The History of the Negro Church Part 1

The History of the Negro Church.

by Carter G.o.dwin 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 inst.i.tution.

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 inst.i.tution 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 cooperated 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 a.s.sistance the author feels deeply grateful.

CARTER G. WOODSON.

Washington, D. C., September, 1921.

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 cooperation 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude of the Catholic pioneers was not altogether encouraging to the movement for the evangelization of the Negroes, still less a.s.sistance 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 n.o.ble 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 cooperation 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d."

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 cooperation 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 G.o.d to raise to himself devout servants among the heathen, whose faithfulness was commended by the Masters themselves." In some of the congregations the Negroes const.i.tuted 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 a.s.suming the t.i.tle of Dr. Bray's a.s.sociates. Traveling in North Carolina, Rev.

Mr. Stewart, a missionary, found there a school maintained by Dr. Bray's a.s.sociates 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 dest.i.tute of religion as the former; but he succeeded in converting some Negroes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Suss.e.x 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 apt.i.tude 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 cla.s.s 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 Roch.e.l.le. 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 G.o.d. He did not believe that Almighty G.o.d made so many thousand reasonable creatures for nothing but "only to serve the l.u.s.ts 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 cla.s.s 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 G.o.d tasted death for every man." When George Keith in 1693 began to promote the religious training of the slaves as preparation for emanc.i.p.ation 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.