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CHAPTER I.
EARLY MISSIONARIES and the NEGRO
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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
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salvation of the Negro, but there were among the
colonists thousands who had never considered the Negro
as belonging to the pale of Christianity. Negroes
had been generally designated as infidels; but, in the
estimation of their self-styled superiors, they were not
considered the most desirable of this class supposedly
arrayed against Christianity. There were few
Christians who did not look forward to the ultimate
conversion of those infidels approaching the Caucasian
type, but hardly any desired to make an effort in the
direction of proselyting Negroes.
When, however, that portion of this Latin element
primarily interested in the exploitation of the Western
Hemisphere failed to find in the Indians the substantial
labor supply necessary to their enterprises and at the
suggestion of men like las Casas imported Negroes for
this purpose, the missionaries came face to face with
the question as to whether this new sort of heathen
should receive the same consideration as that given the
Indians. Because of the unwritten law that a
Christian could not be held a slave, the exploiting
class opposed any such proselyting; for, should the
slaves be liberated upon being converted, their plans
for development would fail for lack of a labor supply
subject to their orders as bondmen. The sovereigns
of Europe, once inclined to adopt a sort of humanitarian
policy toward the Negroes, at first object to their
importation into the new world; and when under the
pressure of the inter-
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ests 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 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 o such thing
as an inspection of these commercial outposts, moreover,
no one in Europe could easily determine exactly what
attitude these men had toward carrying out the will of
the home countries with respect to the Christianization
of the bondmen. From time to time, therefore, the
humanitarian world heard few protests like that of
Alfonso Sandoval in Cuba and the two Capucin monks
who were imprisoned in Havana because of their
inveighing against the failure on the part of the
planters to provide for
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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
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the Catholics had the opportunity to make an appeal to a
large group of Negroes. After some opposition the
people of that colony early met the test of preaching
the gospel to all regardless of color. The first
priests and missionaries operating in Maryland regarded
it their duty to enlighten the slaves; and, as the
instruction of the communicants of the church became
more systematic to make their preparation adequate to
the proper understanding of the church doctrine, some
sort of instruction of the Negroes attached to these
establishments was provided in keeping with the
sentiment expressed in the first ordinances of the
Spanish and French sovereigns and later in the Black
Code governing the bondmen in the colonies controlled by
the Latins.
Although the attitude of the Catholic pioneers was not
altogether encouraging to the movement for the
evangelization of the Negroes, still less assistance
came from the Protestants settling the English colonies.
Few, if any, of the pioneers from Great Britain had the
missionary spirit of some of the Latins. As the
English were primarily interested in founding new homes
in America, they thought of the Negroes not as objects
of Christian philanthropy but rather as tools with which
they might reach that end. It is not surprising
then that with the introduction of slavery as an
economic factor in the development of the English
colonies little care was taken of their spiritual needs,
and especially so when they were
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confronted with the unwritten law that a Christian could
not be held a slave.
Owing to the more noble example set by the Latins,
however, and the desirable results early obtained by
their missionaries, the English planters permitted some
sort of religious instruction of the bondmen, after
providing by royal decrees and special statutes in the
colonies that conversion to Christianity would not work
manumission. Feeling, however, that the nearer the
blacks were kept to the state of brutes that the more
useful they would be as laborers, the masters generally
neglected them.
The exceptions to this rule were the efforts of various
clergymen in 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 God. This body operated through the
branches of the established church, the ministrations of
which were first limited to a few places in Virginia,
New York, Maryland, and the cities of Boston and
Philadelphia. From the very beginning this society
felt that the conversion of the Negroes was as important
as that of bringing the whites or the Indians into the
church and such distinguished churchmen as Bishops
Lowth, Fleetwood, Williams, Sander-
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son, Butler, and Wilson, persistently
urged this duty upon their subordinates. In 1727
Bishop Gibson sent out two forceful pastoral
letters outlining this duty of the missionaries,
Bishop Secker preached a soul-stirring sermon
thereupon in 1741, and in 1784 Bishop Porteus
published an extensive plan for the more effectual
conversion of the slaves, contending that "despicable as
they are in the eyes of man they are, nevertheless, the
creatures of God."
The first successful worker in this field was the
Rev. Samuel Thomas of Goose Creek Parish in the
colony of South Carolina. The records show that he
was thus engaged as early as 1695 and that ten years
later he reported 20 black communicants who, with
several others, well understood the English language.
By 1705 he had brought under his instruction as many as
1,000 slaves, "many of whom," said he, "could read the
Bible distinctly and great numbers of them were engaged
in learning the scriptures." When these blacks
approached the communion table, however, some white
persons seriously objected, inquiring whether it was
possible that slaves should go to heaven anyway.
But having the 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 indoctrina-
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tion of these slaves, Mr. Taylor planned for
their instruction, encouraging the slaveholders to teach
the blacks at least to the extent of learning the
Lord's Prayer. Manifesting such interest in
these unfortunate blacks, their friends easily induced
them to attend church in such large numbers that they
could not be accommodated. "So far as the
missionaries were permitted," says one, "they did all
that was possible for their evangelization, and while so
many professed Christians among the whites were
lukewarm, it pleased God to raise to himself
devout servants among the heathen, whose faithfulness
was commended by the Masters themselves." In some
of the congregations the Negroes constituted one-half of
the communicants.
This interest in proselyting the Negroes was extended
into other parts. In 1723, Rev. Mr. Guy of
St. Andrew's Parish reported that he had baptized a
Negro man and woman. About the same time Rev.
Mr. Hunt, in charge of St. John's Parish, had among
his communicants a slave, "a sensible Negro who can read
and write and come to church, a catechumen under
probation for baptism, which he desires.
A new stage in the progress of this movement was
reached in 1743 when there was established at
Charleston, South Carolina, a special school to train
Negroes for participation in this missionary work.
This school was opened by Commissary Garden and placed
in charge of Harry and Andrew, two young men of
color, who had been thor-
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oughly instructed in the rudiments of education and in
the doctrines of the church. It is 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
Chowen, "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.
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Newman, proclaiming the new day of the Gospel in
that colony, reported in 1723 that he had baptized two
Negroes who could say the Creed, the Lord's
Prayer, the Ten Commandments and gave good sureties for
their fuller information. According to the report
of Rev. C. Hall, the number of conversions there
among the Negroes for eight years was 355, including 112
adults; and "at Edenton the blacks generally were
induced to attend service at all these stations where
they behaved with great decorum."
In the middle colonies the work was given additional
impetus by the mission of Dr. Thomas Bray.
The Bishop of London sent this gentleman to the colony
of Maryland for the purpose of devising plans to convert
adult Negroes and educate their children. Having
also the influential support of M. D'Alone, the
private secretary of King William who gave for
its maintenance a fund, the proceeds of which were to be
used to employ catechists, the Thomas Bray
Mission decidedly encouraged these missionaries.
The catechists appointed, however, failed; but the work
was well extended throughout Maryland, into neighboring
colonies, and even into the settlements of Georgia,
through certain persons assuming the title of Dr.
Bray's Associates. Traveling in North
Carolina, Rev. Mr. Stewart, a missionary, found
there a school maintained by Dr. Bray's
Associates for the education of Indians and Negroes.
They were supporting such a school in Georgia in 1751;
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but in 1766 the Rev. S. Frink, a missionary
trying to secure a hearing in Augusta, found that he
could neither convert the Indians nor the whites, who
seemed to be as destitute of religion as the former; but
he succeeded in converting some Negroes.
In Pennsylvania the missionary movement among the
Negroes found apparently less obstacles. There are
records showing the baptism of Negroes as early as 1712.
One Mr. Yates, a worker at Chester, was commended
by the Rev. G. Ross "for his endeavors to train
up the Negroes in the knowledge of religion."
Mr. Ross himself had on one occasion at Philadelphia
baptized as many as twelve adult Negroes, who were
examined before the congregation and answered to the
admiration of all who heard them. "The like sight
had never been seen before in that church." Giving
account of his efforts in Sussex County in 1723, Rev.
Mr. Beckett said that many Negroes constantly
attended his services, while Rev. Mr. Bartow
about the same time baptized a Negro at West Chester.
Rev. Richard Locke christened eight Negroes in
one family at Lancaster in 1747 and another Negro there
the following year. In 1774 the Rev. Mr. Jenney
observed a great and daily increase of Negroes in this
city, "who with the 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. Stur-
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geon 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 of 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 were 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
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worker in these ranks, established in New York City in
1704 a catechizing school for Negro slaves.
After several years of imprisonment in France because of
his Protestant faith he had come to New York as a
trader. Upon witnessing, however, the neglected
condition of the blacks, who, according to his words.
"were without God in the world and of whose souls
there was no manner of care taken," he proposed the
appointment of a catechist to undertake their
instruction. Finally being prevailed upon to
accept the position himself, he obtained a license from
the Governor, resigned his position as elder in the
French church, and conformed to the established church
of England. At first he served from house to house
but very soon secured a regular place of instruction,
after being commended by the Society to Mr.
Vesey, as a constant communicant of the church and a
most zealous and prudent servant of Christ in
proselyting the Negroes and Indians to the Christian
religion whereby he did great service to God and his
church. There was a further expression of
confidence in him in a bill to be offered to Parliament
"for the more effectual conversion of the Negroes
and other servants in the plantations, to compel owners
of slaves to cause their children to be baptized within
three months after their birth and to permit them, when
come to years of discretion, to be instructed in the
Christian religion on our Lord's Day by the missionaries
under whose ministry they live."
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Neau's school suffered considerably in the Negro
riot in that city in 1712, when it was closed by local
authority and an investigation of his operations
ordered. Upon learning, however, that the slaves
primarily concerned in this rising were not connected
with his school but had probably engaged in this
enterprise because of their neglected condition, the
city permitted him to continue his operations as a
teacher, feeling that Christian knowledge would not
necessarily be a means of more cunning and aptitude to
wickedness. The Governor and the Council, the
Mayor, the Recorder, and Chief Justice informed the
Society that Neau had "performed his work to the
great advancement of religion and particular benefit of
the free Indians, Negro slaves and other heathen in
these parts, with indefatigable zeal and application."
Neau died in 1722; but his work was continued by
Huddlestone, Whitmore, Colgan, Auchmutty, and
Charlton. The last mentioned had undertaken
the instruction of the blacks while at New Windsor
and found it practical and convenient to throw into one
class his white and black catechumens. Mr.
Auchmitty 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 a disgrace
to our holy profession."
This good work done in the city of New York
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extended into other parts of the colony. We hear
of Rev Mr. Stroupe in 1737 baptizing four black
children at New Rochelle. At New Windsor, Rev.
Charles Taylor, a school-master, kept a night school
for the instruction of the Negroes. Rev. J.
Sayre, of Newburgh, promoted the education of the
two races in four of the churches under his charge.
In 1714 Rev. T. Barclay, an earnest worker among
the slaves in Albany, reported a great forwardness among
them to embrace Christianity and a readiness to receive
instruction, although there was much opposition among
some of the masters. Sixty years later Schenectady
reported among its members eleven Negroes who were sober
and serious communicants.
These missionaries met with some opposition in New
England among the Puritans, who had no serious objection
to seeing the Negroes saved but did not care to see them
incorporated into the church, which then being connected
with the state, would grant them political as well as
religious equality. There had been an academic
interest in the conversion of the Negroes. John
Eliot had no particular objection to slavery but
regretted that it precluded the possibility of their
instruction in the Christian doctrine an 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 oppos-
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in all due means of bringing the poor Negroes unto
God. He did not believe that Almighty God
made so many thousand reasonable creatures for nothing
but "only to serve the lusts of epicures or the gains of
mammonists." In the protest of Jonathan Sewell
set fort 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 a 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 musters 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 baptize by 1733 many Indians and a few
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Negroes. Dr. Cutler, a missionary at
Boston, wrote to the Society in 1737 that among those he
had admitted to his church were four Negro slaves.
Endeavoring to do more than to effect nominal
conversions, Dr. Johnson, while at Stratford,
gave catechetical lectures during the summer months of
1751, attended by "many Negroes and some Indians, as
well as whites, about 70 or 80 in all." And said
he: "As far as I can find, where the Dissenters
have baptized two, if not three or four, Negroes or
Indians, I have four or five communicants." Dr.
Macsparran conducted at Narragansett a class of 70
Indians and Negroes whom he frequently catechized and
instructed before the regular service. J.
Honyman, of Newport, had in his congregation more
than 100 Negroes who "constantly attended the Publick
Worship.
The real interest in the evangelization of the Negroes
in the English colonies, however, was manifested not by
those in authority but by the Quakers, who, being
friends of all humanity, would not neglect the Negroes.
In accepting these persons of color on a basis of
equality, however, the Quakers, in denouncing the
nakedness of the religion of the other colonists at the
same time, alienated their affections and easily brought
down upon them the wrath of the public functionaries in
these plantations. Believing that such influence
would not be salutary in slaveholding communities, many
of them, as they did in Virginia, prohibited the Quakers
from taking the Negroes to their
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meetings. Such opposition was but natural when we
find that their leader, George Fox, was
advocating the instruction of Negroes in 1672 and boldly
entreating his coworkers to instruct and teach the
Indians and Negroes in 1679 how that "Christ by
the grace of God tasted death for every man."
When George Keith in 1693 began to promote the
religious training of the slaves as preparation for
emancipation and William Penn actually advocated
the abolition of the system to commit the whole sect to
a definite scheme to return the Negroes to Africa to
Christianize that continent, such opposition easily
developed wherever the Friends operated.
These people, however, would not be deterred from
carrying out their purpose. The results which
followed show that they were not frustrated in the
execution of their plans. John Woolman, one
of the fathers of the Quakers in America, always bore
testimony against slavery and repeatedly urged that the
blacks be given religious instruction. We hear
later of their efforts in towns and in the colonies of
Virginia and North Carolina to teach Negroes to read and
write. Such Negroes as were accessible in the
settlements of the North came under the influence of
Quakers of the type of John Hepburn, William Burling,
Elihu Coleman, Ralph Sandiford, and Anthony
Benezet, who established a number of successful
missions operating among the Negroes. As a Quaker
were, because of their anti-slavery tendencies, the own-
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ers of few slaves and were denied access to those of
others, what they did for the evangelization of the
whole group was little when one considers the benighted
darkness in which most Negro slaves in America lived.
The faith of the Quakers, there religious procedure, and
peculiar customs, moreover, cold not be easily
understood and appreciated by the Negroes in their
undeveloped state.
Generally speaking, then, one should say that the
Negroes were neglected. The few missionaries among
them stood like shining lights after a great darkness.
They moreover faced numerous handicaps, among which
might be mentioned the conflicts of views, and
especially that of the established church with the
Catholics and later with the evangelical sects.
There were also the difficulties resulting from dealing
with a backward pioneering people, the scarcity of
workers, and the lack of funds to sustain those who
volunteered for this service.
Some difficulty resulted too from the differences of
opinion as to what tenets of religion should be taught
the Negro and how they should be presented. Should
the Negroes be first instructed in the rudiments of
education and then taught the doctrines of the church or
should the missionaries start with the Negro intellect
as he found it on his arrival from Africa and undertake
to inculcate doctrines which only the European mind
could comprehend? There was, of course, in the
interest of those devoted to exploitation, a tendency to
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make the religious instruction of the Negroes as nearly
nominal as possible only to remove the stigma attached
to those who neglected the religious life of their
servants. Such limited instruction, however, as
the slaves received when given only a few moments on
Sunday proved to be tantamount to no instruction at all;
for missionaries easily observed in the end that
Christianity was a rather difficult religion for an
undeveloped mind to grasp.
As long as these efforts were restricted to the
Anglican clergy, moreover, there could be little
question among the British as to the advisability of the
procedure. When, however, upon the expansion of
the territory of the Catholics and other sects of
Negroes came under the influence of different sorts of
religion promoted by men of a new thought and new
method, some conflict necessarily arose. There was
another handicap in that the Anglican clergymen in
America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
were not of the highest order. Their
establishments were maintained by tax on the colonists
in keeping with the customs and laws of England, so that
their income was assured, whether or not they wielded an
influence for good among the people. The colonial
clergy, therefore, too often became corrupt in this
independent economic position. They spent much of
their time at games and various sports, tarried at the
cup and looked upon the wine when it was red, in fact,
became so interested in the enjoyment of the things
inviting in this world that they had in
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some cases little time to devote to the elevation of the
whites, to say nothing about the elevation of the
Negroes. They did not feel disposed to undertake
this work themselves and in adhering to their rights as
representatives of the established church precluded the
possibility of a more general evangelization of the
Negroes by the other sects. One might expect from
a country, the religious affairs of which were thus
administered, a number of protests from those thus
served. There was such a general lack of culture
among these backward colonists, however, that no such
complaint followed. Interest in religion must come
from the promoters of religion. In the clergymen
themselves did not manifest interest in this work, it
was out of the question to expect others to do so.
Another difficulty was a lack of workers. The
colonies were not rapidly becoming densely populated and
it was not then an easy matter to induce young clergymen
to try their fortunes in the wilderness of the western
world for such remuneration as the colonists in their
scattered and undeveloped economic state were able to
give. As many of the white settlements, therefore,
were neglected, it would naturally follow that the
Negroes suffered likewise. Some of these workers
volunteering to toil in this field as missionaries were,
of course, supported by funds raised for that purpose;
but the difficulty in raising money for missions is
still a problem of the church. At that time the
people were generally more disinclined
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to contribute to such causes than they are to-day.
That was the age of commercial expansion and available
funds were drawn into that field, much at the expense of
the higher things of life. The intelligent
Christians, therefore, with a clear understanding of the
Bible and the doctrines derived therefrom were not
legion even among the whites prior to the American
Revolution. The slaves with the handicap of
bondage, of course, could not constitute exceptions to
this rule.
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