We Are Charleston

by Herb Frazier

  The successes won in Philadelphia encouraged African Americans in other places who yearned for spiritual liberation; Baltimore was such a place. While located in a slaveholding state, Methodism was influential in Baltimore, but it also had detractors. Obviously pro-slavery advocates opposed its antislavery policies. Others worried that Methodism’s emphasis on spiritual equality would undermine the subordination required of slaves and embolden free blacks to seek new liberties—perhaps even social equality. This was one reason why in 1795, a year after Bethel was established in Philadelphia, Bishop Francis Asbury denied the request by black Methodists in Baltimore for their own church building. Undeterred, however, they created a Colored Methodist Society that hosted prayer meetings in members’ homes.18

  By 1802, the bishop had a change of heart and allowed the all-black Sharp Street congregation to form; however, like several mixed-race congregations in Baltimore, it remained under the control of the Methodist conference. Thus, even though this church allowed its members to control many of their affairs and gave opportunities to black lay preachers, they were still subordinate to white officials, who often treated them contemptuously.19 Daniel Coker, an African American from Maryland, who had received ordination in the Methodist church before joining at Sharp Street, was most frustrated with the situation there. He was highly respected among Baltimore’s black Methodists and also corresponded with Richard Allen. By May 1815, when the situation was no longer tolerable, Coker led a small band out from Sharp Street Church and established the African Methodist Bethel Society in a rented building. It has been called the first independent black church in the slave states. By 1817, its membership had grown to more than six hundred, creating the largest black congregation in the city. Tension developed between the Bethel church and Baltimore’s Methodist officials, who punished whites who cooperated with Coker’s church, but it never escalated to the level experienced by Allen supporters in Philadelphia.20

  Richard Allen was aware of several other African Methodist congregations with similar backgrounds and experiences. So he convened a meeting in Philadelphia, in 1816, to discuss their problems, consider collaboration, and to “promote union and harmony among themselves.”21 Those attending came from Philadelphia; Baltimore; Attleborough, Pennsylvania; Salem, New Jersey; and Wilmington, Delaware. They formed a single church body known as the African Methodist Episcopal Church; they elected Allen as their bishop and agreed to operate under a single discipline.22 In keeping with the language of liberty, according to Allen, the decisions they made would protect them “from that spiritual despotism which . . . [they] have so recently experienced.”23

  From the beginning, Richard Allen conceived of dual roles for the AME church, one spiritual and the other secular, yet they were overlapping and not completely distinct from each other. He saw the church as a powerful instrument of social uplift that could inculcate its members with values that would make them successful. Allen believed in hard work, discipline, and sobriety—all of which had contributed to his extraordinary life—so he promoted them frequently in his sermons and writings.24 He knew that an African American’s enemies would use any opportunity to disparage the race, and as a prominent church leader, he felt obligated to refute such attacks. An important example of this occurred after the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic. Assuming African Americans had immunity, prominent whites asked black Philadelphians to assist in relieving the city’s suffering. Motivated by a sense of civic responsibility, Allen and Absalom Jones persuaded their church members and others to do this deadly work. Some, such as Allen and Jones, administered medical assistance, another group provided foodstuffs, while hundreds gathered and buried corpses, and others filed reports. It was a monumental effort. After the epidemic ended, the two ministers were shocked when some white writers criticized blacks in general for stealing, price gouging, and vile behavior. Allen and Jones immediately responded with a widely circulated pamphlet challenging the charges point by point, detailing acts of black heroism and also describing loathsome examples of whites’ behavior.25

  An even greater challenge occurred with the creation of the American Colonization Society by Robert Finley in 1816–17. Based on the twin assumptions that free blacks could never prosper in American society and would be victims of racial discrimination, Finley’s group argued that they should immigrate “home” to Africa. If the assumptions were not troubling enough (that racial discrimination would be unrelenting and that Africa, not the United States, was their home), prominent slaveholding men, such as James Monroe, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson, were in leadership positions of the American Colonization Society, and it truly alarmed African Americans. In reaction, a mass meeting attended by approximately three thousand people was held at Bethel AME Church in 1817. Many present expressed fears that the activities of the Colonization Society would lead to blacks being forced from their homes, and they vowed never to abandon the slaves to their abject status. A committee of prominent black Philadelphians (including Richard Allen) was formed to organize a sustained opposition to colonization.26

  Sometimes the threat to free blacks was more immediate and direct—particularly in Pennsylvania, which sat astride the Mason-Dixon Line dividing slave and free states. Even here the prospect of kidnapping was ever present. In fact, in 1806, a Southern slaveholder obtained a warrant for Bishop Richard Allen and attempted to seize him as a fugitive. Fortunately Allen was a man of such prominence that he was able to rebut the claim, and the would-be kidnapper was sent to jail for his efforts. However, before the man completed his sentence, Allen intervened in an extraordinary act of Christian charity and had him released.27

  We don’t know the precise impact of this event on Richard Allen’s life because he didn’t discuss it, but it must have shaped his activism, perhaps even increasing his commitment to antislavery work. This personal knowledge of how precarious liberty was for free blacks may explain his wife’s, Sarah’s, intense commitment to assist fugitive slaves. Observers noted that she aided “the poor, flying slave, trembling and panting in his flight . . . those eyes, kindled with peculiar brightness as she would bid them God speed to the land of liberty.” The Allens continued this commitment for the rest of their lives; their “house was never shut against the friendless, homeless, penniless fugitives from the ‘House of Bondage.’ ”28 Aiding fugitives was illegal but was not unheard-of in the free states. In the South, and particularly the Deep South, it could have been deadly to both life and limb if discovered.

  As a Deep South state and one with a majority black population, South Carolina had a harsh slave code with severe penalties for violations. White South Carolinians knew what would happen should they lose control of that population. The Stono Rebellion of 1739, which was the deadliest of the eighteenth century, occurred not far from Charleston. As a port city Charleston also received many refugees fleeing from the particularly bloody Haitian Revolution, which began in the 1790s. Their gruesome tales circulated for decades, kindling fears not easily forgotten.29

  It is no wonder that when Methodism first arrived in Charleston in 1785, the reception was swift and hostile. The early Methodist ministers reported attacks against the church buildings and disruptions during their worship services. Many whites were put off by the evangelical style of Methodist preaching, but the greater threat was posed by the denomination’s antislavery reputation, though that reputation was fairly quickly modified. Although the 1785 Methodist Discipline contained a bold condemnation of slavery, objections in the South led to an amendment of the section on slavery to allow local quarterly and regional conferences to regulate the matter. But periodically, efforts were made at general conferences to require the membership and ministry to free any slaves they owned. Finally, in 1804, in an effort to prevent future wrangling over slavery and build support in the South, two versions of the Methodist Discipline were published. The version applicable to Virginia and the region to its north contained directives on slavery, but the version applied to the lands sou
th of Virginia had no such statements.30

  As Methodism acquiesced to the demands of slaveholders, the denomination overcame the initial hostility—and even grew. That growth was overwhelmingly due to increasing slave members who rapidly comprised the majority of the mixed-race churches in Charleston. In 1811, for example, 81 white members were added, compared to 415 black members. Likewise, in 1815, the total number of white members in the city was 282 compared to 3,793 blacks.31 The denomination provided opportunities for black members to exercise leadership positions in the church bureaucracy as class leaders and even as lay preachers. In Charleston they also had a tradition of managing their own Quarterly Conferences or business meetings, including collecting and dispersing monies. These matters became a point of contention when Reverend Anthony Senter was placed in charge of the churches in 1815. He found that the black leaders had misused church funds by apparently purchasing and then emancipating slaves. Obviously enslaved people had a different vision of the social gospel than Senter. Because of this, new, more restrictive policies were instituted, severely limiting the activities of the black church leaders and subordinating virtually all their decisions to white church officials.32

  The new order of things created quite a stir among black members of the congregation, and they vowed to act. They knew about Richard Allen’s church and sent two of their leaders, Morris Brown and Henry Drayton, to confer with him in Philadelphia and to be ordained as ministers of the AME Church. After their return, a dispute with church officials over the use of a burial ground became the precipitant for a break with white Methodists. In 1817 or 1818, Morris Brown led 4,367 black members from the white Methodist churches, and in the latter year they founded their own branch of the AME Church in Charleston. Over three-quarters of all black Methodists elected to join with the secessionists, and one observer noted, “The galleries, heretofore crowded, were almost completely deserted, and it was a vacancy that could be felt.”33

  Morris Brown and his supporters next purchased land at Hanover and Reid Streets in Hampstead, an area beyond the city limits, and they petitioned the state legislature for permission to build a church there. This was necessary because in a slave society like South Carolina, it was illegal for too many free blacks to gather together without special permission. The state denied the request, but they built a church anyway, and eventually two missionary branches were established; one was located on Anson Street, very near Boundary Street, which is close to the present Emanuel AME Church.34

  The revolutionary significance of what had already happened would be hard to exaggerate. Several thousand black Carolinians had asserted their religious independence from white authority and cast off white domination just as their brothers and sisters in Christ had done in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other cities to the north.35 They refused to accept racist definitions of who they were and what they required. By doing so in Charleston, and then joining their destiny to a black, Northern abolitionist church, Morris Brown and his supporters launched a ministry of liberation unseen before in the Deep South. Those in authority immediately recognized what was at stake and vigorously fought the threat to white supremacy—and did so with deadly consequences.

  SIX

  THE SLAVE CONSPIRACY

  June 7, 1818, was a Sunday, and by late morning the congregation was beginning to assemble on the grounds of the African church. Peninsular Charleston was small enough that many could easily walk here. Others came from farther away, from across the Ashley or Cooper Rivers west and east of the city, and they took ferries or other watercraft to complete their trips. Regardless of how early they started or where they came from, upon arrival they exchanged enthusiastic and heartfelt greetings. If Reverend Morris Brown had glanced across the crowd that morning as he prepared to call the service to order, he would have seen a diverse group of black people. Most were probably slaves, but many were free blacks emancipated by various means, including self-purchase or as a result of loyal service to their owners. Most were probably native Carolinians, but there was a substantial number of Africans in the church.

  When services began, undoubtedly there were energetic songs of praise and Scripture readings to buoy the congregants’ spirits. At some point the pastor, or perhaps a class leader, knelt before the congregation to offer prayers of thanksgiving to the Lord for another week in the land of the living and to ask for strength and deliverance in the days to come.

  We do not know the precise sequence of events, but at some point during the afternoon, the Charleston city guard arrived in force and disrupted the service. Between 140 and 150 worshipers were arrested, taken to the guard house, and confined there overnight. The next day they were brought before city magistrates, who informed them they had broken laws in effect since 1800, and admonished them not to do so again. The charges were apparently dropped against most of the accused, except for those described as ministers. Five were sentenced to imprisonment for one month or “to give security to leave the state.” Eight others were sentenced to “receive ten lashes, or [to] pay a fine each of five dollars.” Despite such warnings, these church men and women held a subsequent “large and unlawful assemblage . . . as they had done before,” as described by one local paper. They were detained again; however, the penalty, which could have included corporal punishment and imprisonment, was “inflicted only on a few of the ring-leaders.”1 Life in a slave society was routinely abusive for black people, but the attacks on the African church were so deeply disturbing that some of its members and supporters now contemplated violence as the only way to gain control over their lives. Denmark Vesey is a case in point.

  Destined to become the most famous member of the African church, Denmark Vesey was born on St. Thomas in the Caribbean around 1767. At age fourteen he was purchased by Captain Joseph Vesey, who plied the slave trade mainly between St. Thomas and Saint-Domingue (today’s Haiti). The French island of Saint-Domingue was known for the richness of its sugarcane harvests and for the brutality of its slavery. Denmark worked mainly for Captain Vesey on shipboard until 1783, at the end of the American Revolution, when the captain settled in Charleston and continued his trading operations. Denmark continued as Vesey’s slave until the captain allowed him to purchase his freedom with the winnings from a lottery; so in 1800, Denmark Vesey started the new century as a free man. Over the next two decades he worked about the city as a carpenter, and developed close common-law relationships with two slave women and one free black woman, all of whom may have borne his children.2

  While it seemed that Denmark Vesey was leading a successful life, he must have been discouraged if not exasperated by the difficulties that free blacks faced regularly. They were outside the political system; they could not vote and had no absolute right of petition. Nor could they testify in court in cases involving whites. Free blacks accused of committing crimes were tried in slave courts; certain acts were deemed criminal only when committed by those of African descent, and there were crimes for which slaves or free blacks were punished more harshly than whites guilty of the same acts. Free blacks were also required to pay a special “capitation tax;” failure to do so could lead to public sale and a term of servitude.3 As if these everyday examples of racial subordination weren’t sufficiently troubling, Vesey’s manhood was assailed further by the fact that other men owned his family members; he was never able to purchase freedom for either of his “wives” or his children.4

  Over the years the maddening frustrations of free black life embittered Vesey, and he found it difficult to contain his anger. Sometimes he was even purposely provocative in order to kindle the resentment of other black people. Someone once remarked of him that he looked for opportunities to engage in “conversation with white persons when they could be overheard by negroes nearby . . . during which conversation he would artfully introduce some bold remark on slavery.” Even when strolling on the streets of the city, Vesey took every opportunity to enlighten other black Charlestonians and to upbraid those who degraded their manhood by cri
nging before whites. He was allegedly heard to proclaim that such people “deserve to remain slaves.” Vesey vowed never to denigrate himself in this way because all men were equals.5

  Denmark Vesey was a class leader in the African church and a devoted student of the Bible. Based on his understanding of the Scriptures, slavery—at least the kind under which African people in South Carolina languished—was inconsistent with the will of God. To promote his antislavery message, Vesey frequently held meetings at his home and read from the Bible. One slave who observed him said that “he studies the Bible a great deal and tries to prove from it that slavery and bondage is against the Bible.”6 Beyond this, Vesey developed a version of what would later become known as black liberation theology. It was not unusual for slaves to identify with the book of Exodus and the deliverance of the Israelites from the clutches of their Egyptian masters. Vesey embraced this view of a God who favored the oppressed and did all he could to convince Lowcountry slaves that as God’s people, they also shared in the destiny of the Hebrew children. One of his favorite biblical passages was Zechariah 14, which showed the fiery trial through which Jerusalem passed before its ultimate salvation and elevation above its enemies through divine intervention. According to Vesey’s theology of liberation, that same God would deliver black Carolinians and similarly vanquish their enemies who held them in such an unjust and inhumane slavery.7

  The breaking point seems to have been reached when the Charleston authorities began harassing and persecuting members and leaders of the African church. Once this commenced, a slave reported that Vesey held a meeting at his home and said, “We were deprived of our rights and privileges by the white people, and . . . our Church was shut up, so that we could not use it.” Rather than remain passive in the face of such an egregious insult, Vesey boldly asserted “it was high time for us to seek for our rights” and to “conquer the whites.” Vesey was just as certain, though, that God would not do for enslaved people what they must do for themselves. Underscoring this argument, he pointed to enslaved people on Saint-Domingue, who had achieved something the world had never seen before. Beginning in the 1790s, they not only emancipated themselves by making war on their French owners, but they then went on to eject their former masters and rule the country they renamed Haiti as an independent black republic, the world’s first. But first Vesey admonished black Carolinians to be courageous, to unite as the Haitians had done, and to gird themselves for the battle to come.8