[Footnote 55: E.R. Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania (Washington, 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 instituted 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 fellowship 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 worship 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 Analytical 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 membership. 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 petitioned 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 (Washington, 1914). pp. 61-70.]