THE BLACK BAPTIST CHURCHES
In 1773 a black Baptist church was organized at silver Bluff, South Carolina (Black Saga, p. 45). An early minister there was George Liele, who was a free black man. Another minister was a black slave, named Andrew Bryan. He had a sympathetic master, who allowed him to preach at the church (John Hope Franklin, p. 101). Liele eventually moved to Savannah, Georgia, in 1779. Soon thereafter he emigrated from the US to Jamaica (John Hope Franklin, 101, Black Saga, 64).
Andrew Bryan moved on from Silver Bluff to Savannah, and established the First African Baptist Church on Jan. 20, 1788. Some whites were hostile to the church, and whipped slaves who tried to attend. Bryan was jailed. His master bailed him out of jail. When Bryan’s master died, he was allowed to purchase his freedom.
Black Baptist churches soon took root everywhere (Phila, Boston, NY c.1809). The Abyssinian Baptist church became one of the most famous black Baptist churches in NYC.
RICHARD ALLEN AND THE AME CHURCH
Another moving force in the early black church was Richard Allen. He was born a slave in 1760. He managed to save money, as a slave in Delaware, and purchased his freedom in 1777. He worked as a wagon driver. In 1786 he was falsely accused of being a runaway. Philadelphians testified that he was a free black man, and Allen was released (Black Saga, 59).
In 1787 Richard Allen and Absalom Jones were kneeling in prayer at St. George’s Episcopal church in Phila. an usher rudely pulled them up and berated them for praying in the "whites only" section of the church. Blacks were confined to the black pews and the balcony. Allen and Jones saw no reason why they should worship with bigots, who brought the filth of segregation into the house of God. Instead of submitting to segregation and exclusion, blacks formed their own separate churches apart from whites. Richard Allen, Absalom Jones and 60 other African Americans established the Free African Society on April 12, 1787 (Black Saga, 61). It was a mutual aid society and a church. As a mutual aid society, it raised money for burials, widows, orphans, indigents and the sick.
In 1794 Richard Allen left the Free African Society. On Feb. 4, 1794 he organized a new, independent church of his own, called the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (better known as the AME church) in Phila. Over time, AME congregations sprouted up in Wilmington, Baltimore, and Camden. In 1816 the different AME congregations held a conference and established the NATIONWIDE AME denomination. In 1816 Richard Allen became the second bishop of the AME church. He died in 1831.
The black churches developed as a reaction against white supremacy and exclusion and segregation in the white churches. The black church became one of the few institutions that black people themselves could run, lead and control. After more than 200 years (1787-2000), the separate existence of the black church has become the "normal" condition of the black church. And while black churches ordinarily allow whites and non-blacks to attend and join, many black people like having their own separate churches apart from whites and not controlled by whites.
BENJAMIN BANNEKER
Another significant
person of the Revolutionary Period was Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806).
He was born in Maryland. Benjamin’s grandmother was an English woman named
Molly Welsh. She came to America as an indentured servant, served her time,
and obtained her freedom and land. She then imported two African slaves.
She took a liking to the slave man, freed him, and married him (before
the Maryland law against interracial marriage). They had four children,
one of whom was a daughter (Mary). She was Benjamin’s mother. As a free
person of color, Benjamin attended a private, integrated school. He excelled
at math and astronomy. In 1754 he constructed a clock (at a time when they
generally were imported into America). In 1791 he began publishing an almanac.
Banneker is remembered for a letter to Thomas Jefferson, in August 1791,
criticizing Jefferson for saying that he suspected that blacks were intellectually
inferior to whites. Jefferson was impressed by Banneker’s Almanac, and
recommended Banneker for a job as a member of the surveying team to lay
out Washington, DC. It was assumed by some whites that black people were
biologically inferior. Banneker asserted that blacks were stunted by the
environment of slavery, which kept them ignorant and illiterate. Andthen
whites pointed to their ignorance and illiteracy as proof of their inferiority.
Banneker was proof that black people could achieve if given an opportunity
to learn. On the other hand, however, some white supremacists suggested
that Banneker was only able to achieve because he was not pure black, but
of mixed ancestry. This overlooked the fact that as time went on MOST black
people in America were of mixed racial ancestry.
SLAVE REVOLTS IN THE US.
A generation after the War of Southern Independence, white Southerners tried to sugarcoat the issue of slavery, and Ulrich B. Phillips (American Negro Slavery) popularized the idea that the slaves had been happy. He said that slavery was like a school for the ignorant blacks, and they had been released too soon—before they had learned all that the needed to learn. For a generation, between 1918 and 1956, Americans "forgot’ that there had been any slave revolts.
In fact there were several unsuccessful, localized slave revolts. The slaves could not leave the plantation without permission. Therefore they could not communicate from one plantation to another to plan a widespread nationwide revolt. The slaves had no guns. Most were deliberately kept illiterate. A slave revolt in the US could not succeed. It was doomed to failure. But some slaves revolted or conspired to revolt anyway, and were killed. It is NOT true that "there were no slave revolts in the US." Rather, there were UNSUCCESSFUL revolts. And when revolts took place, the local county militias mobilized against the slaves. Militias from all of the counties of a given colony or state mobilized. The militias in OTHER STATES mobilized. And the US Army and Navy mobilized against the slaves. In order for the slaves to "win," they would have to defeat the combined forces of all of the states and the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT of the US. Ultimately, the power standing behind the slaveholders was the army and navy of the federal government of the US. Therefore black abolitionists such as Martin Delany and H. Ford Douglas asserted that the Federal Government was the enemy of the slaves—because the Fed Government took the side of the slavemasters against the slaves (until 1861).
NEW YORK CITY, JUNE 1712
The first slave revolt was in New York City in June 1712. The Governor said that 23 Blacks gathered and armed themselves, and set fire to a building. As the whites came to put out the fire, the slaves shot and killed them. Nine whites were killed, and 5 or 6 injured. The Governor called out the militia, and the slaves fled into the woods. 27 Blacks were caught. Of that number 21 were executed. Some were burnt, some hanged, some broken on the wheel, one hung alive in chains. Six others killed themselves rather than be captured.
STONO, SOUTH CAROLINA
The Stono insurrection
occurred in South Carolina, near Charleston, in September 1739. The slaves
did not have to work on Sunday, so they used that day to revolt. War had
broken out between Spain (with its colony at St. Augustine, Florida) and
Britain. The leader of the revolt was named Jemmy. The slaves proceeded
from plantation to plantation, taking guns, setting the houses on fire,
and killing the slaveholders. The slaves of Mr. Wallace said he had been
a kind master, and he was spared. Another white man, left for dead, escaped
and ran to the sheriff. The slaves played drums to "call’ others to come
and join them. The South Carolina militia mobilized. The Georgia militia
mobilized. The SC militia attacked the rebellious slaves. Twenty whites
and 40 blacks were killed. The rest of the history of South Carolina is
played out in the shadow of Stono. Whites in south Carolina were terrified
that another revolt might occur.
SAMBA’S REVOLT
There was a little-known revolt in Louisiana in 1763, led by Samba. Eight black men were put to death, and a black woman hanged.
GABRIEL PROSSER’S CONSPIRACY, 1800
There was an abortive uprising near Richmond, Virginia on August 30, 1800. The leader of the conspiracy was Gabriel Prosser. The plan was to seize the munitions depot in Richmond. But on the crucial night there was a torrential downpour that washed out a bridge. No one could get across the flooded river. Two house servants, "snitched" and betrayed the plot. Gabriel and 20 others were hanged.
CHARLES DESLONDES REVOLT, LOUISIANA, 1811
On January 8, 1811 an estimated 400-500 slaves began a revolt 35 miles from New Orleans, in Louisiana. The leader was a free mulatto from Haiti, named Charles Deslondes. On January 10 a combined force of the Louisiana militia and the US Army crushed the revolt. Sixty-six slaves were killed in battle, and 16 captured and beheaded. This revolt illustrates clearly that the US Army was the ultimate power that stood behind the institution of slavery.
DENMARK VESEY CONSPIRACY, 1822
On May 30, 1822, plans for a revolt were uncovered in Charleston, SC. Denmarl Vesey was the leader of the plot. He was a mulatto who had purchased his freedom. A house servant betrayed the plot. Interrogations and trials began for 2 months. 35 blacks were hanged, and 37 others sold out of the state.
NAT TURNER, 1831
The most famous slave revolt took place in Virginia in 1831, near Richmond. Nat Turner was a devout religious man who heard voices and saw visions. He believed that God had called him to kill his oppressors and liberate his people. There was a solar eclipse in February 1831, and Nat Turner took this as a sign that during the year 1831 he should revolt. On August 21 he killed his master, Joseph Travis, and the entire Travis family. Initially, Turner had only a hatchet and an ax. He and the other slaves went from plantation to plantation, killing the slave holders and their families. The objective was to reach the ammunition depot at New Jerusalem. Within 24 hours 70 whites had been killed. A family of white people who owned no slaves was spared. Turner was only trying to kill the slaveholders. The Virginia militia came against the slaves, joined by 3 companies of federal troops. The federal government sent two warships up the rivers of Virginia, and 3000 troops. White Virginia was thrown into hysteria until Turner was caught and hanged (November 1831). To the slaveholders he was a mass murderer. To black people, he was a hero who shed blood for the freedom of his people. To black people, he is a freedom fighter. Slavery was dangerous for the slaves. It was also dangerous for the slaveholders, and for the society that tolerated the evil of slavery in its midst.
AMISTAD
The Amistad revolt occurred at sea, off the coast of Cuba, in July 1839.
HAITI
The greatest and most successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere took place in Haiti, and is called the Haitian Revolution. It succeeded in part because in Haiti the armed white minority was in a sea of black people (95% of the population was black). The revolt started in 1791, led by a Voodoo priest named Boukman. Francois Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture took over the leadership in 1793. There was a protracted struggle, as Napoleon Bonaparte sent an army from France to re-conquer Haiti. Toussaint was captured by the French in 1803. Leadership of the revolt passed to the relentless Jean Jacques Dessalines, who ambushed the French in the mountains of Haiti and slaughtered them in November 1803. The French lost 68,000 troops to the war and malaria. Desasalines proclaimed the independent Republic of Haiti on Jan. 1, 1804. It became the first independent black nation in the Western Hemisphere.
JOHN BROWN
By 1859 white abolitionists were sick of the US talking about and debating about abolition. A white man from Connecticut, John Brown, believed the time had come for action. In October 1859 he and a group of more than 12 whites and 5 blacks attacked the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, in Virginia. John Brown wanted to seize the guns in order to give them to the black slaves to start a slave uprising and a guerilla war. The Virginia militia attacked them. Many of the rebels were killed, and John brown was hanged on December 2, 1859. To the abolitionists of the North, he was a hero. To black people, he was a hero. To southern whites, he was crazy. But he was a WHITE MAN who tried to start a slave uprising, and was prepared to give guns to the black slaves so that they could kill slave holding whites. To John Brown the issue was not white or black, but right versus wrong. He took his stand on the side of what was right (abolition), even if it meant standing against other whites.