Part 34 (1/2)
[Footnote 54: A Methodist preacher wrote of an episode at Wilmington: ”On one occasion I took a summary process with a certain black woman who in their love-feast, with many extravagant gestures, cried out that she was 'young King Jesus,' I bade her take her seat, and then publicly read her out of members.h.i.+p, stating that we would not have such wild fanatics among us, meantime letting them all know that such expressions were even blasphemous. Poor Aunt Katy felt it deeply, repented, and in a month I took her back again. The effect was beneficial, and she became a rational and consistent member of the church.” Joseph Travis, _Autobiography_ (Nashville, 1855), pp. 71, 72.]
In some cases the withdrawal of the blacks had the full character of secession. An example in this line had been set in Philadelphia when some of the negroes who had been attending white churches of various denominations were prompted by the antipathy of the whites and by the ambition of the colored leaders to found, in 1791, an African church with a negro minister. In the course of a few years this was divided into congregations of the several sects. Among these the Methodists prospered to such degree that in 1816 they launched the African Methodist Episcopal Church, with congregations in Baltimore and other neighboring cities included within its jurisdiction.[55] Richard Allen as its first bishop soon entered into communication with Morris Brown and other colored Methodists of Charleston who were aggrieved at this time by the loss of their autonomy. In former years the several thousand colored Methodists, who outnumbered by tenfold the whites in the congregations there, had enjoyed a quarterly conference of their own, with the custody of their collections and with control over the church trials of colored members; but on the ground of abuses these privileges were cancelled in 1815. A secret agitation then ensued which led on the one hand to the increase of the negro Methodists by some two thousand souls, and on the other to the visit of two of their leaders to Philadelphia where they were formally ordained for Charleston pastorates. When affairs were thus ripened, a dispute as to the custody of one of their burial grounds precipitated their intended stroke in 1818. Nearly all the colored cla.s.s leaders gave up their papers simultaneously, and more than three-quarters of their six thousand fellows withdrew their members.h.i.+p from the white Methodist churches. ”The galleries, hitherto crowded, were almost completely deserted,” wrote a contemporary, ”and it was a vacancy that could be _felt_. The absence of their responses and hearty songs were really felt to be a loss to those so long accustomed to hear them.... The schismatics combined, and after great exertion succeeded in erecting a neat church building.... Their organization was called the African Church,” and one of its ministers was const.i.tuted bishop. Its career, however, was to be short lived, for the city authorities promptly proceeded against them, first by arresting a number of partic.i.p.ants at one of their meetings but dismissing them with a warning that their conduct was violative of a statute of 1800 prohibiting the a.s.semblage of slaves and free negroes for mental instruction without the presence of white persons; next by refusing, on the grounds that both power and willingness were lacking, a plea by the colored preachers for a special dispensation; and finally by the seizure of all the attendants at another of their meetings and the sentencing of the bishop and a dozen exhorters, some to a month's imprisonment or departure from the state, others to ten lashes or ten dollars' fine. The church nevertheless continued in existence until 1822 when in consequence of the discovery of a plot for insurrection among the Charleston negroes the city government had the church building demolished. Morris Brown moved to Philadelphia, where he afterward became bishop of the African Church, and the whole Charleston project was ended.[56] The bulk of the blacks returned to the white congregations, where they soon overflowed the galleries and even the ”boxes” which were a.s.signed them at the rear on the main floors. Some of the older negroes by special privilege then took seats forward in the main body of the churches, and others not so esteemed followed their example in such numbers that the whites were cramped for room. After complaints on this score had failed for several years to bring remedy, a crisis came in Bethel Church on a Sunday in 1833 when Dr. Capers was to preach. More whites came than could be seated the forward-sitting negroes refused to vacate their seats for them; and a committee of young white members forcibly ejected these blacks At a ”love-feast” shortly afterward one of the preachers criticized the action of the committee thereby giving the younger element of the whites great umbrage. Efforts at reconciliation failing, nine of the young men were expelled from members.h.i.+p, whereupon a hundred and fifty others followed them into a new organization which entered affiliation with the schismatic Methodist Protestant Church.[57]
Race relations in the orthodox congregations were doubtless thereafter more placid.
[Footnote 55: E.R. Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1911), pp. 134-136.]
[Footnote 56: Charleston _Courier_, June 9, 1818; Charleston _City Gazette_, quoted in the _Louisiana Gazette_ (New Orleans), July 10, 1818; J.L.E.W. Shecut, _Medical and Philosophical Essays_ (Charleston, 1819), p. 34; C.F. Deems ed., _Annals of Southern Methodism for 1856_ (Nashville [1857]), pp. 212-214, 232; H.M. Henry, _Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina_, p. 142.]
[Footnote 57: C.F. Deems ed., _Annals of Southern Methodism for 1856_, pp.
215-217.]
In most of the permanent segregations the colored preachers were ordained and their congregations inst.i.tuted under the patronage of the whites.
At Savannah as early as 1802 the freedom of the slave Henry Francis was purchased by subscription, and he was ordained by white ministers at the African Baptist Church. After a sermon by the Reverend Jesse Peter of Augusta, the candidate ”underwent a public examination respecting his faith in the leading doctrines of Christianity, his call to the sacred ministry and his ideas of church government. Giving entire satisfaction on these important points, he kneeled down, when the ordination prayer with imposition of hands was made by Andrew Bryant The ordained ministers present then gave the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p to Mr. Francis, who was forthwith presented with a Bible and a solemn charge to faithfulness by Mr.
Holcombe.”[58] The Methodists were probably not far behind the Baptists in this policy. The Presbyterians and Episcopalians, with much smaller numbers of negro co-religionists to care for, followed the same trend in later decades. Thus the presbytery of Charleston provided in 1850, at a cost of $7,700, a separate house of wors.h.i.+p for its negro members, the congregation to be identified officially with the Second Presbyterian Church of the city. The building had a T shape, the transepts appropriated to the use of white persons. The Sunday school of about 180 pupils had twenty or thirty white men and women as its teaching staff.[59]
[Footnote 58: Henry Holcombe ed., _The Georgia a.n.a.lytical Repository_ (a Baptist magazine of Savannah, 1802), I, 20, 21. For further data concerning Francis and other colored Baptists of his time see the _Journal of Negro History_, I, 60-92.]
[Footnote 59: J.H. Thornwell, D.D., _The Rights and Duties of Masters: a sermon preached at the dedication of a church erected at Charleston, S.C.
for the benefit and instruction of the colored population_ (Charleston, 1850).]
Such arrangements were not free from objection, however, as the Episcopalians of Charleston learned about this time. To relieve the congestion of the negro pews in St. Michael's and St. Philip's, a separate congregation was organized with a few whites included in its members.h.i.+p.
While it was yet occupying temporary quarters in Temperance Hall, a mob demolished Calvary Church which was being built for its accommodation. When the proprietor of Temperance Hall refused the further use of his premises the congregation dispersed. The mob's action was said to be in protest against the doings of the ”bands” or burial societies among the Calvary negroes.[60]
[Footnote 60: _Public Proceedings relating to Calvary Church and the Religious Instruction of Slaves_ (Charleston, 1850).]
The separate religious integration of the negroes both slave and free was obstructed by the recurrent fear of the whites that it might be perverted to insurrectionary purposes. Thus when at Richmond in 1823 ninety-two free negroes pet.i.tioned the Virginia legislature on behalf of themselves and several hundred slaves, reciting that the Baptist churches used by the whites had not enough room to permit their attendance and asking sanction for the creation of a ”Baptist African Church,” the legislature withheld its permission. In 1841, however, this purpose was in effect accomplished when it was found that a negro church would not be in violation of the law provided it had a white pastor. At that time the First Baptist Church of Richmond, having outgrown its quarters, erected a new building to accommodate its white members and left its old one to the negroes. The latter were thereupon organized as the African Church with a white minister and with the choice of its deacons vested in a white committee. In 1855, when this congregation had grown to three thousand members, the Ebenezer church was established as an offshoot, with a similar plan of government.[61]
[Footnote 61: J.B. Earnest, _The Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia_ (Charlottesville, 1914), pp. 72-83. For the similar trend of church segregation in the Northern cities see J.W. Cromwell, _The Negro in American History_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1914). pp. 61-70.]
At Baltimore there were in 1835 ten colored congregations, with slave and free members.h.i.+p intermingled, several of which had colored ministers;[62]
and by 1847 the number of churches had increased to thirteen or more, ten of which were Methodist.[63] In 1860 there were two or more colored congregations at Norfolk; at Savannah three colored churches were paying salaries of $800 to $1000 to their colored ministers,[64] and in Atlanta a subscription was in progress for the enlargement of the negro church building to relieve its congestion.[65] By this time a visitor in virtually any Southern city might have witnessed such a scene as William H. Russell described at Montgomery:[66] ”As I was walking ... I perceived a crowd of very well-dressed negroes, men and women, in front of a plain brick building which I was informed was their Baptist meeting-house, into which white people rarely or never intrude. These were domestic servants, or persons employed in stores, and their general appearance indicated much comfort and even luxury. I doubted if they all were slaves. One of my companions went up to a woman in a straw hat, with bright red and green ribbon tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and artificial flowers, a gaudy Paisley shawl, and a rainbow-like gown blown out over her yellow boots by a prodigious crinoline, and asked her 'Whom do you belong to?' She replied, 'I b'long to Ma.s.sa Smith, sar.'”
[Footnote 62: _Niles' Register_, XLIX, 72.]
[Footnote 63: J.R. Brackett, _The Negro in Maryland_, p. 206.]
[Footnote 64: D.R. Hundley, _Social Relations in our Southern States_ (New York, 1860), pp. 350, 351.]
[Footnote 65: Atlanta _Intelligencer_, July 13, 1859, editorial commending the purpose.]
[Footnote 66: W.H. Russell, _My Diary North and South_ (Boston, 1863), p.
167.]
CHAPTER XXI
FREE NEGROES