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.
[Illustration: BISHOP RICHARD ALLEN
Founder of the A. M. E. Church.]
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]
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 cooperation 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.
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."
[Illustration: JAMES VARICK]
During the first years of their separation the African Methodists in New
York had the cooperation 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.
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 cooperation 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]
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 cooperated 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 cooperate 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."
[Illustration: 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 reecho 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.