Home Mission Lessons III : Negroes

Home Mission Lessons,

ISSUED BY THE

WOMEN'S BAPTIST HOME MISSION SOCIETY.

PREPARED BY

Mary G. Burdette, Corresponding Secretary, 241 1 Indiana Ave., Chicago, 111.

Lesson III.

1. When, where and how were Africans introduced
into America?

1620 is a year made memorable in American
history, by the landing of the pilgrims on Ply-
rnouth Rock, Massachusetts, in pursuit of reli-
gious liberty. But, perhaps, it is not so well
known that in this same year, or one year ear-
lier, we find a record of this fact — "A Dutch
vessel, sailing up the James river, landed at
Jamestown, Va., and offered for sale, at auction,
twenty Africans. These were purchased by
planters and made slaves for life."

2. What can you say of the growth of the system
thus inaugurated?

At first it gained ground slowly, but by the
end of fifty years after its introduction the sys-
tem of slavery was fairly estabhshed in the
United States. The sxin of 1776, another year
rendered famous by the signing of the Declaration
of Independence, and bearing in our minds, as
a nation, the impress of freedom, shone upon
300,000 slaves. Later, the victory at Yorktown
struck no shackles from their limbs, and as the
years went on, they multiplied, until 1862 re-
corded more than 4,000,000 sons and daughters
of Africa, whose lives were made bitter by hard
bondage in America.

3. What was the status of the negro while in slavery?
" The slaves were regarded as chattels. They

had no legal redress for injuries received; no
power to receive or hold property, except in
some cases, Avith the master's permission; they
were legally disabled from entering into the
marriage contract — marriage (so called) resting
wholly on the master's consent, and dissolvable
at his pleasure; they were without right to the
services, or even the persons, of wife or children;
incompetent as witnesses against a white man;
and visited with severe penalties for the. crime
of learning to read or write, these penalties also
extending to any daring thus to teach them."

4. What opportunity for religious culture was given
to the negro while in bondage?

"The native African, fresh from his fetich
worship, seems an unpromising subject, even for
the Christian philanthropist. But, though de-
graded, he was recognized as human, sinful, ac-
countable, in need and capable of redemption
through Christ. The obligation to bring him to
a knowledge of the truth, as it is in Christ, was
practically recognized by many ministers in the
South, as well as by pious masters and mistresses.
In many Christian families the domestics were
called in at family devotions to hear the Scrip-
tures read, and kneel as prayer was offered to

God. On Sunday, masters and slaves usually
attended service in the same meeting house,
the latter generally occupying seats in the rear
or the galleries. In the case of Baptists, when
slaves gave evidence of conversion, they were,
upon relation of their experience, received into
the church, after baptism, and sat at the Lord's
table with their masters. It is estimated that
in 1850 the whole number of negro Baptists in
the country was about 150,000. In some cases
the negroes were also gathered in Sunday
schools for instruction, which was necessarily
entirely oral, as the eyes of a slave could not
gaze upon, nor his hands handle, the pages of a
book."

_ Leader. — These statements are made in jus-
tice to a considerable number of Christian slave-
holders, who were not indifferent to the religious
welfare of their bondsmen.

5. When and how were the slaves at last freed?
Jan. 1, 1863, there went out from the city of

Washington a proclamation bearing the signa-
ture of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, and declaring /ree those hitherto hel^
in slavery in our land. It was a war measure, so
men say, but who, that believes in God, does
not see in the hberation of these slaves the hand
of Him who sees the afHictions of the oppressed^
and whose ear is ever open to the voice of those
who cry unto him by reason of their bondage?

6. After their emancipation, by what popular name
were these people known, and where do they live?

They were called Freedmen, and although a
number have removed to other sections, the
masses of them continue to live in those states
known collectively as "The South."

7. Notwithstanding what has been said of the atten-
tion given by many Christians to the religious training
of their slaves, what was the condition of the negroes
generally during the period immediately succeeding the
emancipation? f

We can not answer this question better than
by quoting from the report of Rev. H. C. Fish,
who, soon after the proclamation of emancipa-
tion, was sent by the Board of the "American
Baptist Home Mission Society" to Washington,
D. C, to inquire into the condition of the freed
people, who, by thousands, had flocked thither.
He brought back a gloomy picture of their situa-
tion, temporally and spiritually, telling of .15,-
000 " contrabands " in Washington and Alexan-
dria, often half-clad, lodging in shanties, sheds,
old slave pens, tents and barracks, seven to
fifteen persons occupying a room about twelve
feet square, men, women, and children crowded

HOME MISSION LESSONS.

together in these close quarters — a sight to
make one shudder.

"The distinguishing traits of humanity," he
wrote, " are nearly effaced. Most of them have
no more self-reliance or capacity for self-help
than children, and no idea of economy or ac-
cumulation.

"In some sense these contrabands are a
very religious people. They are excitable,
impressionable, seemingly devout in a very
high degree, and there is, no doubt, much
real piety among them. But it often has with
it a strange mixture of ignorance, superstition,
and even downright immorahty. The moral
feehngs are benumbed. As to conscience, the
whole thing seems rubbed out. While very
religious, their rehgion is destitute of morality."

8. What provision was early made for the education
of these freed people?

" The education of the negro," says Dr. Hay-
good, " began even before the close of the war.
The government expended large sums of money
through the Freedman's Bureau; northern
benevolence poured miUions of dollars into
the _ south to teach, enhghten, lift up, and
Christianize the emancipated people; and in
due time the southern states began to make
appropriations of pubHc money to institutions
that best prepared colored men and women to
teach ,in the common schools. The churches
of the north, through organized societies, raised
money to carry on among the colored people
the work of Christian education."

9. What can you say of the number of colored youth
attending school and of progress in education?

Dr. Morehouse, in the Home Mission Monthly
for March, 1894, basing his statements on the
latest government report, states that in the
former slave states the colored school enroll-
ment is 1,289,944, or 18.5 per cent of 6,954,840
colored population in these states. Thefe are
probably a million boys and girls of school age
not in schools of any kind.

The number of colored public schools is
estimated as about 22,000 with 24,000 colored
teachers; of these about 15,000 are males and
9,000 females. The average of monthly wages
paid in six states is $27.35. In nine states
colored schools, including those in the city and
country, are maintained on an average of only
three months in a year.

Dr. Mitchell, in his address, "Higher Educa-
tion and the Negro," says that this inadequate
provision is due, not from want of will, but of
means. The poverty of the south is yet great.
He adds, the work of teaching in the colored
public schools of the south has all been relegated
to negro teachers.

Dr. Morgan, in the Home Mission Monthly
for December, 1897, says:

" Besides all the philanthropic work inau-
gurated by Northern capital, there has been
established in all the Southern states a pubhc
school system for the equal benefit of white
and colored children. In the North, colored
youth can attend white schools, colleges, and
universities, but in the South there are separate
schools, and colored pupils are not permitted in

white schools Their pubUc schools are,

as yet, not of a high order, being taught almost

entirely by negro teachers, very many of whom
are but poorly prepared for their work. The
schoolhouses, especially in the country, are poor.
The schools are not well equipped with books
or apparatus, and continue but a few months
in the year. Nevertheless, they are accom-
plishing much good, and are being improved

from year to year The Southern states

are entitled to great credit for what has already
been done."

We have only to say "Tuskegee" to remind
us of the magnificent achievements along the
line of intelligent and scientific Industrial Educa-
tion under the guidance of Booker T. Washington,
himself a notable example of the possibilities
of the race.

Dr. Haygood, whose familiarity with the
subject _ makes him excellent authority, refers
to the introduction of Industrial Training into
all their leading educational institutions as " an
unmixed blessing to the colored people, helping
their scholarship, discipline, and the building
up of self-reliant, self-maintaining manhood and
womanhood."

Nor may we omit to mention the fact that
connected with some of the best educational
institutions for the negro are professional depart-
ments; most numerous and popular are the
theological schools, next the medical, and last
and thus far least, the law department. The
negro preacher has most abundant opportunity,
the negro doctor is winning his way, and the
negro lawyer has made his appearance. The
editor of the Nashville American, referring to
the American National convention of colored
Baptists held in 1890, says: "Bodies of colored
men like this often surprise us in the general
inteHigence, dignity, and appropriateness with
which the business of the body is transacted,
and we do say that for people held in slavery
for more than two hundred years, and without
educational development, the negroes are indeed
surprising close observers in their advancing
steps."

Leader. — All this is true, and written for our
encouragement, but let it not be forgotten that
the masses still remain in pitiful and alarming
ignorance and degradation. Let the good work
go on. Much remains to be done.

10. What may be said of the religious tendencies of
the American negro?

" The negro is a Protestant Christian," writes
A._ D. Mayo, in the Forum (Dec, 1890), "and
this fact is of prodigious significance in his
adjustment in Southern society, which still
rernains the great Protestant stronghold of the
nation. The Catholic church has lost a greater
number of colored adherents in the Creole
country of the Southwest during the past thirty
years than it has gained among the colored
people elsewhere. The religious character of
the negro, crude and half pagan in the lower
regions, and still not quite sure of complete
junction with the common morahties, is still
one of the most hopeful elements in the evolu-
tion of this people to good citizenship in a nation
founded in prayer and reliance on Almighty God.

Of the ten millions of negroes in the United
States, a large proportion are members of
Christian churches. One million six hundred

HOME MISSION LESSONS.

5

thousand are reported in 1899 as members of
Baptist churches; nearly as many are enrolled
in Methodist churches, and there are also Presby-
terians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and
others.

. When the war closed the negroes had very
few and very poor houses of worship, but now,
all through the South, may be found meeting-
houses which they have built chiefly with their
own money. Many of these are comfortable and
convenient, and some commodious and costly.
It is remarkable, and to their credit, that out of
their meager earnings they have been ,willing
to devote such relatively large amounts to the
building of houses of worship.

11. What can you say of Catholic missions among
the negroes?

The American Ecclesiastical Review presents
a tabulated statement of the work in progress
in the Catholic missions among American
negroes (1890). The returns are incomplete,
but they account for 138,213 colored Catholics,
25 churches, 31 priests, and 99 schools with
6,093 pupils. There were christened in 1889,
4,907 negro children and 852 adults. There
were then 40 students in training for the negro
missions. In Arkansas there were five com-
munities of religious women, whose sole work
was in negro schools, and their work has been
aided by generous donations from Protestants.^

Leader. — The writer previously quoted closes
his article in the Forum of December, 1890,
with a statement of opinion which is at least
suggestive. He says: "The progress of the
negro is bound up with the advancement of
at. least a third of the lower white population
of the Southern states. In this great body of
several millions of uneducated white poeple is
found the most obstinate hindrance to the rise
of a superior class of the colored folks. A national
aid to education that would give to every
white child of this class a good six months'
schooling annually for six years, would in a
generation lift the most grievous burden from
the back of the negro. Now the colored man
is at the bottom of a deep ditch and the lower
stratum of the whites above him determined to^
keep him in his old position. Higher up the
superior race is getting off the back of its lower
brotherhood. The sooner the whole American
people in the most practical way help the lower
Southern white man in his emergence from his
present condition, the better for him, for the
South, and incomparably better for the negro.
Not over the heads of the Southern people, but
along with the nobler and progressive elements
of the new Southern life, must proceed the
mighty national mission work of training this
great and rapidly increasing multitude of new-
made citizens for their final position in American
society.".

The Work of the American Baptist Home
Mission Society Among the Freed People.
(1862-1902.)

[Compiled mainly from the Jubilee Volume and the
Sixty-fifth Annual Report of the Society and Home
Mission Monthly^

From 1832 to 1862, or during the first thirty
years of its existence, the work of the American

Baptist Home Mission Society in the South was
very limited, and after the organization of the
" Southern Baptist Convention," in 1845, almost
nothing was done among either whites or blacks,
until in the fullness of time Jehovah burst open
the long barred doors, letting in light and liberty.
Several missionaries and fourteen assistants were
appointed for the Southern field before April,
1864.

The method of the society contemplated
three things: (1) General missionary work; (2)
ministers' institutes; (3) educational work proper
upon which the chief stress is laid.

From 1869 the work of the society among
the Freedmen may be regarded as established.
At this date the higher schools planted and
supported by the society numbered four. , From
time to time property was purchased, and build-
ings were erected, and school added to school,
until the report for the year closing March 31,
1902, gives twenty-five schools for the colored
people, supported wholly or in part by the
society.

The number of teachers for the school year
1901-02 was 274. Of these 132 were white, 142
colored. The enrollment of pupils for the year
was 6,198; young men, 2,703, young women,
3,495. Of those preparing to preach, 486; of
those preparing to teach, 1,833; 258 in the
missionary training course, 44 in the nurse
training course, and 2,614 have received sys-
tematic training in some line of industrial work.

The "Woman's American Baptist Home
Mission Society" (Boston) co-operates with the
American Baptist Home Mission Society in
supporting, in whole or part, teachers in its
various schools.

The result of the labors thus put forth during
the past thirty-seven years is seen in the growth
in numbers, intelligence, and efficiency of our
colored Baptists in the South.

The 4,000,000 of slaves are now represented
by about 10,000,000 freed people, while the
400,000 Baptists have grown to 1,600,000. In
1862 there were no general organizations of
colored Baptists. At this time there is in every
state a convention for missionary, educational,
and Sunday-school purposes. In 1862 the
colored man in the South who could read was a
curiosity; in 1899 thirty-two religious periodicals
were published by and for the colored Baptists,
while other papers have large cir'culations.
Educated pastors and teachers are coming to
be counted by the tens of thousands, and intelli-
gent men and women by hundreds of thousands.

A movement is now in progress looking to-
ward the organization of Negro State Educa-
tional societies to co-operate heartily with the
Home Mission Society in organizing, unifying,
and rendering efficient all negro educational
work. This plan is already in successful opera-
tion in Virginia and Tennessee.

There is also a plan of co-operation which
unites the Home Mission Society, the Board of
the Southern Baptist Convention, the white
State Convention, and the Negro State Conven-
tion in carrying on especially missionary work
among the Negroes. A very important series
of " New Era Institutes " are being held, where
lectures are delivered by both white and colored

HOME MISSION LESSONS.

pastors, and where a great deal of good is being
done in fitting pastors, Sunday-school superin-
tendents, teachers and others for more efficient
work. This plan is now in successful operation
in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and
Alabama, and it is hoped that before long all
the Baptist forces. North and South, will be
working together to promote the highest intel-
lectual, moral, and religious interests of the
negroes.

The Women's Baptist Home Mission
Society. (1877-1902.)

The work of the Women's Baptist Home
Mission Society among Negroes was inaugu-
rated three months after its organization, by
the commissioning of Miss Joanna P. Moore,
who had already devoted the greater part of
fourteen years to work in Arkansas and Louisi-
ana. From this beginning the work has steadily
grown, until with the opening of 1900 the mis-
sionaries of the society among the colored people
number fifty, of whom thirty-one are white and
nineteen colored. There are stationed at thirty
different points in eleven states and one territory.

In the beginning the society employed only
white missionaries, it being impossible to find
colored women qualified for service, but the
fifth year of its history is signalized by the ap-
pointment of three " Bible Women," or colored
assistants. By 1892 the terms " Bible Women,"
"Helpers," and "Assistants" had disappeared,
and we find all referred to in the annual report
as missionaries. This means that the time has
come when the society can and does employ only
such colored workers as are qualified to bear its
regular commission, having received special
training for the work required.

The term Missionary Teachers appears first
in 1882, and is used to designate appointees who,
in accordance with a plan of co-operation be-
tween the American Baptist Home Mission
Society and the Women's Baptist Home Mission
Society, are assigned positions in the schools
under the care of the first-named society. Such
a missionary is called, sometimes preceptress,
sometimes lady principal, and sometimes matron.
But by whatever title designated, she is expected
to be to the girls an intelhgent, wise, faithful,
Christian mother, instructing and training them
to take proper care of their bodies and their
souls, as well as their minds, impressing the
principles and practices of Christian girlhood and
the development of Christian womanhood, in-
cluding a knowledge of domestic duties.

A notable feature of the sixteenth year (1892-
93) _ was the inauguration of the Missionary
Training Departments for colored workers, in
connection with schools of the American Baptist
Home Mission Society, that society agreeing to
provide and equip the buildings, and the Women's
Society to support the teachers and secure finan-
cial aid for needy and worthy students.

_ The report for 1901-02 shows that 58 mis-
sionaries were employed by the society among
the negroes; of these 4 were in charge of Mission-
ary Training Schools, 13 were preceptresses
and matrons, and 51 field missionaries.

In the house to house visiting, missionaries
carry sunshine into many gloomy and desolate
places, and often gain an influence over women
who do not attend meetings and could not in
any other way be reached. Wom.en's Meetings
are conducted with excellent results, and have
often proved training schools for church workers.
Mothers' Conferences are bearing blessed fruit.
The Fireside School is a power for good. Indus-
trial schools are crowded with children, who are
not only greatly benefited personally by the
lessons in industry, purity, and religion there
taught, but who carry these lessons into the
homes whence they come.

We have not time to tell of the great work
done by these missionaries in behalf of education,
mainly by creating sentiment and encouraging
and helping parents to send their children to
public schools; they have also been instrumental
in persuading many older boys and girls and
young men and women to attend the schools of
the "American Baptist Home Mission Society."
Many conversions among the children and young
people in their Industrial Schools and Sunday-
school classes, and of adults in the homes
visited, gladden their hearts from time to time.

At the foundation of every method used is
the Bible, the great need and value of which, even
to the present day, cannot be overestimated.
"Bible truths," writes one, "are transforming
mothers, and thus making easier and more hope-
ful our work with and for the children."

Joanna P. Moore says: "The more I see of
these people the more anxious I am to tenderly
and patiently encourage and strengthen the good
that is in their hearts, and with all my little
store of wisdom and strength hft them into the
bright sunlight of purity and inteUigence. Our
work is not understood. I do not know that
it can be described so that it can be under-
stood. We reach society at every point, per-
meating every part with Gospel truth."

Afro-Americans, 2c.

a. The Land of their Fathers.

b. Two and a Half Centuries of Bondage.

c. A Generation of Freedom.

Women's Work in Helping Solve the Negro
Problem, 3c.

Twenty-five Years' Work Among Negroes by the
Women's Baptist Home Mission Society, by
Mary G. Burdette, Price 5c.
For above publications address Women's

Baptist Home Mission Society, 2411 Indiana

Ave., Chicago.

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