The American Missionary — Volume 32, No. 12, December, 1878

by Various

But now the question arises, whether, in all our planning and thinking for the Freedman, too little has not been said and thought by our churches in regard to the Freedwoman.

She, like her brother, has been debased by slavery; debased, moreover, in the very citadel of her sacred womanhood, until the very instinct on which the sanctity of the home must rest, if it exist at all, has become almost extirpated.

There can be no elevation of the Freedman that does not rest upon the moral restoration of the Freedwoman. The position of woman is everywhere the measure of moral attainment, and here, where she has become the sport and lawful prey of two races, she more than ever holds the key of the situation.

The feeling, gaining strength through all the experience of our missionaries and teachers and superintendents, that an effort needs to be made for her benefit distinctly, now demands expression in the councils of this body.

Your Committee has no new light upon this subject; it has no specific to offer for the evil which makes so great a demand upon our sympathy. We can only appeal to this body, and to the churches, whether now, in the spectacle of two and a half millions of Freedwomen, of whom only a mere fraction are yet under the influence of schools and pure churches, lifting up their cry, not “from Greenland’s icy mountains, nor India’s coral strand,” nor whence “Afric’s sunny fountains roll down their golden sand,” but from the sunny half of these United States of America, we have not a call of God, which the dullest ear cannot fail to hear. And we, brethren and sisters, are charged with the duty of responding to this cry, with no uncertain sound.

The Committee feel the responsibility which rests upon them in undertaking to propose new measures, and hesitate to offer too radical suggestions. Yet, they cannot be deaf to the appeal of this kind of work, or content themselves with vague and general exhortations. We hail as a good omen, and as an indication of Providence as to the course to be taken, the fact that already, through the influence of one Christian lady of the Northwest, a lady missionary, specially instructed to labor among the homes of the Freedmen, by personal contact, for the moral and religious education of the colored woman, is now actually at work. Our recommendation is that, following out this beginning, Christian women of mature experience and wise tact be appointed, to such an extent as funds will permit, who shall labor for the elevation of the Freedwomen, by those methods of personal influence which are, of all, most efficient. We believe that in no other way can we strike so nearly at the root of the ignorance and immorality which, in behalf of the Freedmen, we contend against.

But, obviously, it would not be right to take the funds appropriated for education or church extension for this purpose, and thereby curtail a work which needs, on the contrary, to be at once extended. Whence shall the support of these lady workers come, then?

We feel constrained, in reply, to appeal to that large and earnest body to whom we are not wont to appeal in vain—the Christian women of our Northern churches. Suppose that in each church an appeal should be made to the ladies, already doing much in missionary work, and sending generous supplies of clothing and other necessaries to the Freedmen, to assume the responsibility of supporting, either themselves or in conjunction with neighboring churches, these female workers among the Freedwomen. Could they, would they resist the appeal of this sister of theirs, upon whom iron despotism has set its mark of deep degradation, through no fault of hers, and who now lifts up appealing eyes, pleading to be restored to the sisterhood of the pure and the holy, to whom manhood owes all that is noblest and highest in its proudest development? We know them better than to imagine any such refusal. We believe the Christian women of the North, when once this channel is opened, will see in it their choice opportunity, and respond in a way that shall set forward our work by a great advance.

And we further offer the suggestion, following again a thought which has been born, and has already, to a degree, taken form, in the field of labor, that in the principal centres of the Southern field, local organizations of women may be constituted, which shall have special charge of this work, and through which the funds raised may be applied to their purpose.

By this three-fold chain of operations—the appointment of Christian women of mature character to special labor among the Freedwomen, the organization of local boards of women at the several centres of operation, and support by the Christian ladies of the North—it seems to the Committee that this important and too long neglected work may be simply and effectually accomplished. And, as rapidly as the developments will allow, we believe the work in the field should be passed into the hands of the elevated and Christianized Freedwoman herself, who, not only by visitation, but by the example of her own holy womanhood, and her own Christian home, shall disseminate the forces of light through all the darkness of the land where she lives.