a further increase in the Negro membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City, they proposed to build a separate house of worship rather than merely hold separate meetings in the edifice belonging to the white Methodists. A meeting was held soon thereafter and arrangements were made for the purchase of a lot in Orange Street, between Cross and Chatham, on which after having paid the amount of $50, they found out that the title was involved and they thereafter purchased a site situated at the corner of Church and Leonard Streets and fronting on Church Street. Upon this site they erected a building in the year 1800, naming the edifice the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Their white friends, seeing that they were determined to be a separate body, appointed as their adviser Rev. John McClaskey, who instructed them how to proceed in drawing up the articles of government. A charter was secured in 1801 and bears the signatures of Peter Williams and Francis Jacobs.

This church had not proceeded very far before there arose some dissension in the ranks. The first exhibition of this was the effort of two of the founders, Abraham Thompson and June Scott, who, "induced by the expectation of filthy lucre," tried to form a society separate from the Zion church. In this they were aided by a white man who desired to exercise his own spiritual gifts, the opportunity for which he could not secure among his own people who belonged to the Society of Friends, from which he had been expelled. This new organization was finally effected as the Union Society. Very soon thereafter Abraham Thompson repented of his action and abandoned the attempt, leaving June Scott to continue the work of the Union Society by himself. As he was unable to bear the expenses thereafter the society was consequently broken up and June Scott attached himself to another church.

Another obstacle appeared in 1813 when Thomas Simpkins, upon being expelled from the Zion Church, of which he had been a member and a trustee, undertook to establish a new society. He drew to himself William Miller, who had been ordained deacon in the Zion Church. Obtaining thereafter a site in Elizabeth Street, they succeeded in persuading a number of members of the Zion Church to unite with them to establish the Asbury Church. Unlike the unsuccessful attempt of Abraham Thompson and June Scott in forming the Union Society, the Asbury Church became permanently established. Desiring, however, to be regular in their operations, the members of the Asbury Church found themselves compelled to appeal to the same ecclesiastical authorities and to accept practically the same government as that already instituted for the Zion Church. This church was thereafter received in the Methodist Church. Although this was considered a very bad omen for the Zion Church, however, it continued to make progress in spite of expectations to the contrary. The members of the church decidedly increased and steps were taken for the construction of a house with a school room underneath on the site of the old meeting house. On the 25th of November there began the construction of a more suitable building which was completed by 1820.

Another disturbing factor appeared in the scheme of William Lambert. He had been a member of the Zion Church and seceded with those who formed the Asbury connection. Because the Zion Church refused to appoint him as a minister, and even Asbury refused to hear him preach, he returned from Philadelphia where he had been under the influence of Bishop Richard Allen, from whom he had obtained a license to preach, and endeavored to establish a church for Bishop Allen's denomination. He obtained a school house in Mott Street, and with the assistance of Rev. Mr. White, a member and an ordained deacon, it was fitted for a church. In the meantime Bishop Allen was in touch with some of the official brethren in New York City with a view to extending the jurisdiction of his own church. The supporters of Bishop Allen, moreover, appeared at the opportune moment, when the Zionites were without a building and were also without the direction that it had formerly had from the white Methodists, inasmuch as the latter were disturbed by a schism resulting from differences as to church government.

JAMES VARICK

Further disturbance was, therefore, caused when Henry Harden entered the city of New York in 1820 and commenced to form a society of African Methodists with the assistance of William Lambert and Rev. Mr. White. The Zionists bearing it rather grievously that Bishop Allen had thus tried to invade that field, decided that they would neither preach for the Allenites nor permit the Allenites to preach for them. In this resolution, William Miller, the minister of the Asbury Church, acquiesced and seemingly agreed thereby to connect himself closely with the Zionites. The church of Richard Allen's connection, however, did not displease all the persons concerned. According to the account of Christopher Rush, who himself became a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, although Richard Allen arrived and sanctioned all that had been done by those men who were working for the progress of his denomination, "his presence seemed soon to alter the minds of the Zion preachers, for notwithstanding their resolution to discountenance the proceedings of the Bishop, yet some of them went to their meetings, some of them sat in their altar, and one of them, James Varick, opened meeting for the Bishop on the second or third Sunday night of the existence of that society."

During the first years of their separation the African Methodists in New York had the coöperation of the whites and the funds necessary for the construction of their building and the maintenance of their ministers came from that source. In the course of time, however, the funds contributed by the people of color themselves increased with this growing desire for independence. The schism in the white church, moreover, stimulated this desire for thorough separation from the white Methodists inasmuch as their so-called superiors were divided in their views as to questions of polity. These Methodists of color believed that they should avail themselves of the opportunity to control their own affairs. They had at first had for pastors white Methodist preachers with the local preachers of color serving under them. They thereupon notified the white Methodists that they no longer felt themselves obligated to look to them for supplying the pulpit and that they did not desire to have their property involved in the difficulties contemplated by the proposed act of incorporation which had led to the schism. The Zionites were in a state of indecision, however, for the reason that not having left the white Methodist Church in a snarl as did the followers of Richard Allen, the Zionites had no particular grievance to serve as a cohesive force. Many had thought either of returning to the white Methodists or joining the Allenites.

There soon came a time then when it was necessary for the Zionites to decide exactly what they would do. This being the case, an official meeting was held on August 11, 1820, for the purpose of considering the serious state of the church. Two important questions were propounded at this meeting, one being: "Shall we return to the white people?" The answer was negative. The next question was: "Shall we join Bishop Allen?" The answer was also negative. They, therefore, decided to take steps for establishing a firm church government of their own. Several efforts have since been made to unite the African Methodists but to no avail.

Being desirous, however, to proceed regularly rather than radically, these African Methodists sought ordination and consecration through some branch of the Christian Church. They sent a committee to make such a request of Bishop Hobart of the Episcopal Church, but he was unable to serve them. They then appealed to the bishop of the Methodist Church, but they were put off in one way or another, with excuses of the bishop having no power to act without the conference and with the request that they should defer action until the conference should have time to investigate. They thereafter appealed to the conference in session in Philadelphia and were encouraged by a favorable resolution to expect that such service would be rendered them. For some reason they appealed to the conference in New York, which finally refused to grant their request. The Zionites were then reduced to radical measures in that they had finally to follow in the footsteps of the Asbury Church in ordaining its own deacons and elder.

Becoming thus aggressive, the Zionites, like the Allenites, had taken the offensive. They extended their operations through missionaries into Flushing, New Haven, Long Island, and even into Philadelphia, where certain persons separating from the connection of Richard Allen, organized the Wesleyan Church and joined the Zionites. Under the leadership of such men as James Varick, George Collins, Charles Anderson, and Christopher Rush, they drew up the doctrines and discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America, elected a number of elders, and finally organized in 1821 a national body, of which James Varick became the first bishop in 1822.

Before the Negro Methodists perfected their organizations by which the influence of their churches might be permanently extended throughout the country, the Baptists had been locally trying to do the same thing. The Harrison Street Baptist Church was organized at Petersburg, Virginia, in 1776; another Negro Baptist Church at Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1785; the First African Baptist Church at Savannah in 1785, with a second Baptist Church in that city following fourteen years later; the African Baptist Church of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1790; and a mixed Baptist Church in the Mound Bayou, Mississippi district, in 1805, by Joseph Willis, a free Negro born in South Carolina in 1762.[5] In the city of Philadelphia on May 14, 1809, thirteen colored members who had for some time felt that it would be more congenial for them to worship separately, were dismissed to form the first African Baptist Church. On June 19, 1809, the use of the First Baptist Church (white) was given them for the meeting at which they were constituted an organized body. The main trouble with the First Baptist Church (white) seemed to be that it had suffered from having its anti-slavery ardor dampened during the reaction following the Revolutionary War. Whereas many of the Baptists in other parts had become radical emancipationists, the white Baptists of Philadelphia after having attacked the slave trade, tried to dodge the anti-slavery issue with the excuse that it was a political question with which the church had nothing to do. The anti-slavery sentiment was naturally suppressed during the pastorates of Holcombe, Brantly and Cuthbert, all southern men, partly in defense of their well-known sentiment and partly through the sentiment of the people themselves.

[5] A man of fair education, Willis was a power in that State as early as 1798. We hear of him in Louisiana in 1804. Mississippi sent two ministers to ordain him in Louisiana in 1812. He organized later the Louisiana Baptist Association and was chosen as its moderator in 1837.

Complete separation of the Negro Baptists in this church was, therefore, deemed a necessity during the first quarter of the nineteenth century when there was an increasing prejudice against free persons of color because of the rapid migration of freedmen from the South to Pennsylvania.

When in 1809 the Negroes organized the African Baptist Church in Philadelphia, it was placed under the oversight of Rev. Henry Cunningham, and was directed for two years thereafter by John King. According to another record there was at this time in the South a slave named Burrows who felt that he was called to preach. Many encouraged him to come North to beg money to buy his freedom. Two of his friends, free persons of color, were so impressed with his worth and believed so implicitly in his word as his bond that they bound themselves in bondage for six months while he absented himself to solicit funds throughout the North. In a short time this man of such indomitable will and belief in himself and in the future, raised the required sum of money with which he effected his manumission and invited these loyal friends who had been instrumental in his liberation to come North to Philadelphia to assist him in establishing a Baptist church. This was the First African Baptist Church of Philadelphia, which, in 1809, became one of the substantial religious organizations of the city, having enjoyed the services of useful and influential preachers, four of whose long pastorates covered the whole period of one hundred years.

When the African Baptist Church of Philadelphia was being organized, the same movement was culminating in New York City. Prior to 1809 the Baptists of color had worshiped along with their white brethren. The church record of November 1, 1770, says: "After divine service, Hannah Dunmore and Chloe, a Negro woman belonging to Mr. George Green, were received into the church." Speaking about this relation, this document says: "Our records have many notices of baptisms and marriages among the Negro people and until early in the present century there was a large group of them in this church." But the desire for independence and a more congenial atmosphere so obsessed them that they sought to form an organization of their own. This was finally effected in 1809 under the leadership of the Rev. Thomas Paul, a native of Exeter, New Hampshire, "where," according to the Baptist Memorial, "he was born of respectable parents on the third of September, 1773." He experienced faith in Jesus at an early age and was baptized in the year 1789 by the Rev. Mr. Locke; but, although impressed with the thought that his calling was the ministry, he was not ordained until 1805. Soon thereafter he well organized the African Baptist Church in Joy Street, in Boston, where he served this congregation for about twenty-five years. His labors, however, were not restricted to that city. He frequently made preaching excursions into different parts of the country where his "color excited considerable curiosity, and being a person of very pleasing and fervid address, he attracted crowds to hear him; at this period of his ministry his labors were greatly blessed with numerous conversions in several revivals of religion commenced in different towns under his ministration." It was while he was pastor of the Church in Boston, that in 1808 he organized in New York City the congregation now known as the Abyssinian Baptist Church and served it from June to September of that year, after which Josiah Bishop and others had charge of this very promising work.

The beginnings of this church are interesting. According to a contemporary, "About the year 1807, the colored brethren and sisters of the First Baptist Church, worshipping in Gold Street, for reasons unnecessary now to mention, respectfully proposed to the said church the expediency of a separation: seeing that the colored Methodists and Episcopalians had made similar propositions to their respective churches with success, they humbly desired the same. But they were unsuccessful until the year 1809. In the interim the Rev. Thomas Paul, of Boston, at their request, visited the city, and he was well received in the white churches, preaching to large congregations. Encouraged by such a state of things, they resolved on procuring a place of worship. The meeting-house in Anthony Street, the property of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, being for sale, was purchased by them, with the coöperation of their white brethren. The First Church, satisfied with the competency of brother Paul for the care and management of the petitioners, unanimously granted honorable letters of dismission to four brethren and twelve sisters, who, with three others, were constituted a gospel church on Wednesday, the 5th of July, 1809, under the name of the 'Abyssinian Baptist Church.' It is to be regretted that the order of exercises at the public recognition of this new interest cannot be found. Blest with the faithful labors of such a gifted man, crowded assemblies heard the word of the Lord, and many were added to the church on a profession of their faith in Christ."

Paul's interest in the Negro was not limited to those in this country. In 1823 he presented to the Baptist Missionary Society of Massachusetts a plan for improving the moral and religious condition of the Haitians, requesting that he be sent to these people as a missionary. His plan was received with considerable enthusiasm and he was appointed as a missionary and sent to that country for six months. President Boyer of the Republic of Haiti and other public functionaries kindly received this missionary, giving him permission to preach. There he soon met with some success in edifying a few pious people who seemed gratified beyond measure by his ministrations. Writing home, he frequently mentioned "the powerful precious soul reviving seasons" which he and the few disciples on the island enjoyed. Because of his lack of knowledge of the French language, however, he could not reach a large number of the inhabitants of that island. He was, therefore, compelled to leave Haiti with the regret that he could not do more for its general welfare and especially its deplorable moral condition.[6]

[6] "In all of his journeyings," says a contributor to the Baptist Magazine, "he seemed to go among the people in the fullness of the blessings of the Gospel of Christ. He was not indeed an ordinary man, for without those advantages of good education in early life, he became distinguished as a preacher. His understanding was vigorous, his imagination was vivid, his personal appearance was interesting and his elocution was grateful. We have heard him preach to an audience of more than 1000 persons when he seemed to have the complete command of their feelings for an hour together. On baptismal occasions he was truly eloquent. His arguments were unanswerable, and his appeals to the heart were powerful. The slow and gentle manner in which he placed candidates under the water, and raised them up again, produced an indelible impression on the spectators, that they had indeed seen the burial with Christ in baptism. Near the close of his career in 1831 when he finally died of a painful illness, he bore striking testimony to his faith in Jesus. His mind being 'wonderfully sustained by the consolations of the Gospel,' he said on one occasion to a friend, 'Since I saw you last I have been happy in God—my sky has been without a cloud. I know that when the earthly house of my tabernacle is dissolved, I have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' When asked at another time if he had a good hope through grace, O, said he, I am altogether unworthy, but trust in him 'who of God is made unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.' After a short pause, he observed, 'I know in whom I have believed, and that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him until that day.' When his sufferings were great, and he felt as if he were dying, he would say in broken accents, 'Come—Lord—Jesus—come quickly.' But he would add, 'I pray for patience.' He frequently repeated, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.' On his daughter's observing what a fine day it was, and how calm the water was, he said smiling, 'Just like my mind, my dear—not a wave—unruffled.' One morning being asked how he had rested the preceding night, he replied, 'The Lord has spared my life one night longer; but I never longed for any thing so really, as to die and to be with my Saviour.' Towards the close of his last sickness, he exclaimed with emphasis and a voice stronger than usual—'I am now ready to be offered up and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.'"

That the independent church movement among Negroes should be directed toward Methodism and Baptism requires some consideration. In those parts of the country in which most Negroes were found, the dominant communicants among the whites were at first Episcopalians, the successors to the rites and ceremonies of the Anglican Church. Among some of the best friends of the Negroes, moreover, were the Presbyterians, who often extended the blacks the same hand of welcome as did the Quakers. Whether this was due altogether to the emotional nature of the Negroes to which the Baptists and Methodists appealed, to chance, or to the wisdom of the leaders of the independent church movement among the Negroes, is a much mooted question. Discussing this matter, Bishop B. T. Tanner in his Apology for African Methodism (page 63), attributed the success of Methodism to the foresight of Richard Allen. The author of this work shows how Richard Allen at first coöperated with the Free African Society in Philadelphia until upon holding a meeting, November 15, 1788, they adopted a report of the committee providing for an organization of that society as a religious body, on a basis which, according to Allen's opinion, would have been a usage which prevented that freedom which the gospel permits. Feeling that the current of religious sentiment was not flowing in the desired direction, Allen refused further to coöperate with this group, which by a vote formally declared Allen's connection severed with that society, although Richard Allen retained the friendship of Rev. Absalom Jones, the first rector of the St. Thomas Church, which later developed from this organization.

Bishop Tanner contends that Allen appreciated the fact that, his people being undisciplined, a sound judgment educated with their emotional natures should not be forgotten and swallowed up in the cold intellectual ritual. As he believed that by blending together the emotional and intellectual, the minds of the Negroes could be better developed along religious lines, he refused the proffered rectorship of St. Thomas, saying that he could not be anything but a Methodist. He said, moreover: "I was confident that there was no religious sect or denomination which would suit the capacity of the colored people so well as the Methodist, for the plain, simple Gospel suits best for any people, for the unlearned can understand, and the learned are sure to understand; and the reason that the Methodists are so successful in the awakening and the conversion of the colored people, is the plain doctrine which they preach and having a good discipline."

The Episcopal Church, moreover, could hardly attract Negro churchmen of very much ambition, when it did not require very much reasoning to reach the conclusion that inasmuch as that church had too often neglected the poor whites, it would hardly be inclined to proselyte Negroes. Prior to the time that Absalom Jones was made priest, the St. Thomas Church, according to the Protestant Episcopal convention, was not entitled to send clergymen or deputies thereto nor to participate in the general government of the Episcopal Church. In the year 1795 they declared it was only for the present. The same position, however, was taken in 1843 and it was adhered to throughout the period of slavery; for the Episcopal Church persistently refused to make slavery a matter of discipline.

It is little wonder then that Episcopal churches among Negroes have much difficulty in their development, and only in a few large cities did we have churches even so successful as that of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. Among these may be mentioned the St. Phillips Church in New York. This prosperous church was organized in 1818 and incorporated in 1820. Peter Williams, the first Negro to be ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church, served as its rector until 1849. He was a man of unusual beginnings. His father, Peter Williams, Sr., was for a number of years the sexton of the John Street Methodist Church, in which position he became distinguished among the white communicants for his fidelity and piety. He joined with other Negroes desirous of independent church action and established the Zion Church, out of which emerged the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Peter Williams, the son, however, became an Episcopalian, was educated for the ministry and served for years as the rector of St. Phillips Church. In this position he maintained himself as a man of usefulness and influence, touching the life of his people whenever the opportunity presented itself. Bishop Daniel A. Payne, who first came into contact with him in New York in 1835, considered him well educated, for his day, hospitable and generous. Bishop Payne said: "He loved to see talented young men educating themselves and substantially aided more than one in his efforts. Above all he valued an educated minister."

REV. PETER WILLIAMS
First colored Protestant Episcopal priest in the United States.

In this position of subjection to a church control in which he himself as a man of color did not largely figure, Peter Williams was handicapped and could not serve his race as he desired. At the time of the intense agitation during the great crisis when the Negroes were called upon to decide where they would stand on the questions of colonization and abolition, Peter Williams at first took an active part in pleading the cause of his people. Seeing, however, that this might bring the church to the position of having to declare itself on this important question, the bishops of the Episcopal Church, in keeping with the custom of that denomination, silenced Peter Williams with a decree that he should preach merely the gospel without interfering with the political affairs of the times. It does not appear that he had that moral stamina to impel him to renounce his connection with a church seeking to muzzle a man praying for the deliverance of his people. It may be, however, that, as he was too far advanced in years to make any radical change in his course, he followed the orders of his superiors.

In Baltimore the Episcopalians practically provided a separate church for Negroes known as the St. James. This was the first Negro church of this denomination established in slave territory. The Negroes were given a building of their own and one Levington was from time to time designated as rector for this special service. Although it appears, however, that for a time a Negro served in this capacity, this task was generally assigned to a rector of Caucasion blood, who fed the people from afar with a long-handled spoon, believing that haply they might be thereby fed. This church in Baltimore, therefore, did not figure so largely in the life of the Negroes as did the Negro Episcopal churches of Philadelphia and New York. In other places where Negroes of this faith were found they were dependent altogether on the ministers of whites. The records of the Protestant Church show here and there Negro rectors in remote parts as in the case of one in a small town in New York and another in Connecticut; but it is evident that they had no employment.

The Presbyterians, who welcomed the Negroes, moreover, were not much more successful in proselyting them. When one considers the liberality of this sect in that its theological seminaries, including even Princeton, opened its doors to Negroes and that the denomination too permitted persons of color to participate in the government of the church to the extent that they not only spoke and exercised the right to vote in their meetings but also served as moderators, this disinclination on the part of Negroes to attach themselves to the Presbyterian Church may require much explanation. Wherever the Presbyterians had the opportunity for proselyting the Negroes they usually embraced it. Yet there were hardly 20,000 Negroes in the Presbyterian church prior to the Civil War. One of the important reasons is that the Methodists and Baptists were the first to reach the Negro. The Methodists, moreover, had an itinerant system serving like scouts to go out into the wilderness to find the people and bring them in. Then this disinclination was due also to the fact that the Presbyterian church, somewhat like the more aristocratic churches, disregarded the "emotional character of experimental religion." Its appeal was too intellectual. As Bishop Tanner said: "It strove to lift up without coming down and while the good Presbyterian parson was writing his discourses, rounding off the sentences, the Methodist itinerant had traveled forty miles with his horse and saddle bags; while the parson was adjusting his spectacles to read his manuscript, the itinerant had given hell and damnation to his unrepentant hearers; while the disciple of Calvin was waiting to have his church completed, the disciple of Wesley took to the woods and made them reëcho with the voice of free grace, believing with Bryant, 'The groves were God's first temples.'"

This same appeal of the evangelical rather than the ritualistic explains also the slow progress of the Catholic work among Negroes. The Catholics were early concerned with the amelioration of the condition of the Negroes and were found among the first to bear testimony against slavery. This denomination opened schools to enlighten the children of the slaves, established missions to reclaim the wayward, and all but granted the despised bondmen in their circles the privileges of liberty and equality. The success of their workers among Negroes, however, was not phenomenal. The Catholics did not make much impression on the Negroes in the large cities of the North, where they were more accessible than in the South; but considerable good was accomplished by the promising beginnings in and around Baltimore, Washington, Mobile, and New Orleans. So well was the foundation laid that the reaction in favor of slavery did not altogether counteract this healthy influence in behalf of the enlightenment of the Negroes. Only a small percentage of the race thereby profited, however. The proportionately small number of Negroes now belonging to the Catholic Church have been proselyted largely since the Civil War.

The Congregationalists became interested in the uplift of the Negroes with whom they came into contact, although the number reached did not multiply. The leaders of this denomination sympathized with the slave, aided the fugitive, and preached to the unfortunate the principles of religion so dear to the hearts of their communicants. But so great was the hold of the more evangelical sects on the Negroes that the earliest successful effort to constitute a group of them as a working body in the Congregational Church was the establishment of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1829. The records do not show any considerable accession of Negroes to these ranks until after the Civil War when the work of this denomination was popularized in various parts by that efficient worker and organizer, the late G. W. Moore.

BISHOP CHRISTOPHER RUSH.

CHAPTER V EARLY DEVELOPMENT

THE Negro church continued to go forward. Eight years after the organization of the African Methodist Episcopal Church the membership easily reached 9,888, including 14 elders, 26 deacons, and 101 licentiates, itinerant and local. Its expansion had been so rapid that it was soon necessary to establish a western conference to administer the affairs of the many churches then rising in Ohio. Wishing further to extend its operations, the church ordained the Rev. Scipio Bean in 1827 to do mission work in the Island of Haiti. The church established there had as many as 72 members in 1828, and in 1830 it had extended its operations into the Spanish port of the Island and gained a foothold in the peninsula of Samana. That same year the Rev. R. Roberts was ordained a deacon and afterward an elder for missionary work in the same island, then under the successful administration of President Boyer. Although he met with some success in the beginning in answering this cry for help in a distant land, the work undertaken there was not finally successful.

There was an apparent falling off in the membership of certain conferences after 1830, but this did not indicate any step backward. Practically the whole membership in South Carolina was by the public opinion, custom, and laws of that commonwealth, cut off from the church. There was during this same period extensive progress in the west, especially in Cincinnati. Great efforts were made to put the church on a firm foundation. During the conferences of the thirties much attention was given to the preparation of the ministry through education, cleanliness in dress, high character, and loyalty to the church. The work suffered a loss, however, in that Bishop Allen, who had for years led this flock, passed away in 1831. Bishop Morris Brown, who had been ordained to the episcopacy in 1828, became then the sole bishop and continued so until 1836 when Edward Waters was ordained as his assistant.

Proceeding on a sound basis, the church could not but succeed. The membership rapidly grew, as is evidenced by the necessity for the organization of two other conferences in the year 1840. This was the conference of Canada, which was organized by Bishop Brown at Toronto, and then came the conference of Indianapolis as a culmination of the successful missionary labors of William Paul Quinn who was later honored as the fourth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. There was an improvement in church literature such as the Book of Discipline and the conference of the year 1836 decreed the publication of a quarterly magazine for the use and benefit of the connection, appointing George Hogarth of the city of Brooklyn as General Book Steward.

The denomination had much difficulty in maintaining the Book Concern. The problem of publication has always been a perplexing one and the experience of this church was no exception to that rule. The business seemed to follow the Book Steward from one city to another. In 1847 it was moved from Pittsburgh to New York. That same year it was decided to publish a weekly to be called The Christian Herald. The first copy of this publication was issued by the Rev. A. R. Green, in 1848, then in charge of the Book Concern. In 1852, however, the name of this publication was changed to The Christian Recorder. Its editor declared that it would be devoted to religion, morality, science, and literature. Some of the papers published therein show an intelligent insight into conditions, a deep interest in intellectual forces effective in the uplift of the people, and a general knowledge of the great factors which have made the history of the world.

The development of African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was equally encouraging. After serving his people successfully for some time Bishop James Varick passed away in 1827. The following year the office was filled by the election of Christopher Rush, a man who had figured in the organization of the Zion Church in New York in 1796. Because of his good foundation in education, his equipoise, reliable judgment, and Christian piety, Christopher Rush made such a favorable impression upon those with whom he came in contact that he is often spoken of by the Zionites as the ablest preacher of his time. He lived throughout the crisis through which this church had to go, enabling it to extend its territory so as to compete favorably with the more extensive work then being accomplished by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Rush served the connection from 1828 to 1840, a period during which the membership of the sect increased, new churches easily developed, and the denomination realized strength and influence. Associated with Bishop Rush in this effort were Elders Edward Johnson, Durham Stevens, George Stevenson, David Crosby, Jonathan Gibbs, Arthur Langford, Tower Hill, John Marshall, Richard Phillips, David Smith, Jacob Richardson, Samuel Johnson, Abraham Green, and David Stevens. In the New York conference at this time there were such men as Timothy Eato, Abraham Thompson, Charles Anderson, William Carmen, George Tredwell, William Miller, Levin Smith, Jacob Matthews, Peter Van Hass, and Jehiel Beaman.[7]

[7] There appeared later between 1830 and 1840 others of much worth. These were Charles A. Boyd, Henry Johnson, William H. Bishop, Hosea Easton, James Simmons, Henry Drayton, David Blake, Adam Ford, Daniel Vandevier, Francis P. Graham, John W. Lewis, George Garnett, William Fuller, J. H. Williams, William Serrington, John A. King, John Tappen, John Dungy, Richard Noyee, Peter Ross, John Lyle, John P. Thompson, John Chester, Nathan Blunt, John N. Mars, J. B. Johnson, Thomas James, Edward Bishop, Thomas Jackson, Dempsey Kennedy, William Tilmon, George Washington, Benjamin Simms, W. L. Brown, John Wells, Samuel Serrington, George A. Spywood, Jesse Kemble, Leonard Collins, Basil McKall, William Jones, John Jackson, Abraham Cole, Samuel T. Gray, William McFarlan, Philip Lum, Shadrach Golden, and Abraham Miller.

While the outstanding members of this group were those who became bishops of the Zionites, several others who did not attain the episcopacy, frequently showed exceptional power which materially aided the development of the church. Among these may be mentioned the Rev. S. T. Fray, a remarkable natural orator noted for his ability to rouse enthusiasm. He was a man of unusual acumen, easily triumphed in debate, and as a logician and parliamentarian could vanquish his opponent. There was also Rev. Henry Johnson who passed among his fellows as "Old Hickory" because of his strong force of character. Unusually great work for the church was accomplished by Rev. John A. Williams as a revivalist. Rev. Leonard Collins was one of the reliable pillars in the church for a number of years but lost his standing by yielding to the temptation of strong drink. Honorable mention may be given Basil McKall, Abraham Cole, and especially David Stevens for their forceful preaching which moved multitudes to come into the church.

It does not appear that some of the bishops left very much of an impression, although they were men of extraordinary following. Bishop Spywood, for example, was retired from his office because there were more bishops than were needed for that service in the church. Bishop Moore, who was an inspiring preacher, drawing large crowds and moving all classes to repentance, was not at ease as a bishop and he too was retired in 1860.

It was unfortunate, however, that in 1840 a very disturbing factor appeared so as to arrest the progress of this church. There arose in this connection an element desiring an assistant superintendent. It seemed that this desire came from the friends of Rev. William Miller, a man of changing tendencies. Although a preacher of unusual intellect and a man of general ability, he did not show much stability of character. When he was a deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1813, it appeared that he used his position to do the Zion Church an injury. At a later period he, with the Asbury Church, joined the Zionites. Yet with this same church about 1820 he united with Bishop Allen so as to form the nucleus of the Bethel Church in New York City in 1830; but returned later to the Zion Church with a fragment of the Asbury congregation. In spite of this changing record, however, his friends felt that he should be made superintendent and it was finally done; but although an assistant superintendent, he never held a conference nor performed an ordination. It seemed that it was a position of honor rather than one of usefulness, but he was known as bishop until he died in 1846.

Two years later when Rev. George Galbreth was elected to this office, some dispute arose as to whether he should be a full bishop or a mere assistant, but it was finally decided that he should be an assistant only. As this did not satisfy all concerned, the friends of Mr. Galbreth continued the fight and in the conference of 1852 they carried the point of placing all bishops on equality. Part of their program too was the retirement of Bishop Rush, who, being feeble and blind, could no longer serve efficiently. The conference thereupon proceeded to elect Galbreth, Bishop, and Spywood. Bishop Spywood was retired from this office in 1856 because there were too many bishops for the work to be accomplished in the field, and during the remainder of his life he was employed as an agent of the New England Mission Board in which he served successfully.

It happened that soon after the election of the three superintendents, that is, in 1853, Bishop Galbreth died, leaving two bishops in the field. How were these bishops then to stand? Was there such a thing as a senior bishop or were they on equality? Bishop Bishop insisted that he was the General Superintendent and above and beyond his coworker. As this did not satisfy both parties he was called to trial; but, insisting that he was right, he evaded the inquiry and caused a schism in the Zion Church. Those adhering to the suspended bishop held the territory north to Philadelphia, south to Charleston and west to Pittsburgh, and called themselves the Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church. The others held most of New York, New England, and Nova Scotia, and retained the original name of the body, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. These two factions tended to drift in different directions. In the west there was a tendency toward Episcopalianism, whereas the east drifted toward Congregationalism. The question of the church property was finally taken into the courts, which decided in favor of those who remained with the denomination. Steps were thereafter taken to heal the breach which had been produced by the stubbornness of one man and the haste of a few others in dealing with him. In 1860 the schism was finally ended by an agreement of the two factions to bury their differences and unite for the good of the common church.

During these years some smaller movements were in progress. A division of the Union Church of Africans incorporated at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1807, resulted in the organization of the African Union Church and the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church in 1850. From the Methodist Protestant Church a sufficient number of Negroes finally withdrew to form, in 1860, the First Colored Methodist Protestant Church. These denominations, however, have not been able to compete in numbers and influence with the Allenites and Zionites.

These activities of the African Methodist denominations mentioned above would seem to indicate that the large majority of the Negroes became members of these new sects, leaving merely a few for the Baptists. As a matter of fact, however, the contrary was true. The Negro Methodists had national organization and in most cases intelligent men making a systematic effort to extend their work. The Baptists, on the other hand, had both the disadvantages and the advantages of local self-government. In their undeveloped state this unusual liberty sometimes proved to be a handicap to the Baptists in that the standard of the ministry and the moral tone of the churches were not so high as in the case of the Methodist bodies, whose conferences had power to make local churches do the right when they were not so inclined. This local self-government of the Baptists, on the other hand, made possible a more rapid increase in the number of churches established and the large influx of members in quest of the liberty wherewith they believed Christ had made them free.

What then was this peculiar feature of Baptist policy which explains the unusual growth? In the first place, the local Baptist Church is thoroughly independent of any other organization or church. It may become associated with other churches in bodies meeting periodically to devise plans for the common good of the denomination; but it is in no sense bound by the rules and regulations of such bodies. And should an association, moreover, exclude a church from its group, that church is still legally constituted a Baptist church and may join another association or form one of its own in coöperation with other churches similarly disposed. Any group of baptized believers of not less than four, moreover, may exercise the liberty of organizing a church under the direction of a regularly ordained minister of the denomination and ordination in the Baptist Church is not a difficulty. With the tendency of so many members to find fault, to disagree, to follow the advice of ill-designing persons seeking personal ends, it was a decidedly easy matter for Negro Baptist churches under these circumstances to split and thus multiply. While the Methodists might hesitate to establish an additional church so close to another as to hinder its growth, the Baptists in the heat of controversial excitement often established two or three churches where there were not at first enough people to sustain one; but in the course of time these churches, because of their unusual liberty in the evangelical effort, would attract so many more than the other liberal churches that they would all be filled. The Baptists finally aggregated about as many as all other Negro members of the various independent Negro churches. It soon happened in the South, moreover, that where the blacks were freely permitted to embrace religion the Negro Baptists outnumbered the whites in mixed churches two to one and sometimes three to one or four to one.

Detailed records of these achievements from a national point of view are lacking for the reason that the Negro Baptists prior to the organization of the National Baptist Convention had no national body of their own. During the antebellum period they belonged largely to the white churches in the South, occupying certain seats, the Negro pew, or meeting in the basement of the same edifice for worship at a special hour on the Sabbath day. In most cities in the North the independent movement among Negroes brought about the establishment of their own local churches; but, when associated, they generally belonged to the white bodies, used their literature, and followed their doctrines. As many of the white churches and organizations took little account of what these Negro communicants were doing but rather considered them as an undesirable but inevitable adjunct, no complete records of their achievements are extant. Here and there a writer of the history of the Baptists gave them honorable mention and now and then a Negro Baptist preacher in a locality had sufficient appreciation of the value of records to leave an account.

The location and the status of some of these Baptist churches will be interesting, especially in the South where their development was retarded by the restrictions of a slaveholding section living in dread of servile insurrection. During the thirties and forties a number of Negro Baptist churches were established in the District of Columbia, the first one being organized by Sampson White in 1839 and reaching its position of permanence some years later under William Williams, whose flock was the largest of this sect in the city. As it could not be associated with Negro churches in the South, then dominated by white men in the interest of slaveholders, it connected itself with the Philadelphia Baptist Association. The first Negro Baptist Church in Baltimore was organized in 1836 and was making unusual progress under the direction of M. C. Clayton, with a membership of 150 in 1846. A number of other Baptist churches in the city were soon organized thereafter, furnishing opportunity for development to its several useful Negro ministers, among whom was Rev. Noah Davis of the Saratoga Street Baptist Church.

These places in Maryland, however, were not strictly of the slaveholding attitude and so were parts of Virginia. An extensive account of the African Baptist Church of Richmond, established from the white church of that faith and placed in charge of Rev. Robert Ryland, a white man, serving at the same time as President of Richmond College, appears elsewhere. There had been for some years a Negro Baptist congregation in Portsmouth, mentioned above. There were elsewhere in the State other Baptist and Methodist churches and some of them almost entirely under the direction of Negroes. The first African Baptist Church in Petersburg had 664 communicants, the largest membership in the Middle District Baptist Association. The largest Baptist Church in Manchester (now South Richmond) in 1846 was the African Baptist Church with a membership of 487.

In South Carolina the Negroes were not permitted to separate from the whites, but they so decidedly outnumbered the latter that the churches had the aspect of Negro congregations. Of the 1,643 members belonging to the First Baptist Church in Charleston in 1846 all but 261 were persons of color. In the Second Baptist Church there were 200 white people and 312 Negroes; in the Georgetown Baptist Church 33 white persons and 298 Negroes. The Welsh Neck Church had 477 Negroes and only 83 whites. In the Association to which these churches belonged the blacks outnumbered the whites two to one. No distinction was made between the members of the two races in the minutes of the Association. The Bethel Association of this State, however, had for a number of years prior to 1838 reported the Negro members. It then had 1,502 whites and 637 blacks; but in 1843 the whites were 1,804 and the blacks 1,000.

The main interest in the Negro Baptists of Georgia during this period centered around the church established in Savannah by Andrew Bryan. For about two years after the death of the founder in 1812 the church remained without a pastor, having its pulpit supplied during this period by Rev. Evans Great. At the end of this interregnum the church set apart a Sabbath day to pray that the great head of the church would direct their choice to a worthy successor. Although Andrew Marshall had served as an assistant pastor under his uncle he had upon his death become largely engaged in business. The church, however, by a majority vote chose Andrew Marshall in preference to Evans Great, and the former entered upon the service with exercises auguring well for success. Being prosperous in his ministry as well as in his business, Andrew Marshall was respected not only by his own people but also by the most desirable whites.

His prosperity and his influence, however, led to a supposed violation of the laws. After having accumulated a goodly portion of money, he purchased from certain Negroes who had no permit to trade or sell, some bricks with which he constructed his two-story brick house. As this was a violation of the law, his traducers seized upon this opportunity to humiliate him, and, although his former master interceded in his behalf and enlisted the sympathy of the best white citizens, he was administered a whipping as a punishment for this so-called high crime. This crippled him in his ministry for a while, but he soon recovered therefrom, having the assistance of Henry Cunningham and Evans Great, who, in spite of the fact that the latter was defeated by Andrew Marshall for the pastorate of the church, served under him thereafter as an assistant pastor and coöperated with him loyally.

Andrew Marshall emerged from these trials but another of more consequence awaited him. He alienated the affection of the white people of this denomination by preaching what they considered false doctrines. Further trouble was caused when he permitted Alexander Campbell, then called the new light preacher, to speak in the African Baptist Church. The orthodox Baptist of the city disapproved of Marshall's admitting Dr. Campbell to his pulpit and disputes in the church immediately followed. The church became hopelessly divided and its strife was the topic of the town. Marshall withdrew from the building with one portion of the church, the other remaining under the leadership of Adam Johnson. As Andrew Marshall was much more powerful than any other man of his connection, he carried with him then out of this church a large majority.

The association to which this church belonged, however, took action in his case, recommending that Marshall be silenced indefinitely, that the African Church be dissolved, and that measures be taken to constitute a new body as a branch of the white Baptist church. The Negro members in the country, then members of the African Baptist Church in Savannah, were to take letters of dismission and either unite themselves with the neighboring churches of the Baptist faith or be constituted as separate churches. The association also gave its approval of the Christian deportment of the Second African Church. This, of course, made all of the Negro churches wards of the white and according to the law no Negro could exercise the gift of preaching in those churches unless he was endorsed by two or more white Baptist ministers. As the property of the First African Church was under the trusteeship of the association, its will had to be respected. There is no evidence, however, that these orders of the association were ever carried out. As most of the members of the churches lived in the country rather than in the city of Savannah, moreover, the dispute was one in which the minority rather than the majority of the members were concerned.

Marshall, however, solved his own problems with the assistance of certain influential white men who enabled him to purchase the old building of the white Baptists, out of which they moved into a new church edifice on Chippewa Square. As this was a much larger building than the old meeting house constructed by Andrew Bryan and Marshall could preach with more power than any other minister in that vicinity, he had little difficulty in attracting a larger following, although most of the official class of the First African Baptist Church deserted him.

Upon the withdrawal of Andrew Marshall and his supporters from the edifice of the First African Baptist Church and their taking over of a new edifice, there arose a serious question which even to-day has not been really settled. This question was whether or not Marshall and his followers continued the church established by Andrew Bryan or abandoned it to the control of those who remained and were later accepted in the Sunbury Association of Georgia as the Third African Baptist Church, still later known as the First Bryan Baptist Church. The officers in the control of this church contended that they rather than the followers of Marshall represented the church as it was established by Bryan. They insist that, although in being received in the Sunbury Association they were designated as the Third African Baptist Church, they, nevertheless, represented the church as it was originally established by Andrew Bryan. All of the actual officers of the original church and all of the persons who had represented the church as it originally was in the Sunbury Association remained to carry on the work as it had been theretofore without any special organization of a new church and succeeded at the same time to the possession of this property. They emphasized also the fact that Andrew Marshall had never represented the church in this association and that he himself was a member of the Second African Church rather than of the church of which he was pastor.

This Third African Church, later the First Bryan Baptist Church, then extended a call to Thomas Anderson, who served them until 1835, when the congregation secured the services of Steven McQueen. In 1841 the church was again without a regular pastor but accepted the services of John Devous, a former deacon of the Second African Church. Soon thereafter we hear of the resignation of Mr. Devous and the installation of Isaac Roberts, also a member of the Second African Church. Mr. Roberts proved to be the most energetic of all pastors in the city after the rise of Andrew Marshall. He improved the building, inspired the members, and edified their souls. But upon the death of Thomas Anderson, the pastor of the Second African Church, Mr. Roberts resigned to accept that pastorate, in 1849. The church then extended a call to Bristol Lawton of Beaufort, South Carolina, who preached for just one year and was succeeded by Garrison Frazer, a Baptist from the State of Virginia. Mr. Frazer was a man of high church principles and was a good worker in the ranks. About the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, he resigned and the church then had ordained for its leadership Rev. Ulysses L. Houston, who developed much power as a preacher. In this position he extended the influence of the church and made himself a great factor even among the white Baptists of the community. He served in this capacity for some years, laboring through the war into freedom. Andrew Marshall continued in charge of his church, maintaining himself with the same prestige and retaining a large following until he passed away in 1856, when he was succeeded by Rev. William J. Campbell. Andrew Marshall was mourned by thousands unto whom he had ministered and by tens of thousands who had observed his good work in delivering the poor that cry and in directing the wanderer in the right way.

Alabama also had a large number of Negro Baptists although there did not develop as many independent churches as there were in Georgia. The Negro membership in the mixed churches was a little more than one-half of the number. In the city of Montgomery the Negroes were almost three to one. Probably the most flourishing center was the African Baptist Church at Mobile. This congregation had once been a part of the First Baptist Church (white), but in 1839 the congregation was dissolved to form two. That year the Negro church was admitted to the Bethel Association. The Negroes had a fine house of worship built by themselves and had developed among them some intelligent local preachers, among whom were certain gentlemen known as Heard, Hunton, Hale, Stowe, Collins, Schroebel, and Grant.

The center of interest among the Negro Baptists in Florida was Jacksonville. There the First Bethel Baptist Church was organized in 1838 with four whites and two Negroes as charter members. These were Rev. J. Jaudan and wife, Deacon James McDonald and wife and two slaves belonging to Jaudan. They held their first meetings in the Government Block House near the County Court House but later purchased on Church Street, between Hogan and Julia Streets, a lot on which was built the first edifice. When later the whites decided to separate from the Negroes and undertook to dispossess them altogether the court decided that the property belonged to the Negroes in as much as they were in the majority. Later, however, the Bethel Baptist Church sold out this property to the whites and purchased property on the corner of Main and Union Streets. In our day we have seen the Bethel Baptist Church incorporated by the State as an institutional church which figures as an important factor in the life of the Negroes of Jacksonville.

In the western slave States, where the Negroes were few, they were, nevertheless, found in considerable numbers in the Baptist Church. One-fourth of the Baptists in Tennessee were Negroes. The membership in Kentucky was of a much larger proportion. The African Baptist Church of Lexington was founded by a thrifty Negro who, in spite of the law, was permitted to remain in the State as a worthy free Negro and as such not only preached but as early as the thirties had accumulated a fortune valued at $20,000. In 1846 this church under the leadership of L. Terrell was the largest in the Elkhorn Association and was considered "orderly and flourishing." During these years the First African Baptist Church of Louisville had been developing along the same line and was the largest in its association, having 644 members. Under the pastorate of Rev. Henry Adams, a man of considerable education and ability to lead, it attained a position of much usefulness. The Negro Baptist Church of St. Louis, founded in 1827, was, in 1848, the largest in its connection and with the impetus given the work by its pastor, J. B. Meacham, it became still more influential.

In the North the development of the Negro Baptists did not proceed so smoothly. In the first place, neither the majority of the Negroes nor a large percentage of the whites in that section belonged to the Baptist Church. The northern Negroes, moreover, had something to conjure with. Methodism among them was a radical independent movement offering liberty in a sphere in which the Negro had never freely moved. Many Negroes, therefore, heeded the call of the African Methodists to "come ye out from among them and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Independent Methodists in the South, however, were more of an exception to the rule than was the case of the Baptists in the North, for the Negro Baptists had every opportunity so to worship God in the North, if they desired, whereas the independent Negro Methodists were actually prohibited from invading most of the South.

As a matter of fact the Baptist churches were among the first separate organizations established in the North for Negroes, and as the free Negroes and fugitives were in the course of time driven out of the South by the intolerable conditions obtaining there during the reactionary period, the northern Negro Baptist churches multiplied and their membership increased. Practically all large urban communities of the North had some Negro Baptists. Philadelphia was especially well supplied. There was the First African Church founded by Negroes in 1809, with a membership of 257, under Richard Vaughn in 1846. The Union Colored Church, with a membership of 200, was in charge of Daniel Scott. J. Henderson was the pastor of the Third African Baptist Church, with a membership of only 61, and William Jackson ministered to a similar number in the so-called African Church.

Farther north the Baptists were also making progress. The Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York City was, in 1846, doing well under the direction of Rev. Sampson White, with a membership of 424. In Boston the African Baptist Church had held its own, but in New England, where the abolition sentiment was developing and there resulted a more healthy sentiment in behalf of fairness for the Negro, the independent movement among Negro Methodists and Baptists was not generally considered necessary. Negroes were accepted in white churches and heard preached and saw practiced the principles of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. Only in centers of large Negro population then, as in Boston, Providence, Newport, New Haven and Hartford, did the Negroes tend largely to separate from the whites.

To the west, however, where came Negroes fleeing from the persecution of the southern whites, independent churches flourished much better. Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Chicago soon found Baptist as well as Methodist churches common. Some of the pioneers in the group of Baptists were Richard DeBaptiste of Detroit and later of Chicago, and James Poindexter of Columbus. These in the course of time so rapidly increased that the Negro Baptists finally established an independent connection, the Providence Baptist Association, the first Negro body of the kind in the United States, organized in Ohio in 1836. Such was the case in Illinois where the Baptist churches of St. Clair and Madison counties, of Shawneetown, Vandalia, Jacksonville, Springfield, Galena, and Chicago, representing about twelve churches, organized in 1838 the Wood River Baptist Association. Feeling that there was a need for a still larger body, the churches of these parts organized in 1853 the Western Colored Baptist Convention.

The progress of these independent churches in the west suffered no interruption until the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, when many Negroes who had escaped from the South and settled in these cities had to flee to Canada for safety. In Canada West, the various settlements saw the influence of the Baptists and Methodists extended, but for a long time there had been a Baptist church in Toronto which under Rev. W. Christian was flourishing in 1846, and the Methodists soon made there a more systematic effort.

REV. LOTT CARY
A missionary to Africa.

CHAPTER VI THE SCHISM AND THE SUBSEQUENT SITUATION

AN important factor in the growth of the Negro Church was that the Negroes found the white churches of their choice less friendly and finally saw them withdrawn from the churches in the North to perpetuate slavery. In the South, the slaves and free Negroes had to accept whatever religious privileges were allowed them; but when the national bodies grew lukewarm on abolition, receded from the advanced position which they had taken in the defense of the Negro, and persistently compromised on the question to placate their southern adherents to maintain intact their national organizations, Negroes forgot the stigma attached to their radical religious bodies and united freely with their brethren who during the first years of their independence found it difficult to secure a following.

In 1808 the general conference of the Methodists provided that the annual conferences should form their own regulations relative to buying and selling slaves, thus making it possible for the body of preachers to act efficiently in one direction against slavery, even should the general conference choose wholly to refrain. This rule was abrogated in 1820, however, and the only important changes made thereafter with reference to the Negroes were some rules adopted in 1824, one of which provided that all preachers should prudently "enforce upon their members," the necessity of teaching their slaves to read the word of God, and to allow them time to attend upon the public worship of God on our regular days of divine service. Another rule provided that Negro preachers and official members should have all the privileges which are usual to others in the district and quarterly conferences, where the usages of the country did not forbid it, and that the presiding elder might hold for them a separate district conference, when the number of Negro local preachers would justify it. The annual conferences might employ Negro preachers to travel and preach, where their services were judged necessary, provided that no one should be so employed without having been recommended according to the form of discipline.

The Presbyterians had tried to evade the Negro question but it was again brought up in view of the cruelty practiced in the traffic of slaves during the first decade of the nineteenth century. The General Assembly was forced to take some action again in 1815. It then referred to its previous resolutions on the subject and expressed regret that slavery of Africans existed, hoping too that such measures might be taken as would secure religious education at least to the rising generation of slaves as a preparation for their emancipation at some time in the future. As to the transfer of slaves necessary in the economy of the slave States the General Assembly regarded this as unavoidable; but it denounced the buying and selling of slaves by way of traffic and all undue cruelty among them as inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, recommending it to the presbyteries and sessions in their care to make use of all measures to prevent such shameful conduct. In 1818 there came before this General Assembly a resolution to the effect that a person who should sell as a slave a member of the church, who should be at the time in good standing in the church and unwilling to be sold, acted inconsistently with the spirit of Christianity and ought to be debarred from the communion of the church.

After considerable discussion, the subject was submitted to a committee to prepare a report for the adoption of the General Assembly, embracing the object of the above resolution and also expressing the opinion of the Assembly as to slavery. This report, unanimously adopted, carried, among other things, a declaration that the voluntary enslaving of one portion of the human race by another is a gross violation of the most precious rights of human nature, utterly inconsistent with the law of God which requires us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which enjoins that all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even unto them.[8]

[8] The Assembly bore it grievously that slavery exhibits the persons of color as dependent on the will of others, "whether they shall know and worship the true God, whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of the gospel; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; whether they shall preserve their chastity and purity, or regard the dictates of justice and humanity." ... "The evils to which the slave is always exposed often take place in fact, and in their very worst degree and form; and where all of them do not take place, as we rejoice to say in many instances, through the influence of the principles of humanity and religion on the mind of masters, they do not—still the slave is deprived of his natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed to the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which humanity and avarice may suggest.

"From this view of the consequences resulting from the practice into which Christian people have most inconsistently fallen, of enslaving a portion of their brethren of mankind—for 'God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth'—it is manifestly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day, when the inconsistency of slavery, both with the dictates of humanity and religion, has been demonstrated, and is generally seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest, and unwearied endeavors, to correct the errors of former times, and as speedily as possible to efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery through Christendom, and if possible throughout the world."

In another part of this report, however, the Assembly seemed to undo what it had done; for it exhorted others to forbear harsh censures, and uncharitable reflections on their brethren, who unhappily live among slaves whom they cannot immediately set free, but who, at the same time, are really using all their influence, and all their endeavors, to bring them into a state of freedom, as soon as a door for it can be safely opened. It also encouraged the members of the Society to patronize the American Colonization Society with a view to sending the Negroes to Africa and thus deliver themselves and their country from the calamity of slavery. The General Assembly recommended the encouragement of religious instruction of the slaves in the principles of the Christian religion, granting them liberty to attend on the preaching of the gospel, when they have opportunity, by favoring the instruction of them in the Sabbath schools wherever those schools should be formed and by giving them all other proper advantages for acquiring the knowledge of their duty both to God and man. The General Assembly further recommended that it was incumbent on all Christians to communicate religious instruction to those who are under their authority, so that the doing of this "in the case before us so far from operating as some have apprehended that it might, as an incitement to insurrection, would, on the contrary, operate as a most powerful means for the prevention of those evils."

In this straddling position these churches tried to discountenance as far as possible all cruelty of whatever kind in the treatment of slaves, especially the cruelty of separating husband and wife, parents and children, and that which consisted in selling slaves to those who would either themselves deprive these unhappy people of the blessings of the gospel or who would transfer them to places where the gospel was not proclaimed, or where it was forbidden to slaves to attend upon its instruction. During the thirties most of these churches were taking the position of evading the question, but the abolition members therein kept the problem before them. Postponement of the discussion thereafter became the order of the day. One decade later many took the position assumed by the Presbyterian Church in 1845 when, as a result of various memorials on slavery, the Assembly, deploring the division of the church on slavery, passed a resolution that the church could not legislate where Christ has not legislated, that as Christ and the Apostles admitted slaveholders as members of the church, they could not be expected to do otherwise. Some disclaimed, however, any desire to deny that slavery is an evil, or to countenance the idea that masters may regard their slaves as real property and not as human beings. They merely intended to say that since Christ and his Apostles did not make the holding of slaves a bar to communion, the church organizations as the court of Christ had no authority to do so. The apostles of Christ sought to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, not by denouncing and excommunicating their masters but by teaching both masters and slaves the glorious doctrines of the gospel and enjoining upon each a discharge of their relative duties. These sects rejoiced rather that the ministers and churches of the slaveholding States were awakening to a deeper sense of their obligations to extend to the slave population generally the means of grace, for many slaveholders not professedly religious favored this object. They deplored the agitation which tended to separate the northern from the southern portion of the church, "a result which every good citizen must deplore as tending to the disunion of our beloved country and which every enlightened Christian will oppose as bringing about a ruinous and unnecessary schism between brethren who maintain a common faith."

REV. M. C. CLAYTON
A Baptist preacher of power in Baltimore before the Civil War.

The schism, however, was impending; for the southern members of the churches boldly defended slavery as justified by the scriptures, while many northerners differed from them. Ministers and laymen wrote works setting forth these doctrines while pseudo-scientists and philosophers undertook to justify the enslavement of the Negroes on the ground of racial inferiority. Southerners who would not go to the extent of justifying the institution on these untenable grounds merely deprecated it as an evil for which they were not responsible and of which they could not rid themselves. Richard Fuller, a southern Baptist of unusual influence in shaping the policy of that sect in his section, expressed this thought in the words: "I am willing to appear in any controversy which can even by implication place me in a false light and odious attitude representing me as a eulogist and abettor of slavery, and not as simply the apologist of an institution transmitted to us by former generations—the existence of which I lament—for the commencement of which I am not at all responsible—for the extinction of which I am willing to make greater sacrifices than any abolitionist has made or would make, if the cause of true humanity would be thus advanced."

The outbreaks soon followed, however, in spite of efforts to heal the breach. There came from the Alabama State Baptist Convention a memorial with respect to the discrimination of the Foreign Mission Board against slaveholders in making its appointments. The reply of the Board was conciliatory but was to the effect that a slaveholder could not be consistently appointed as a missionary for the reason that such action would involve an approval of slavery. This and other Baptist conventions thereafter severed their connection with the national body, and in 1845 organized the Southern Baptist Convention. That same year occurred the secession of the Southern Methodists. That denomination had for years struggled with this question and had undertaken to maintain the position that slavery is an evil to be deplored and that ministers and bishops at least should abstain therefrom. When, in 1845, the Methodists undertook to discipline one of its bishops, James O. Andrew, charging him with holding slaves, the southern delegates stood by him and withdrew to organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1857, the Presbyterians who had all but compromised sufficiently to hold their national body intact gave an expression of opinion on the Fugitive Slave Law which so offended its southern members that they withdrew and formed the nucleus around which the Southern Presbyterian Church was established in 1861.

In spite of the reactionary tendencies of the white churches, however, no such thing as the independence of the Negro had ever been possible in the South and could not be so after the radical aspect which this movement assumed in the North. In slave States, the majority of Negroes became a decidedly neglected mass during the reaction, although many of them were nominally members of churches. When because of the insurrectionary movement led by certain blacks like Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, it became unpopular to teach Negroes to read and the educated white persons were not willing to supply this lack of religious workers among the blacks, there was no longer hope for ordinary religious instruction. This reaction was unusually disastrous to the Negro preacher when it was noised abroad that Nat Turner was a minister. The rumor attached to Negro ministers throughout the South the stigma of using preaching as a means to incite their race to servile insurrection.

Some of the legislation enacted by the States after this great upheaval will indicate the extent to which this fear controlled the minds of the southern people. In 1832 Virginia passed a law to silence Negro preachers, making it impossible for them thus to function except in compliance with very rigid regulations and in the presence of certain discreet white men. In 1833, Alabama made it unlawful for slaves or free Negroes to preach unless before five respectable slaveholders and when authorized by some neighboring religious society. Georgia enacted a law in 1834 providing that neither free Negroes nor slaves might preach or exhort an assembly of more than seven unless licensed by justices on the certificate of three ordained ministers. Other Southern States soon followed the example of these, passing more drastic laws prohibiting the assembly of Negroes after the early hours of the night, and providing for the expulsion of all free Negroes from such commonwealths, so as to reduce the danger of mischief from the spread of information by this more enlightened class.

Thus circumscribed, the Negroes in the South had to follow their masters in religious matters. They continued to join the Methodist and Baptist churches, but constituted a part of a mixed membership worshiping under the same roof. The masters had long since learned that coincidence of religious belief on the part of the slave and the owner was a necessity in the economy of the slaveholding States. No master would look with favor upon seeing his slave proselyted or influenced by a minister whom he would not tolerate as his own spiritual adviser. Later there was not much commingling of the two races in the same meetings. White ministers preached to the Negroes in their special meetings or provided some Negro exhorter of power to supply that need, but only when such Negro minister's character had been thoroughly investigated and approved in accordance with the law and public opinion. Where there were not so very many Negroes in the churches, they were segregated in the gallery or certain pews, which they entered by a side door, as provided in the Court of the Gentiles in the Temple of Jehovah; but if there were many Negroes and very few whites in these congregations, they usually provided separate buildings or used the same edifices at different hours. The argument in favor of this segregation was that God in making the races different intended that they should be kept separate and distinct.

Where there was allowed much liberty in seating, very often grave problems arose. Such was the case in Charleston, South Carolina, in the Bethel Church in 1833 on an occasion when Dr. Capers was to preach. As more whites came than could be seated and the Negroes refused to vacate their customary seats, a number of uncouth young white men forcibly ejected them therefrom. Because one of the preachers a few days thereafter sharply criticized this action of the uncouth element they became unusually indignant, registering a protest against such censure. An effort was made to settle the matter by reconciliation, but when that failed, nine of the young men were expelled only to be followed by 150 others to form a new organization, which established connection with the Methodist Protestant Church.

This sort of segregation was common to all of the denominations alike. The Presbytery of Charleston, finding the church in that city unusually crowded in 1850, built a structure for the worship of the Negro membership, costing $7,700. The edifice was of the shape of a T to provide seats for the whites in the transepts. It had connected with it all of the facilities for religious instruction in the other churches with the exception that teaching was oral. The Episcopalians in that city, however, found it more difficult to carry out such a policy in relieving the congestion of the Negro pews in St. Michael's and St. Phillip's. These communicants decided to build what was to be called the Calvary Church for the accommodation of the blacks who were then occupying temporary quarters in Temperance Hall. Because of certain radical action of the burial societies among the Negro communicants, however, the owner of Temperance Hall refused further to accommodate the Negroes and the Calvary Church was demolished while it was in the process of construction.

The Negroes seemed to have retained several separate places of worship in the State of Virginia, as in the case of Georgia. Among the churches established for Negroes at a very early period was that of Williamsburg, Virginia, organized exclusively for Negroes in 1776 and admitted as such to the Dover Baptist Association in 1791. Upon petitioning the state legislature in 1823, however, the Negroes were refused the permit to build a Baptist church in Richmond, although the one used by the whites was not sufficiently spacious to permit their attendance. In 1841, however, when the Baptist church was finally compelled to build a new structure to accommodate its increasing membership, they turned over to the Negroes for their special place of worship the old building in which they organized what is known as the first African Baptist Church under the pastorate of the Rev. Robert Ryland, a white man, who served during the same period as president of Richmond College. When this became unusually crowded the Ebenezer Baptist Church was organized by the overflow membership in 1855 and was controlled very much in the same way. There were flourishing Negro Methodist and Baptist churches in other parts during the forties, fifties, and sixties, conducted very much on the order of the First African Baptist Church in Richmond, or like the Anthony Street Church in Mobile, Alabama, in charge of the Rev. Keidor Hawthorne. In other centers in Virginia, however, the Negroes were proceeding almost independently. There was then a representative Baptist congregation in Portsmouth under the direction of the noted builder and organizer, E. G. Corpew. Rev. Mr. Morris, another pioneer in the work, was at this time leading forward the Court Street Baptist Church in Lynchburg. In 1837 and 1838 Sampson White was reported as a successful minister in charge of the Gillfield Baptist Church of Petersburg, which as early as 1803 undertook to erect its first structure. Sampson White then went to Norfolk for a short stay in this inviting field, and in 1839 came to Washington and organized the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.

In the District of Columbia, where, as in Maryland, the restrictions on Negroes were not so rigid as in some other parts of the South, the Negroes had numerous churches of the Baptist and Methodist faith, and under the leadership of John F. Cooke established, in 1843, the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church.

Baltimore was no exception to this rule. As the slave and free membership freely mingled in that city they had, as early as 1835, ten congregations, and by 1847 thirteen, ten of which were Methodist. The work of the Baptists had been largely promoted by M. C. Clayton, the preacher of versatile genius, who founded the First African Church in that city in 1836, and by Noah Davis, a leader and organizer of much ability.