1. Hays, George P., Presbyterianism (New York,1892), p. 25.Google Scholar

2. Raboteau, Albert J., Slave Religion: The ‘InvisibleInstitution’ in the Antebellum South (New York,1978), p.326;Google ScholarSobel, Mechel, Trablin' On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Westport, Conn., 1979), p.21.Google Scholar

3. For statistics which spell outthe astonishing contrast between the situation in North America andthe rest of the New World, see Raboteau, pp. 89–91. Harsh laborconditions rather than climate would seem to be the explanation ofthe high mortality rate in the Caribbean and Brazil, for the climatewas not dissimilar to that of Africa. Moreover, the indigenous“Indian” population was quickly exterminated when reducedto the status of slave laborers working under conditions imposed onthe large island plantations.

4. In 1740 a group ofblack Christians in Boston invited Whitefleld to speak to them. ForWhitefleld's reports on black religious life, see GeorgeWhitefield's Journals, a facsimile reproduction of theedition of William Wake with an introduction by Davis, William V. (Gainesville, Fla., 1969), pp.406, 408, 417, 420, 444, 446,465–466Google Scholar. For Whitefield's interest in theeducation of black children and in projects for schools for blackchildren in Philadelphia and Charleston, see ibid., pp. 377, 384,408, 418, 444.

5. Methodists began to distinguishbetween white and black members in 1786, when 10 percent ofMethodists were reported to be blacks. By 1801 the number of blacksamong Methodists was 21 percent. Thereafter, with Methodistsexperiencing the surge of growth in New England, central and westernNew York, and beyond that was to make them the largest Americanreligious denomination, the percentage of black Methodists dropped to15 percent in 1820 while their actual number multiplied. See Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist EpiscopalChurch for the Years 1773–1828 (New York,1840), pp. 93, 346.Google Scholar

For comparison it can be noted that in 1850 there were oniy 5389 black (Old School)Presbyterians (2.5 percent of the membership) in contrast to 166,690black Methodists (14.6 percent of the membership), both south andnorth. The New School Presbyterians did not distinguish membership bycolor, but if their total had been added to the Old SchoolPresbyterians the disparity would have been much more marked. The NewSchool churches in the South which broke away in 1857 to form theUnited Synod of the Presbyterian Church reported a total blackmembership in 1859 of only 323. The same type of division among theMethodists left the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1850 with137,528 black members who constituted 27.5 percent of the membership.See Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church inthe U.S.A., A. D. 1850 (Philadelphia, 1850), p.600;Google ScholarWilson, Joseph M., ThePresbyterian Historical Almanac (Philadelphia,1860), p. 147;Google ScholarThe Methodist Almanac for theYear of Our Lord, 1850 (Philadelphia, n.d.), pp. 35, 37.Google Scholar

Baptists kept no centralized records, and even localassociations did not begin to distinguish members or pastors by coloruntil the 1840s. Thus it is difficult to compile precise figures, butall indications lead one to believe that Baptists exceeded Methodistsin number and percentage of black adherents and certainly in numberof black pastors. When it is remembered that Baptists had become thelargest American denomination by 1800, having twice as many adherentsas the next largest denomination, the Congregationalists, and that, after having been matched in number by the Methodists in 1820, theBaptists did not lag far behind the pace of the Methodists, themagnitude of the black membership of the two groups is clearly apparent. See Gaustad, Edwin S., Historical Atlas of Religionin America, rev. ed. (New York, 1976), p. 52.Google Scholar

6. Raboteau, p. 102.

7. Ibid., pp. 105–107. For Charles C. Jones's verdict that white ministersin the South generally refused to consider slaves as part of their pastoral responsibility, see Clarke, Erskine, Wrestlin' Jacob: A Portrait of Religion in the OldSouth (Atlanta, 1979), p. 29.Google Scholar

8. Beeman, R. R. and Isaac, Rhys, “Cultural Conflict and Social Change in the RevolutionarySouth, Lunenburg, Virginia,” Journal of Southern History 46 (1980): 533–534.Google Scholar

9. “Morgan Edwards' Materialstoward a History of the Baptists in North Carolina,” in the North Carolina Historical Reivew 7 (1930):383;Google ScholarSemple, Robert, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (Richmond, 1810), p. 4;Google Scholar Beeman and Isaac, p. 534.

10. “Morgan Edwards' Materials,” p. 386;Google ScholarBroadus, J. A., “The American Baptist Ministry of OneHundred Years Ago,” Baptist Quarterly Review 9 (1875): 19.Google Scholar

11. Semple, p. 5; Stiles, H. R., The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut, 2 vols. (Hartford, 1891–1892), 2:467Google Scholar.

12. Jarrast, Devereux, The Life of Devereux Jarrast … writtenby himself (Baltimore, 1806), pp. 86, 91, 94, 96, 126, 226Google Scholar; Gewehr, Wesley M., The Great Awakening in Virginia (Durham, NC., 1930), pp. 148, 153.Google Scholar Fora further description of Methodist worship, see Memoirs ofJesse Lee, ed. Minton, Thrift (New York, 1823), p. 16.Google Scholar

13. Beeman and Isaac, p. 534; McColley, Robert, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia, 2d ed. (Urbana, III., 1973), p. 104;Google ScholarFristoe, William, History of the Ketocton BaptistAssociation (Staunton, Va., 1808), p. 71;Google ScholarMathews, Donald G., Slavery and Methodism(Princeton, 1965), p. 71.Google Scholar

14. Burkitt, Lemuel and Reed, Jesse, A Concise History of theKehukee Baptist Association (Halifax, NC., 1803), pp. 55–56.Google Scholar

15. “MorganEdwards' Materials,” p. 385; see also Sobel, p. 387, n.4.

16. Quoted in Mosteller, James D., A History of the Kiokee Baptist Church in Georgia (AnnArbor, Mich., 1952), pp. 179–180Google Scholar. Letters ofdismission for blacks was a continuing problem since they werefrequently “hurried off from their native land,” that is, they were sold (ibid., p. 180).

17. For thepossibility of voting, see the report of an incident in Burkitt andReed, pp. 258–259. For redress of grievances, see Mosteller, p.81, and Beeman and Isaac, p. 536. It is difficult to tell how andwhen the pattern of segregating a congregation was introduced.Meeting in the open air or in the makeshift accomodations of a barnor other structure, as Baptists and Methodists did at the outset, there must have beeq some intermingling as well as someself-segregation. Even when meetinghouses were erected, they tendedto be small and lacked pews. Most likely segregated seating as aconscious policy was first adopted in urban centers. In rural areasit is likely that the size of the meetinghouses as well as the timeof possible attendance first dictated separate services. Often slavescould meet only at the close of day. Even where the normal routinewas interrupted on Sunday, there were still chores to do and domesticresponsibilities to fulfil. This was the reason why among thedissenting denominations in England, the moderately prosperousworshiped in the morning, while the servant classes attended eveningservices. The developing pattern of segregation within thecongregations must have varied widely from church to church before itbecame firmly established.

18. Journal of Susan D.Nyc, under “Sabbath, [May] 7th[1815],” in Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Mosteller, p. 174, seemsto generalize that the ratio of black to white members was often ashigh as six to one. This seems much too high, even in areas whereblacks were concentrated. But it certainly was true of some localchurches. Fifty years later, on an associational level, even in suchassociations as the Savannah association in Georgia, the Charlestonassociation in South Carolina, and the Portsmouth and Rappahannockassociations in Virginia, the excess of blacks over whites, whilemarked, did not reach as high as two to one over the associations asa whole.

19. Sobel, pp. 102, 296, 299.

20. Ibid., pp. 105–106.

21. Clarke, pp.38–39, 44–48.

22. Stampp, Kenneth, ThePeculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South (NewYork, 1956), p. 376.Google Scholar

23. The story songs, taken from one songbook, include such titles as “My Name IsJacob,” “Joseph Made Known to His Brethren,”“The Lord Is My Banner” (David and Goliath, and includesGideon), “Balaam's Wish,” “Sampson'sLion,” “Hannah,” “Saul's Armour,”“The Meal and the Cruise of Oil” (Elijah),“Naaman,” “Belshazzar,” “TheBeggar,” “The Foolish Virgins,” “The LegionDispossessed,” “Bartimeous,” “The BlastedFig-tree,” “The Two Debtors,” “TheWorldling” (the rich fool), “The Barren Fig-tree,”“Zaccheus,” “The Pool of Bethesda,”“Lovest Thou Me,” and “Peter Released fromPrison.”

24. Clarke, p. 162. There is realpathos in Jones's story. In seeking to aid the blacks by workingwithin the system, compromise followed compromise until gradually andunconsciously he became corrupted by the system.

25. Ibid., pp. 40–41.

26. Stampp, p. 375.