The Church and Beginning of Racial Consciousness
Of supreme importance in this momentous period, more important perhaps in its ultimate effect than even the work of the Abolition Societies, was what the Negro was doing for himself. In the era of the Revolution began that racial consciousness on which almost all later effort for social betterment has been based.
By 1700 the only coöperative effort on the part of the Negro was such as that in the isolated society to which Cotton Mather gave rules, or in a spasmodic insurrection, or a rather crude development of native African worship. As yet there was no genuine basis of racial self-respect. In one way or another, however, in the eighteenth century the idea of association developed, and especially in Boston about the time of the Revolution Negroes began definitely to work together; thus they assisted individuals in test cases in the courts, and when James Swan in his Dissuasion from the Slave Trade made such a statement as that "no country can be called free where there is one slave," it was "at the earnest desire of the Negroes in Boston" that the revised edition of the pamphlet was published.
From the very beginning the Christian Church was the race's foremost form of social organization. It was but natural that the first distinctively Negro churches should belong to the democratic Baptist denomination. There has been much discussion as to which was the very first Negro Baptist church, and good claims have been put forth by the Harrison Street Baptist Church of Petersburg, Va., and for a church in Williamsburg, Va., organization in each case going back to 1776. A student of the subject, however, has shown that there was a Negro Baptist church at Silver Bluff, "on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River, in Aiken County, just twelve miles from Augusta, Ga.," founded not earlier than 1773, not later than 1775.58 In any case special interest attaches to the First Bryan Baptist Church, of Savannah, founded in January, 1788. The origin of this body goes back to George Liele, a Negro born in Virginia, who might justly lay claim to being America's first foreign missionary. Converted by a Georgia Baptist minister, he was licensed as a probationer and was known to preach soon afterwards at a white quarterly meeting.59 In 1783 he preached in the vicinity of Savannah, and one of those who came to hear him was Andrew Bryan, a slave of Jonathan Bryan. Liele then went to Jamaica and in 1784 began to preach in Kingston, where with four brethren from America he formed a church. At first he was subjected to persecution; nevertheless by 1791 he had baptized over four hundred persons. Eight or nine months after he left for Jamaica, Andrew Bryan began to preach, and at first he was permitted to use a building at Yamacraw, in the suburbs of Savannah. Of this, however, he was in course of time dispossessed, the place being a rendezvous for those Negroes who had been taken away from their homes by the British. Many of these men were taken before the magistrates from time to time, and some were whipped and others imprisoned. Bryan himself, having incurred the ire of the authorities, was twice imprisoned and once publicly whipped, being so cut that he "bled abundantly"; but he told his persecutors that he "would freely suffer death for the cause of Jesus Christ," and after a while he was permitted to go on with his work. For some time he used a barn, being assisted by his brother Sampson; then for £50 he purchased his freedom, and afterwards he began to use for worship a house that Sampson had been permitted to erect. By 1791 his church had two hundred members, but over a hundred more had been received as converted members though they had not won their masters' permission to be baptized. An interesting sidelight on these people is furnished by the statement that probably fifty of them could read though only three could write. Years afterwards, in 1832, when the church had grown to great numbers, a large part of the congregation left the Bryan Church and formed what is now the First African Baptist Church of Savannah. Both congregations, however, remembered their early leader as one "clear in the grand doctrines of the Gospel, truly pious, and the instrument of doing more good among the poor slaves than all the learned doctors in America."
While Bryan was working in Savannah, in Richmond, Va., rose Lott Cary, a man of massive and erect frame and of great personality. Born a slave in 1780, Cary worked for a number of years in a tobacco factory, leading a wicked life. Converted in 1807, he made rapid advance in education and he was licensed as a Baptist preacher. He purchased his own freedom and that of his children (his first wife having died), organized a missionary society, and then in 1821 himself went as a missionary to the new colony of Liberia, in whose interest he worked heroically until his death in 1828.
More clearly defined than the origin of Negro Baptist churches are the beginnings of African Methodism. Almost from the time of its introduction in the country Methodism made converts among the Negroes and in 1786 there were nearly two thousand Negroes in the regular churches of the denomination, which, like the Baptist denomination, it must be remembered, was before the Revolution largely overshadowed in official circles by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The general embarrassment of the Episcopal Church in America in connection with the war, and the departure of many loyalist ministers, gave opportunity to other denominations as well as to certain bodies of Negroes. The white members of St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, however, determined to set apart its Negro membership and to segregate it in the gallery. Then in 1787 came a day when the Negroes, choosing not to be insulted, and led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, left the edifice, and with these two men as overseers on April 17 organized the Free African Society. This was intended to be "without regard to religious tenets," the members being banded together "to support one another in sickness and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children." The society was in the strictest sense fraternal, there being only eight charter members: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Cæsar Cranchell, James Potter, and William White. By 1790 the society had on deposit in the Bank of North America £42 9s. id., and that it generally stood for racial enterprise may be seen from the fact that in 1788 an organization in Newport known as the Negro Union, in which Paul Cuffe was prominent, wrote proposing a general exodus of the Negroes to Africa. Nothing came of the suggestion at the time, but at least it shows that representative Negroes of the day were beginning to think together about matters of general policy.
In course of time the Free African Society of Philadelphia resolved into an "African Church," and this became affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church, whose bishop had exercised an interest in it. Out of this organization developed St. Thomas's Episcopal Church, organized in 1791 and formally opened for service July 17, 1794. Allen was at first selected for ordination, but he decided to remain a Methodist and Jones was chosen in his stead and thus became the first Negro rector in the United States. Meanwhile, however, in 1791, Allen himself had purchased a lot at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets; he at once set about arranging for the building that became Bethel Church; and in 1794 he formally sold the lot to the church and the new house of worship was dedicated by Bishop Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With this general body Allen and his people for a number of years remained affiliated, but difficulties arose and separate churches having come into being in other places, a convention of Negro Methodists was at length called to meet in Philadelphia April 9, 1816. To this came sixteen delegates—Richard Allen, Jacob Tapsico, Clayton Durham, James Champion, Thomas Webster, of Philadelphia; Daniel Coker, Richard Williams, Henry Harden, Stephen Hill, Edward Williamson, Nicholas Gailliard, of Baltimore: Jacob Marsh, Edward Jackson, William Andrew, of Attleborough, Penn.; Peter Spencer, of Wilmington, Del., and Peter Cuffe, of Salem, N.J.—and these were the men who founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Coker, of whom we shall hear more in connection with Liberia, was elected bishop, but resigned in favor of Allen, who served until his death in 1831.
In 1796 a congregation in New York consisting of James Varick and others also withdrew from the main body of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1800 dedicated a house of worship. For a number of years it had the oversight of the older organization, but after preliminary steps in 1820, on June 21, 1821, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was formally organized. To the first conference came 19 preachers representing 6 churches and 1,426 members. Varick was elected district chairman, but soon afterwards was made bishop. The polity of this church from the first differed somewhat from that of the A.M.E. denomination in that representation of the laity was a prominent feature and there was no bar to the ordination of women.
Of denominations other than the Baptist and the Methodist, the most prominent in the earlier years was the Presbyterian, whose first Negro ministers were John Gloucester and John Chavis. Gloucester owed his training to the liberal tendencies that about 1800 were still strong in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, and in 1810 took charge of the African Presbyterian Church which in 1807 had been established in Philadelphia. He was distinguished by a rich musical voice and the general dignity of his life, and he himself became the father of four Presbyterian ministers. Chavis had a very unusual career. After passing "through a regular course of academic studies" at Washington Academy, now Washington and Lee University, in 1801 he was commissioned by the General Assembly of the Presbyterians as a missionary to the Negroes. He worked with increasing reputation until Nat Turner's insurrection caused the North Carolina legislature in 1832 to pass an act silencing all Negro preachers. Then in Wake County and elsewhere he conducted schools for white boys until his death in 1838. In these early years distinction also attaches to Lemuel Haynes, a Revolutionary patriot and the first Negro preacher of the Congregational denomination. In 1785 he became the pastor of a white congregation in Torrington, Conn., and in 1818 began to serve another in Manchester, N.H.
After the church the strongest organization among Negroes has undoubtedly been that of secret societies commonly known as "lodges." The benefit societies were not necessarily secret and call for separate consideration. On March 6, 1775, an army lodge attached to one of the regiments stationed under General Gage in or near Boston initiated Prince Hall and fourteen other colored men into the mysteries of Freemasonry.60 These fifteen men on March 2, 1784, applied to the Grand Lodge of England for a warrant. This was issued to "African Lodge, No. 459," with Prince Hall as master, September 29, 1784. Various delays and misadventures befell the warrant, however, so that it was not actually received before April 29, 1787. The lodge was then duly organized May 6. From this beginning developed the idea of Masonry among the Negroes of America. As early as 1792 Hall was formally styled Grand Master, and in 1797 he issued a license to thirteen Negroes to "assemble and work" as a lodge in Philadelphia; and there was also at this time a lodge in Providence. Thus developed in 1808 the "African Grand Lodge" of Boston, afterwards known as "Prince Hall Lodge of Massachusetts"; the second Grand Lodge, called the "First Independent African Grand Lodge of North America in and for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," organized in 1815; and the "Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania."
Something of the interest of the Masons in their people, and the calm judgment that characterized their procedure, may be seen from the words of their leader, Prince Hall.61 Speaking in 1797, and having in mind the revolution in Hayti and recent indignities inflicted upon the race in Boston, he said:
When we hear of the bloody wars which are now in the world, and thousands of our fellowmen slain; fathers and mothers bewailing the loss of their sons; wives for the loss of their husbands; towns and cities burnt and destroyed; what must be the heartfelt sorrow and distress of these poor and unhappy people! Though we can not help them, the distance being so great, yet we may sympathize with them in their troubles, and mingle a tear of sorrow with them, and do as we are exhorted to—weep with those that weep....Now, my brethren, as we see and experience that all things here are frail and changeable and nothing here to be depended upon: Let us seek those things which are above, which are sure and steadfast, and unchangeable, and at the same time let us pray to Almighty God, while we remain in the tabernacle, that he would give us the grace and patience and strength to bear up under all our troubles, which at this day God knows we have our share. Patience I say, for were we not possessed of a great measure of it you could not bear up under the daily insults you meet with in the streets of Boston; much more on public days of recreation, how are you shamefully abused, and that at such a degree, that you may truly be said to carry your lives in your hands; and the arrows of death are flying about your heads; helpless old women have their clothes torn off their backs, even to the exposing of their nakedness; and by whom are these disgraceful and abusive actions committed? Not by the men born and bred in Boston, for they are better bred; but by a mob or horde of shameless, low-lived, envious, spiteful persons, some of them not long since, servants in gentlemen's kitchens, scouring knives, tending horses, and driving chaise. 'Twas said by a gentleman who saw that filthy behavior in the Common, that in all the places he had been in he never saw so cruel behavior in all his life, and that a slave in the West Indies, on Sundays or holidays, enjoys himself and friends without molestation. Not only this man, but many in town who have seen their behavior to you, and that without any provocations twenty or thirty cowards fall upon one man, have wondered at the patience of the blacks; 'tis not for want of courage in you, for they know that they dare not face you man for man, but in a mob, which we despise, and had rather suffer wrong than do wrong, to the disturbance of the community and the disgrace of our reputation; for every good citizen does honor to the laws of the State where he resides....My brethren, let us not be cast down under these and many other abuses we at present labor under: for the darkest is before the break of day. My brethren, let us remember what a dark day it was with our African brethren six years ago, in the French West Indies. Nothing but the snap of the whip was heard from morning to evening; hanging, breaking on the wheel, burning, and all manner of tortures inflicted on those unhappy people, for nothing else but to gratify their masters' pride, wantonness, and cruelty: but blessed be God, the scene is changed; they now confess that God hath no respect of persons, and therefore receive them as their friends, and treat them as brothers. Thus doth Ethiopia begin to stretch forth her hand, from a sink of slavery to freedom and equality.
An African Society was organized in New York in 1808 and chartered in 1810, and out of it grew in course of time three or four other organizations. Generally close to the social aim of the church and sometimes directly fathered by the secret societies were the benefit organizations, which even in the days of slavery existed for aid in sickness or at death; in fact, it was the hopelessness of the general situation coupled with the yearning for care when helpless that largely called these societies into being. Their origin has been explained somewhat as follows:
Although it was unlawful for Negroes to assemble without the presence of a white man, and so unlawful to allow a congregation of slaves on a plantation without the consent of the master, these organizations existed and held these meetings on the "lots" of some of the law-makers themselves. The general plan seems to have been to select some one who could read and write and make him the secretary. The meeting-place having been selected, the members would come by ones and twos, make their payments to the secretary, and quietly withdraw. The book of the secretary was often kept covered up on the bed. In many of the societies each member was known by number and in paying simply announced his number. The president of such a society was usually a privileged slave who had the confidence of his or her master and could go and come at will. Thus a form of communication could be kept up between all members. In event of death of a member, provision was made for decent burial, and all the members as far as possible obtained permits to attend the funeral. Here and again their plan of getting together was brought into play. In Richmond they would go to the church by ones and twos and there sit as near together as convenient. At the close of the service a line of march would be formed when sufficiently far from the church to make it safe to do so. It is reported that the members were faithful to each other and that every obligation was faithfully carried out. This was the first form of insurance known to the Negro from which his family received a benefit.62
All along of course a determining factor in the Negro's social progress was the service that he was able to render to any community in which he found himself as well as to his own people. Sometimes he was called upon to do very hard work, sometimes very unpleasant or dangerous work; but if he answered the call of duty and met an actual human need, his service had to receive recognition. An example of such work was found in his conduct in the course of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. Knowing that fever in general was not quite as severe in its ravages upon Negroes as upon white people, the daily papers of Philadelphia called upon the colored people in the town to come forward and assist with the sick. The Negroes consented, and Absalom Jones and William Gray were appointed to superintend the operations, though as usual it was upon Richard Allen that much of the real responsibility fell. In September the fever increased and upon the Negroes devolved also the duty of removing corpses. In the course of their work they encountered much opposition; thus Jones said that a white man threatened to shoot him if he passed his house with a corpse. This man himself the Negroes had to bury three days afterwards. When the epidemic was over, under date January 23, 1794, Matthew Clarkson, the mayor, wrote the following testimonial: "Having, during the prevalence of the late malignant disorder, had almost daily opportunities of seeing the conduct of Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, and the people employed by them to bury the dead, I with cheerfulness give this testimony of my approbation of their proceedings, as far as the same came under my notice. Their diligence, attention, and decency of deportment, afforded me, at the time, much satisfaction." After the lapse of years it is with something of the pathos of martyrdom that we are impressed by the service of these struggling people, who by their self-abnegation and patriotism endeavored to win and deserve the privileges of American citizenship.
All the while, in one way or another, the Negro was making advance in education. As early as 1704 we have seen that Neau opened a school in New York; there was Benezet's school in Philadelphia before the Revolutionary War, and in 1798 one for Negroes was established in Boston. In the first part of the century, we remember also, some Negroes were apprenticed in Virginia under the oversight of the church. In 1764 the editor of a paper in Williamsburg, Va., established a school for Negroes, and we have seen that as many as one-sixth of the members of Andrew Bryan's congregation in the far Southern city of Savannah could read by 1790. Exceptional men, like Gloucester and Chavis, of course availed themselves of such opportunities as came their way. All told, by 1800 the Negro had received much more education than is commonly supposed.
Two persons—one in science and one in literature—because of their unusual attainments attracted much attention. The first was Benjamin Banneker of Maryland, and the second Phillis Wheatley of Boston. Banneker in 1770 constructed the first clock striking the hours that was made in America, and from 1792 to 1806 published an almanac adapted to Maryland and the neighboring states. He was thoroughly scholarly in mathematics and astronomy, and by his achievements won a reputation for himself in Europe as well as in America. Phillis Wheatley, after a romantic girlhood of transition from Africa to a favorable environment in Boston, in 1773 published her Poems on Various Subjects, which volume she followed with several interesting occasional poems.63 For the summer of this year she was the guest in England of the Countess of Huntingdon, whose patronage she had won by an elegiac poem on George Whitefield; in conversation even more than in verse-making she exhibited her refined taste and accomplishment, and presents were showered upon her, one of them being a copy of the magnificent 1770 Glasgow folio edition of Paradise Lost, which was given by Brook Watson, Lord Mayor of London, and which is now preserved in the library of Harvard University. In the earlier years of the next century her poems found their way into the common school readers. One of those in her representative volume was addressed to Scipio Moorhead, a young Negro of Boston who had shown some talent for painting. Thus even in a dark day there were those who were trying to struggle upward to the light.