The first, and perhaps the only distinctive institution which the Negro has developed in this country is the Negro church, and it is in connection with his religion that we may expect to find, if anywhere, the indications of a distinctive Afro-American culture. The actual conditions under which the African slaves were converted to Christianity have never been adequately investigated. We know, in a general way, that there was at first considerable opposition to admitting the Negro into the church because it was feared that it would impair the master's title to his slaves. History records too that the house servants were very early admitted to churches and that in many cases masters went to considerable pains to instruct those servants who shared with them the intimacy of the household.85 It was not, however, until the coming of the new, free and evangelistic types of Christianity, the Baptists and the Methodists, that the masses of the black people, that is, the plantation Negroes, found a form of Christianity that they could make their own.
How eagerly and completely the Negro did take over the religion of these liberal denominations may be gathered from some of the contemporary writings, which record the founding of the first Negro churches in America. The first Negro church in Jamaica was founded by George Liele, shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War. George Liele had been a slave in Savannah, but his master, who was a Tory, emigrated to Jamaica upon the evacuation of that city. Andrew Bryan in Savannah was one of Liele's congregation. He was converted, according to the contemporary record, by Liele's exposition of the text "You must be born again!" About eight months after Liele's departure, Andrew began to preach to a Negro congregation, "with a few white." The colored people had been permitted to erect a building at Yamacraw, but white people in the vicinity objected to the meetings and Bryan and some of his associates were arrested and whipped. But he "rejoiced in his whippings" and holding up his hand declared "he would freely suffer death for the cause of Jesus Christ." Bryan's master interceded for him and "was most affected and grieved" at his punishment. He gave Bryan and his followers a barn to worship in, after Chief Justice Osbourne had given them their liberty. This was the origin of what was probably the first Negro church in America.
George Liele and Andrew Bryan were probably not exceptional men even for their day. The Rev. James Cook wrote of Bryan: "His gifts are small but he is clear in the grand doctrines of the Gospel. I believe him truly pious and he has been the instrument of doing more good among the poor slaves than all the learned doctors in America."86 The significant thing is that, with the appearance of these men, the Negroes in America ceased to be a mission people. At least, from this time on, the movement went on of its own momentum, more and more largely under the direction of Negro leaders. Little Negro congregations, under the leadership of Negro preachers, sprang up wherever they Were tolerated. Often they were suppressed, more often they were privately encouraged. Not infrequently they met in secret.
In 1787 Richard Allen and Absolom Jones had formed in Philadelphia the Free African Society, out of which four years later, in 1790, arose the first separate denominational organization of Negroes, the African Methodist-Episcopal Church. George Liele, Andrew Bryan, Richard Allen, and the other founders of the Negro church were men of some education, as their letters and other writings show. They had had the advantage of life in a city environment and the churches which they founded were in all essentials faithful copies of the denominational forms as they found them in the churches of that period.
The religion of the Negroes on the plantation was then, as it is today, of a much more primitive sort. Furthermore, there were considerable differences in the cultural status of different regions of the South and these differences were reflected in the Negro churches. There was at that time, as there is today, a marked contrast between the Upland and the Sea Island Negroes. Back from the coast the plantations were smaller, the contact of the master and slave were more intimate. On the Sea Island, however, where the slaves were and still are more completely isolated than elsewhere in the South, the Negro population approached more closely to the cultural status of the native African. The Sea Islands were taken possession of in the first years of the war by the Federal forces and it was here that people from the North first came in contact with the plantation Negro of the lower South. They immediately became interested in the manners and customs of the Island Negroes, and from them we have the first accurate accounts of their folk-lore and sayings.
5
Speech at Peoria, Ill., in reply to Douglas. Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, II, Early Speeches. Centenary Edition, edited by M.M. Miller. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, October 16, 1854; p. 74.
6
In the same speech, Lincoln said: "I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation.... Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by Colonization." The Works of Abraham Lincoln, Federal Edition, edited by A. B. Lapsley, II, p. 306.
7
Nicolay and Hay, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, Abraham Lincoln, I, p. 235. Lincoln's Springfield Speech, June 26, 1857.
8
Ibid., VI, p. 356.
9
Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, VI, p. 54. First Annual Message, December 3, 1861.
10
Section XI of Act approved April 16, 1862.
11
Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, VI, p. 356. Act approved July 16, 1862.
12
Raymond, Life, Public Services and State Papers, p. 504.
13
Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, VI, p. 357.
14
Charles Sumner in a speech before a State Committee in Massachusetts, said: "A voice from the westGod save the westrevives the exploded theory of colonization, perhaps to divert attention from the great question of equal rights. To that voice, I reply, first, you ought not to do it, and secondly, you cannot do it. You ought not to do it, because besides its intrinsic and fatal injustice, you will deprive the country of what it most needs, which is labor. Those freedmen on the spot are better than mineral wealth. Each is a mine, out of which riches can be drawn, provided you let him share the product, and through him that general industry will be established which is better than anything but virtue, and is, indeed, a form of virtue. It is vain to say that this is a white man's country. It is the country of man. Whoever disowns any member of the human family as brother disowns God as father, and thus becomes impious as well as inhuman. It is the glory of republican institutions that they give practical form to this irresistible principle. If anybody is to be sent away, let it be the guilty and not the innocent."Charles Sumner's Complete Works, XII, Section 3, p. 334.
15
Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, II, p. 205. Nicolay and Hay, A History of Abraham Lincoln, VI, p. 356.
16
Raymond, Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 504. Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, VIII, p. 1.
17
Richardson, The Messages and Papers of the President, 1789-1897, p. 127. Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, VIII, p. 97.
[18] A section of the emancipation proclamation states that it is the President's purpose upon the next meeting of Congress to recommend the adoption of a practical measure so that the effort to "colonize persons of African decent with their consent, upon this continent or elsewhere with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there," will be continued. Nicolay and Hay, A History, VI, p. 168.
[19] It is interesting to note that the colored population seemed very little in favor of colonization. "It is something singular that the colored racethose in reality most interested in the future destinies of Africashould be so lightly affected by the evidences continually being presented in favor of colonization." The National Intelligencer, October 23, 1850. But an address issued by the National Emigration Convention of Colored people held at Cleveland, Ohio, urged the colored inhabitants of the United States seriously to consider the question of migrating to some foreign clime. See also Journal of Negro History, "Attitude of Free Negro on African Colonization," I.
18
Diplomatic Correspondence, Part I, p. 202. Nicolay and Hay. Complete Works, p. 357.
19
"Mr. Bates was for compulsory deportation. The Negro would not," he said, "go voluntary." "He had great local attachment but no enterprise or persistency. The President objected unequivocally to compulsion. The emigration must be voluntary and without expense to themselves. Great Britain, Denmark and perhaps other powers would take them. I remarked there was no necessity for a treaty which had been suggested. Any person who desired to leave the country could do so now, whether white or black, and it was best to have it soa voluntary system; the emigrant who chose to leave our shores could and would go where there were the best inducements." Diary of Gideon Wells, I, p. 152.
20
Cf. Account by Charles K. Tuckerman, Magazine of American History, October, 1886.
21
Joseph Henry said to Assistant Secretary of State, September 5, 1862: "I hope the government will not make any contracts in regard to the purchase of the Chiriqui District until it has been thoroughly examined by persons of known capacity and integrity. A critical examination of all that has been reported on the existence of valuable beds of coal in that region has failed to convince me of the fact." Chiriqui is described in report Number 148, House of Representatives, 37th Congress, Second Session, July 16, 1862, by John Evans, geologist.
22
"There was an indisposition to press the subject of Negro Emigration to Chiriqui at the meeting of the Cabinet against the wishes and remonstrances of the states of Central America." Diary of Gideon Wells, I, p. 162.
23
Manuscript Archives of the Department of the Interior.
24
Nicolay and Hay, A History, VI, p. 361.
25
Richardson, Message and Papers of the President, I, p. 167.
26
Nicolay and Hay, A History, VI, p. 362.
27
Complete records to substantiate this statement have not been discovered.
28
Lincoln addressed thus the Secretary of War, February 1, 1864: "Sir; You are directed to have a transport sent to the colored colony of San Domingo to bring back to this country such of the colonists there as desire to return. You will have a transport furnished with suitable supplies for that purpose and detail an officer of the quartermaster department, who under special instructions to be given shall have charge of the business. The colonists will be brought to Washington unless otherwise hereafter directed to be employed and provided for at the camps for colored persons around that city. Those only will be brought from the island who desire to return and their effects will be brought with them."