American Negro Slavery Part 34

[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

In the colonial period slaves were freed as a rule only when generous masters rated them individually deserving of liberty or when the negroes bought themselves. Typical of the time were the will of Thomas Stanford of New Jersey in 1722 directing that upon the death of the testator's wife his negro man should have his freedom if in the opinion of three neighbors named he had behaved well,[1] and a deed signed by Robert Daniell of South Carolina in 1759 granting freedom to his slave David Wilson in consideration of his faithful service and of 600 currency in hand paid.[2]

So long as this condition prevailed, in which the ethics of slaveholding were little questioned, the freed element remained extremely small.

[Footnote 1: _New Jersey Archives_, XXIII, 438.]

[Footnote 2: MS. among the probate records at Charleston.]

The liberal philosophy of the Revolution, persisting thereafter in spite of reaction, not only wrought the legal disestablishment of slavery throughout the North, but prompted private manumissions far and wide.[3] Thus Philip Graham of Maryland made a deed in 1787 reciting his realization that the holding of his "fellow men in bondage and slavery is repugnant to the golden law of G.o.d and the unalienable right of mankind as well as to every principle of the late glorious revolution which has taken place in America," and converting his slaves into servants for terms, the adults to become free at the close of that year and the children as they reached maturity.[4] In the same period, upon his coming of age, Richard Randolph, brother of the famous John, wrote to his guardian: "With regard to the division of the estate, I have only to say that I want not a single negro for any other purpose than his immediate liberation. I consider every individual thus unshackled as the source of future generations, not to say nations, of freemen; and I shudder when I think that so insignificant an animal as I am is invested with this monstrous, this horrid power."[5]

The Randolph estate, however, was so c.u.mbered with debts that the desired manumissions could not then be made. At Richard's death in 1796 he left a will of the expected tenor, providing for a wholesale freeing as promptly as it could legally be accomplished by the clearance of the mortgage.[6] In 1795 John Stratton of Norfolk, a.s.serting his "full persua.s.sion that freedom is the natural right of all men," set free his able-bodied slave, Peter Wakefield.[7] Robert K. Moore of Louisville mingled thrift with liberalism by setting free in 1802 two pairs of married slaves because of his conviction that involuntary servitude was wrong, and at the same time binding them by indenture to serve him for some fourteen years longer in consideration of certain small payments in advance and larger ones at the ends of their terms.[8]

[Footnote 3: These were restricted for a time in North Carolina, however, by an act of 1777 which recited the critical and alarming state of public affairs as its occasion.]

[Footnote 4: MS. transcript in the file of powers of attorney, I, 243, among the county records at Louisville, Ky.]

[Footnote 5: H.A. Garland, _Life of John Randolph of Roanoke_ (New York, 1851), I, 63.]

[Footnote 6: _DeBow's Review_, XXIV, 285-290.]

[Footnote 7: MS. along with many similar doc.u.ments among the deed files at Norfolk, Va.]

[Footnote 8: MSS. in the powers of attorney files, II, 118, 122, 127, at Louisville, Ky.]

Manumissions were in fact so common in the deeds and wills of the men of '76 that the number of colored freemen in the South exceeded thirty-five thousand in 1790 and was nearly doubled in each of the next two decades.

The greater caution of their successors, reinforced by the rise of slave prices, then slackened the rate of increase to twenty-five and finally to ten per cent. per decade. Doc.u.ments in this later period, reverting to the colonial basis, commonly recited faithful service or self purchase rather than inherent rights as the grounds for manumission. Liberations on a large scale, nevertheless, were not wholly discontinued. John Randolph's will set free nearly four hundred in 1833;[9] Monroe Edwards of Louisiana manumitted 160 by deed in 1840;[10] and George W.P. Custis of Virginia liberated his two or three hundred at his death in 1857.[11]

[Footnote 9: Garland, _Life of Randolph_, II, 150, 151.]

[Footnote 10: _Niles' Register_, LXIII, 245.]

Still other large proprietors while not bestowing immediate liberty made provisions to bring it after the lapse of years. Prominent among these were three Louisianians. Julien Poydras, who died in 1824, ordered his executors to sell his six plantations with their respective staffs under contracts to secure the manumission of each slave after twenty-five years of service to the purchaser, together with an annual pension of $25 to each of those above sixty years of age; and years afterward a nephew of the testator procured an injunction from the supreme court of the state estopping the sale of some of the slaves by one of their purchasers in such way as would hazard the fulfilment of the purpose.[12] Stephen Henderson, a Scotch immigrant who had acquired several sugar plantations, provided as follows, by will made in 1837 and upheld by the courts: ten and twenty slaves respectively were to be chosen by lot at periods five and ten years after his death to be freed and sent to Liberia, and at the end of twenty-five years the rest were to fare likewise, but any who refused to be deported were to be kept as apprentices on the plantations.[13] John McDonogh, the most thrifty citizen of New Orleans in his day, made a unique bargain with his whole force of slaves, about 1825, by which they were collectively to earn their freedom and their pa.s.sage to Liberia by the overtime work of Sat.u.r.day afternoons. This labor was to be done in McDonogh's own service, and he was to keep account of their earnings. They were ent.i.tled to draw upon this fund upon approved occasions; but since the contract was with the whole group of slaves as a unit, when one applied for cash the others must draw theirs _pro rata_, thereby postponing the common day of liberation.

Any slaves violating the rules of good conduct were to be sold by the master, whereupon their accrued earnings would revert to the fund of the rest. The plan was carried to completion on schedule, and after some delay in embarkation they left America in 1842, some eighty in number, with their late master's benediction. In concluding his public narration in the premises McDonogh wrote: "They have now sailed for Liberia, the land of their fathers. I can say with truth and heartfelt satisfaction that a more virtuous people does not exist in any country."[14]

[Footnote 11: _Daily True Delta_ (New Orleans), Dec. 19, 1857.]

[Footnote 12: Poydras _vs_. Mourrain, in _Louisiana Reports_, IX, 492. The will is quoted in the decision.]

[Footnote 13: _Niles' Register_, LXVIII, 361. The original MS. is filed in will book no. 6 in the New Orleans court house.]

[Footnote 14: J.T. Edwards ed., _Some Interesting Papers of John McDonogh_ (McDonoghville, Md., 1898), pp. 49-58.]

Among more romantic liberations was that of Pierre Chastang of Mobile who, in recognition of public services in the war of 1812 and the yellow fever epidemic of 1819 was bought and freed by popular subscription;[15] that of Sam which was provided by a special act of the Georgia legislature in 1834 at a cost of $1,800 in reward for his having saved the state capitol from destruction by fire;[16] and that of Prince which was attained through the good offices of the United States government. Prince, after many years as a Mississippi slave, wrote a letter in Arabic to the American consul at Tangier in which he recounted his early life as a man of rank among the Timboo people and his capture in battle and sale overseas. This led Henry Clay on behalf of the Adams administration to inquire at what cost he might be bought for liberation and return. His master thereupon freed him gratuitously, and the citizens of Natchez raised a fund for the purchase of his wife, with a surplus for a flowing Moorish costume in which Prince was promptly arrayed. The pair then departed, in 1828, for Was.h.i.+ngton _en route_ for Morocco, Prince avowing that he would soon send back money for the liberation of their nine children.[17]

[Footnote 15: D.W. Mitch.e.l.l, _Ten Years in the United States_ (London, 1862), p. 235.]

[Footnote 16: Georgia Senate _Journal_ for 1834, p. 25. At a later period the Georgia legislature had occasion to reward another slave, Ransom by name, who while hired from his master by the state had heroically saved the Western and Atlantic Railroad bridge over the Chattahoochee River from destruction by fire. Since official sentiment was now hostile to manumission, it was resolved in 1849 that he be bought by the state and ensured a permanent home; and in 1853 a further resolution directed the chief engineer of the state-owned railroad to pay him just wages during good behavior. Georgia _Acts, 1849-1850_, pp. 416, 417; _1853-1854_, pp.

538, 539. Old citizens relate that a house was built for Ransom on the Western and Atlantic right of way in Atlanta which he continued to occupy until his death many years after the Civil War. For these data I am indebted to Mr. J. Groves Cohen, Secretary of the Western and Atlantic Railroad Commission, Atlanta, Ga.]