GUIDE TO READING

What were the characteristics

of early free black
communities?
What role did mutual aid
Section
3
The Emergence of Free Black
societies play in African-
American society? Communities
What place did black churches
have in African-American
communities? Black Community Life
The competing forces of slavery and racism, on one hand, and freedom
and opportunity, on the other, shaped the growth of African-American
KEY TERMS communities in the early American republic. A distinctive black culture
had existed since the early colonial period. But enslavement had limited
mutual aid societies, p. 154 black community life. The advent of large free black populations in the
Free African Society, p. 154 North and upper South after the Revolution allowed African Americans
to establish autonomous and dynamic communities. They appeared in
freemasonry, p. 155 Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newport (Rhode Island), Richmond, Norfolk,
Prince Hall , p. 155 New York, and Boston. Although smaller and less autonomous, there
were also free black communities in such deep South cities as
Prince Hall Masons, p. 155 Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans. As free black people in these
cities acquired a modicum of wealth and education, they established
institutions that have shaped African-American life ever since.
A combination of factors encouraged African Americans to form
these distinctive institutions. First, as they emerged from slavery, they
realized they would have inferior status in white-dominated organiza-
tions or not be allowed to participate in them at all. Second, black peo-
ple valued the African heritage they had preserved over generations in
slavery. They wanted institutions that would perpetuate their heritage.

Black Societies
The earliest black community institutions were mutual aid societies.
Guide to Reading/Key Terms Patterned on similar white organizations, these societies were like mod-
For answers, see the Teacher’s Resource Manual. ern insurance companies and benevolent organizations. They provided
Document for their members’ medical and burial expenses and helped support
widows and children. African Americans in Newport, Rhode Island,
5-2 Preamble of the Free Africa Society, 1787
organized the first such black mutual aid society in 1780. Seven years
Recommended Reading later, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones established the more famous
Gary B. Nash. Forging Freedom: The Formation of Free African Society in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720–1840. Most early free black societies admitted only men, but similar orga-
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, nizations for women appeared during the 1790s. For example, in 1793
1988. This path-breaking study of a black Philadelphia’s Female Benevolent Society of St. Thomas took over the
community analyzes the origins of separate welfare functions of the city’s Free African Society. Other black women’s
black institutions. organizations in Philadelphia during the early republic included the

154 Chapter 5
Benevolent Daughters—established in 1796 by Richard Allen’s wife
Sarah—Daughters of Africa established in 1812, the American Female
Bond Benevolent Society formed in 1817, and the Female Benezet
begun in 1818.
These ostensibly secular societies maintained a decidedly Christian
moral character. They insisted that their members meet standards of
middle-class propriety. In effect, they became self-improvement as well
as mutual aid societies. By the early 1800s, such societies also organized
resistance to kidnappers who sought to recapture fugitive slaves or
enslave free African Americans.
Because such societies provided real benefits and reflected black
middle-class aspirations, they spread to every black urban community.
More than one hundred such organizations existed in Philadelphia
alone by 1830. These societies were more common in the North than in
the South.

Black Freemasons
Of particular importance were the black freemasons because, unlike
other free black organizations, the masons united black men from sev-
eral northern cities. Combining rationalism with secrecy and obscure
ritual, freemasonry was a major movement among European and
American men during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
turies. Opportunities for male bonding, wearing fancy regalia, and
achieving prestige in a supposedly ancient hierarchy attracted both
black and white men. As historians James Oliver Horton and Lois E.
Horton suggest, black people drew special satisfaction from the
European-based order’s claims to have originated in ancient Egypt,
which black people associated with their own African heritage.
The most famous black mason of his time was Prince Hall, the
Revolutionary War veteran and abolitionist. During the 1770s he
founded what became known as the African Grand Lodge of North
America, or, more colloquially, the Prince Hall Masons. In several
respects, Hall’s relationship to masonry epitomizes the free black
predicament in America.
In 1775 the local white masonic lodge in Boston rejected Hall’s
application for membership because of his black ancestry. Instead,
Hall, who was a Patriot, got a limited license for what was called
African Lodge No. 1 from a British lodge associated with the British
Army that then occupied Boston. The irony of this situation was com-
pounded when, after the War for Independence, American masonry
refused to grant the African Lodge a full charter. Hall again had to
turn to the British masons who approved his application in 1787. It A former slave, a skilled craftsman and
entrepreneur, an abolitionist, and an
was under this British charter that Hall in 1791 became provincial
advocate of black education, Prince Hall is
grand master of North America and began authorizing black lodges in best remembered as the founder of the
other cities, notably Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Providence, African Lodge of North America, popularly
Rhode Island. known as the Prince Hall Masons.

African Americans in the New Nation 155

 The Origins of Independent
Black Churches
Black churches emerged at least a decade later than black benevolent
associations and quickly became the core of African-American commu-
nities. Not only did these churches attend to the spiritual needs of free
black people and—in some southern cities—slaves, their pastors also
became the primary African-American leaders. Black church buildings
housed schools, social organizations, and antislavery meetings.
During the late eighteenth century, separate, but not independent,
black churches appeared in the South. The biracial churches spawned
by the Awakening had never embraced African Americans on an equal
basis with white people. As time passed white people denied black peo-
ple significant influence in church governance and subjected them to
segregated seating, communion services, Sunday schools, and cemeter-
ies. Separate black congregations, usually headed by black ministers but
subordinate to white church hierarchies, were the result of these poli-
cies. The first such congregations appeared during the 1770s in South
Carolina and Georgia.

The First Independent Black Church

In contrast to these subordinate churches, a truly independent black
church emerged gradually in Philadelphia between the 1780s and the
early 1800s. The movement for such a church began within the city’s
white-controlled St. George’s Methodist Church. The movement’s lead-
Document ers were Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, who could rely on the Free
5-5 Absalom Jones, Sermon on the Abolition of
African Society they had established to help them.
the International Slave Trade, 1808 These men were former slaves who had purchased their freedom:
Congress outlawed the importation of slaves into Allen in 1780 and Jones in 1783. Allen, a fervent Methodist since the 1770s,
the United States, effective January 1, 1808. To had received permission from St. George’s white leadership to preach to
mark the occasion, Absalom Jones, co-founder black people in the evenings in what was then a simple church building. By
and first pastor of Philadelphia’s African the mid-1780s, Jones had joined Allen’s congregation, and soon they and
Methodist Episcopal Church, preached a sermon other black members of St. George’s chafed under policies they consid-
in which he expressed his hope that each year ered unchristian and insulting. But Allen’s and Jones’s faith that Methodist
this day would be remembered and “our egalitarianism would prevail over racial discrimination undermined their
children, to the remotest generations” would efforts during the 1780s to create a separate black Methodist church.
learn “the history of the sufferings of our The break finally came in 1792 when St. George’s white leaders
brethren, and of their deliverance [from] the
grievously insulted the church’s black members. An attempt by white
trade which dragged your fathers from their
trustees to prevent Jones from praying in what the trustees considered
native country, and sold them as bond men in
the United States of America.”
the white section of the church led black members to walk out. “We all
went out of the church in a body,” recalled Allen, “and they were no
Retracing the Odyssey more plagued with us in the church.”
Afro-American Historical and Cultural St. George’s white leaders fought hard and long to control the
Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Includes expanding and economically valuable black congregation. Yet other white
an exhibit on the rise of black churches, Philadelphians, led by abolitionist Benjamin Rush, applauded the con-
1740–1977. cept of an independent “African church.” Rush and other sympathetic

156 Chapter 5
 IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Richard Allen on the Break

with St. George’s Church
It took an emotionally wrenching experience to convince Richard Allen,
Absalom Jones, and other black Methodists that they must break their
association with St. George’s Church. Allen published the following account
in 1831 as part of his autobiography, The Life Experiences and Gospel
Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen. Although many years had passed
since the incident, Allen’s account retains a strong emotional immediacy.

A number of us usually attended St. George’s church in Fourth

street; and when the colored people began to get numerous in
attending the church, they moved us from the seats we usually sat on,
What Do You Think?
and placed us around the wall, and on Sabbath morning, we went to
the church and the sexton stood at the door, and told us to go in the • Racial prejudice appears to have sparked the
gallery. He told us to go, and we would see where to sit. We expected confrontation.
to take the seats over the ones we formerly occupied below, not • White church leaders threatened to ban them
knowing any better. We took those seats. Meeting had begun and they publicly from the church if they continued to
were nearly done singing, and just as we got to the seats, the elder hold their own services.
said, “Let us pray.” We had not been long upon our knees before I Document
heard considerable scuffling and low talking. I raised my head up and
7-2 Richard Allen, “Address to the Free People
saw one of the trustees, H M, having hold of the Rev. Absalom Jones,
of Colour of these United States,” 1830
pulling him up off his knees, and saying, “You must get up—you must American Methodist Episcopal Bishop Richard
not kneel here.” Mr. Jones replied, “Wait until prayer is over.” Mr. H M Allen and other free blacks issued a call for a
said, “No, you must get up now, or I will call for aid and force you Negro convention. In September 1830 free
away.” Mr. Jones said, “Wait until prayer is over, and I will get up and blacks throughout the country arrived in
trouble you no more.” With that he [H M] beckoned to one of the Philadelphia to discuss forming the American
other trustees, Mr. L S to come to his assistance. He came, and went to Society of Free Persons of Colour. For four days,
William White to pull him up. By this time prayer was over, and we all more than three-dozen delegates representing
went out of the church in a body, and they were no more plagued with eight states met at Bethel AME Church debated
us in the church. . . . We then hired a storeroom, and held worship by ways that would improve their lives. Although the
ourselves. Here we were pursued with threats of being disowned, and Society denounced African colonization, the
organization did have plans for “purchasing land,
read publicly out of meeting if we did continue worship in the place
and locating a settlement in the Province of
we had hired; but we believed the Lord would be our friend. We got
Upper Canada.” In addition, Allen wanted to
subscription papers out to raise money to build the house of the Lord.
establish auxiliary societies across the nation
that would aid in establishing a Canadian colony.
Fifteen delegates from five states returned to
What Do You Think? Philadelphia’s Wesleyan Church the following
What appears to have sparked the confrontation Allen year to discuss obstacles that plagued black
describes? freedom. The meeting marked the beginning of
Negro Conventions that would meet before and
How did white church leaders respond to the withdrawal of the after the Civil War as black people sought ways
church’s black members? of coping with white America.

African Americans in the New Nation 157

 white people contributed to the new church’s building fund.
When construction began in 1793, Rush and at least one hundred
other white people joined with African Americans at a banquet to
celebrate the occasion.
However, the black congregation soon split. When the
majority determined that the new church would be Episcopalian
rather than Methodist, Allen and a few others refused to join.
The result was two black churches in Philadelphia. St. Thomas’s
Episcopal Church, with Jones as priest, opened in July 1794 as
an African-American congregation within the white-led national
Episcopal Church. Then Allen’s Mother Bethel congregation
got under way as the first truly independent black church. The
white leaders of St. George’s tried to control Mother Bethel
until 1816. That year Mother Bethel became the birthplace of
Philadelphia’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Allen became
was built in 1793 under the direction of Richard Allen, the
the first bishop of this organization, which quickly spread to
first bishop of the AME denomination.
other cities in the North and the South.

New Black Churches Emerge

The more significant among the other AME congregations were Daniel
Coker’s in Baltimore, the AME Zion in New York, and those in
Wilmington, Delaware; Salem, New Jersey; and Attleboro, Pennsylvania.
Additional independent black churches formed at this time out of simi-
lar conflicts with white-led congregations. Among them were the African
Baptist Church established in Boston in 1805 and led by Thomas Paul
from 1806 to 1808, the Presbyterian Evangelical Society founded in 1811
by John Gloucester, the Abyssinian Baptist Church organized in New
York City in 1808 by Paul, and the African Presbyterian Church, estab-
lished in Philadelphia by Samuel E. Cornish in 1822.

The First Black Schools

Schools for African-American children, slave and free, date to the early
1700s. In both North and South, white clergy, including Cotton Mather,
ran the schools. So did Quakers, early abolition societies, and missionar-
ies acting for the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts. But the first schools established by African Americans to
instruct African-American children arose after the Revolution. The new
black mutual aid societies and churches created and sustained them.
Schools for black people organized or taught by white people con-
tinued to flourish. But in other instances, black people founded their
What do You Think? own schools because local white authorities regularly refused either to
• Lack of food and water, diseases, shipwrecks admit black children to public schools or to maintain adequate separate
due to storms, and piracy. schools for them. For example, in 1796, when he failed to convince
• The author is indifferent to the slaves’ Boston’s city council to provide a school for black students, Prince Hall
suffering. had the children taught in his own home and that of his son Primus. By

158 Chapter 5
1806 the school was meeting in the basement of the new African
Meeting House, which housed Thomas Paul’s African Baptist Church.
Hall was not the first to take such action. As early as 1790,
Charleston’s Brown Fellowship operated a school for its members’ chil-
dren. Free black people in Baltimore supported schools during the
same decade, and during the early 1800s, similar schools opened in
Washington, D.C. Such schools frequently employed white teachers.
Not until Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel Church established the
Augustine School in 1818 did a school entirely administered and taught
by African Americans for black children exist.
These schools faced great difficulties. Many black families could not
afford the fees, but rather than turn children away, the schools strained
their meager resources by taking charity cases. Some black parents also
believed education was pointless when African Americans often could
not get skilled jobs. White people feared competition from skilled black
workers, believed black schools attracted undesirable populations, and,
particularly in the South, feared that educated free African Americans
would encourage slaves to revolt.
Threats of violence against black schools and efforts to suppress them
were common. The case of Christopher McPherson exemplifies these
dangers. McPherson, a free African American, established a night school
for black men at Richmond, Virginia, in 1811 and hired a white teacher.
All went well until McPherson advertised the school in a local newspaper.
In response, white residents forced the teacher to leave the city, and local
authorities had McPherson committed to the state lunatic asylum.
Nevertheless, similar schools continued to operate in both the North and
upper South, producing a growing class of literate African Americans.

Reading Check What were the characteristics of early free black

communities?

Reading Check
The advent of large free black populations in the
North allowed for the creation of autonomous
and dynamic black communities. Conscious of
their disadvantages in a society dominated by
whites and desirous of preserving their African
heritage, free blacks developed their own
community institutions.

African Americans in the New Nation 159