Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (24 page)

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Authors: Midori Takagi

Tags: #Social Science, #Ethnic Studies, #African American Studies, #test

BOOK: Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865
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Church became involved in the Virginia Colonization Society, designed to help free black residents relocate to Africa.
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The First Baptist's efforts paid off, and church membership increased rapidly in spite of the widely fluctuating range in pastors' skills. The church's pastors ranged from "old and feeble . . . slow [and] perseveringly plodding," to young, "brilliant . . . rapid of speech" and "exultantly soaring."
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Between 1800 and 1840 black Richmonders came in droves.
In spite of the missionary efforts, the church school, the egalitarian principles professed by the Baptist liturgy, and the potential it held for slaves to control their own religion, black Richmonders found themselves being squeezed into a restrictive confining role and physically squeezed out of the church by their fellow white members. It appears that the small minority of white First Baptist members had strong ideas about the position of black congregants in the church and who should control and spiritually guide black Richmonders.
One of the most blatant ways the white minority asserted control was by creating a strict code of moral behavior that applied more to black members than to whites. Because white members dominated the upper echelons of church authority as pastor, deacons, and committee leaders, they were able to create and enact such restrictions unilaterally. Even when black deacons were appointed to administer to black congregants, few bond men and women could escape scrutiny. White deacons often called upon their black counterparts to investigate rumors of impropriety among the black members and severely punish the violators.
Black residents were required to adhere to this code in order to be accepted into, and remain a part of, the church. Any infraction of the code meant immediate exclusion. Activities banned included adultery, "improper conduct and language," gambling, intoxication, stealing, lying, fighting, and running away from one's master.
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While some of these prohibitions, such as adultery, raised few objections, other targeted activities probably caused slave members to chafe; stealing and escaping, for example, were tactics that slaves commonly used to protect themselves against the conditions of bondage.
Neither black nor white deacons, however, took into account the motivations behind such activities. As a result the church records are filled with lists of black members called before the deacons to answer charges of impropriety. Between 1825 and 1830 there is only one case against a white member noted in the records, compared with fifty-seven cases against black congregants. It is clear the deacons singled out and penalized black male members for drinking and gambling. This was the fate of Henry, a slave who was caught gambling in 1828. Henry had the
 
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misfortune to be seen by fellow church member Brother Myers "in a room with three other men, at a table with cards, dice and money upon it."
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Henry, however, was not any more prone to gambling than most Richmond men. Gaming, going to the racetrack, playing billiards, and drinking were among the most popular forms of entertainment for the majority of Richmond males. It seems highly unlikely that white male congregants shunned such activities.
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But it is clear they rarely, if ever, had to face the consequences of such actions in church.
Deacons also singled out black female congregants, most often for sexual behavior deemed improper. Of the thirty-three adultery charges between 1825 and 1830, just eight involved black men; the rest were against slave and free black women. Again, few white male or female congregants faced such charges during this period. The deacons even saw fit to scrutinize the behavior of black women who were experiencing marital problems. In a number of cases black women were excluded for "withdrawing from [their] husbands and refusing to live with [them] again" or for displaying "conduct unbecoming a wife and a Christian."
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The white minority further attempted to maintain control over black congregants by limiting their access to church leadership positions. A black parishioner seeking to become a deacon had to be accepted by the white congregation. Although black church members initially chose the candidates through a voting process, their choices were subject to the white congregation's approval. Ordination of black preachers and those who desired to "speak in the pulpit" was decided in an even less democratic way. In this case congregants did not vote. Instead, the church committee made up largely of white members designated which laymen could publicly preach. In 1826 the committee chose five black members to preach and seven black laymen to "speak in public by ways of exhortation but not to take texts." But these twelve men enjoyed their status for only a brief period. In an effort to demonstrate the authority of the committee, in 1829 all preaching privileges were revoked, and all black speakers were forced to reapply.
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In addition to the aforementioned powers, the church committee had the authority to appoint congregants to various ad hoc committees. The result was that in spite of the overwhelming number of black church members, few blacks were appointed to these committees. In 1827, for example, a committee to take collections for the pastor's salary consisted of "ten white male members, five white female members and [five] coloured male members."
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Not only were blacks outnumbered, but, as was often the case, slave and free black women were excluded completely.
Finally, white church members sought to maintain control in a manner that blatantly violated the spirit of the Baptist religion; they tried to
 
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limit the number of black members who could attend services. By requiring slaves and free blacks to sit in the galleries of the church, white members in effect capped the number of black congregants and made religion inaccessible to many.
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Black members unable to find seats were turned away from the services and forced to attend a different sermon later that day or week when space was available.
Although church records indicate that white members held enormous power over their black brethren, they also show that black congregants did not passively accept the treatment they received. Slave and free black parishioners strongly resisted the forced standards of moral behavior, the undemocratic methods of choosing preachers, and the restrictive seating arrangements, thereby ending any illusions that black congregants could be easily controlled. An example of this can be found in the lengthy lists of slave exclusions for gambling and drinking; on the one hand the lists suggest ''inappropriate" behavior and mayhem, and on the other hand, they clearly indicate that a portion of the congregation refused to adhere to the bans and did not find the deacons' threat of exclusion a deterrent. Another good example is the 1829 revocation of preaching certificates for black members. By forcing black preachers to reapply for licenses, the committee appeared to be demonstrating its power to confer such a privilege. The events leading to that incident, however, suggest that power was tenuous at best. According to church records, the committee revoked the licenses not because the certified preachers were doing poorly but because other black members were preaching without church approval and did not bother with the certification process.
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Slave and free black members attacked white congregational control in more fundamental ways than just breaking moral codes. Black congregants managed to assert their interests by integrating their interpretation of the Baptist religion into the church services, which included, among other things, a form of music, movement, and speech. During services slave and free black parishioners shouted, sang, moved their bodies, and clapped their hands as if possessed by the spirit of God. When the pastor's words struck a chord within them, they did not hesitate to punctuate the particular phrase or moment with "loud ejaculations and groans."
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Black Baptists also gave their own slant to the hymns and psalms sung in church, with "long and loud bursts of praise" that reminded the pastor of the "sound of many waters."
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Although there had been cases of white congregants who responded similarly to services in other churches, overall black and white Baptists at Richmond's First Baptist Church received the Word of God in vastly different ways.
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The difference between black and white congregants reflects more
 
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than a contrast in worshiping styles; it is indicative of distinctive theological approaches. Black Baptists in Richmond, as in the rest of the South, practiced a form of evangelicalism that brought together elements of both African and European-American beliefs, or what Mechal Sobel calls "the melding of the African and Baptist Sacred Cosmos." As Sobel describes it, black Baptists took evangelicalism and redefined it as a uniquely Afro-Baptist religion by incorporating aspects of the African cosmology and culture.
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The melding of the two helped make evangelicalism more responsive to slave and free black residents' daily lives by bringing "within this world all the elements of the divine" a distinct component of the African faith systems.
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In this interpretation, God exists not only in heaven but on earth as well, is compassionate, restores justice, responds and rescues those in need, and holds "the ultimate and final power over the visible and invisible creations."
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And since God was omnipotent and omnipresent, black Christians could speak directly to him and did not need white Christians to mediate. This view of God gave bond men and women the strength to reject a white Christian theology that stressed black subordination to white slave owners as part of being a good Christian because slaves knew that only God not their owners could determine whether they went to heaven.
The Afro-Baptist view also allowed for stories of the sacred world to be discussed in terms of daily events of the secular world. The eviction of Adam and Eve from Eden, for instance, became a lesson to men who did not look after their families. Had Adam been with Eve, as the tale was once told, she would not have been tempted by the devil. But, lamented John Jasper, a resident of Richmond who became one of the most famous nineteenth-century black preachers, "Adam worn't wid her; doan know whar he wuz gorn bogin' orf sumwhars."
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Adam's failing was a clear warning to slave and free black men: stand by your family at all times. Adam was not the only biblical figure portrayed as a member of the community and recognized for his or her good deed or evil doing. As Sobel describes, "Adam was next door, Jezebel was a present danger, Jesus a friend to share burdens with and Moses the ever-expected emancipator."
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Other elements of the African cosmology, such as metaphysical beliefs, also entered the First Baptist Church with slave membership.
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Much to white congregants' horror, black members maintained a strong belief in spirits and witchcraft in addition to their unshakable faith in God and saw no conflict or contradiction between the two.
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Although the Reverend Jeremiah Jeter (1836-41) admitted that a belief in witchcraft should not be a barrier to church membership, he struggled hard to eliminate what he referred to as the "dread of imaginary beings or
 
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evils."
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Jeter's successor, Robert Ryland, also made a concerted effort to "preach out their dreams and fancies, their visions and revelations, and all their long cherished superstitions."
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Black parishioners, however, held fast to their "superstitions"; from laymen to deacons, black congregants continued to consult fortune-tellers and tell stories about "witches, hags, [and] giants.''
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Simon Bailey, one of the few black deacons, revealed the strength of such beliefs when he leaped to the defense of a church applicant who held views unacceptable to white congregants. The incident occurred during a membership interview when one of the white deacons, Archibald Thomas who was known to be a strict disciplinarian asked the elderly black applicant if he believed in witchcraft. The old man quickly replied that he did. The deacon then asked, "Did you ever see a witch?" The man thought for a moment and answered, "Did you ever see the devil?" These responses displeased Thomas, and the applicant's chances for membership appeared in jeopardy. It was at this point that Bailey came to the old man's defense. An eyewitness described what happened next: "This altercation brought to his feet one of the colored deacons, Simon Bailey. . . . He stated that he had lived in the country, and that, with his own eyes, he had seen the manes and tailes of horses twisted into stirrups. He was wary, in the presence of Deacon Thomas, of expressing any opinion of the cause of this entanglement, but it was the common opinion that the horses were rode by witches, and, for his own part, if these stirrups were not made for them he could not tell what they were made for."
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Whether Simon Bailey's animated response helped the applicant's chances will never be known; the records do not indicate if the old man was accepted. But if Deacon Thomas and the Reverend Mr. Jeter had entertained any hopes to keep supernatural ideas out of their church through the interview process, this incident no doubt shook their confidence. Belief in spirits was widespread and deeply embedded within the black congregation, even among those whom white congregants considered to be the most responsible and most pious.
Further evidence of the melding of African and Baptist worldviews can be seen in the conversionary experiences of black Baptists. Though elements of black conversions were similar to those of white Baptists, such as having feelings of worthlessness and "eternal damnation," visions and dreams played a significant role in the conversions of black Baptists. Studies indicate these visions generally involved certain distinct themes: the existence of two selves a "little me" and a "big me"; a sense of traveling to heaven and hell; the appearance of a guide who assists during the travels; and clear, detailed images of heaven and God. As the studies further indicate, these aspects were not products of

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