After the Freedman’s Commission was rebranded the Commission of Home Missions to Colored People (HMCP) in 1868, it was folded into the Board of Missions in 1878 and ceased to function as an independent entity, having failed to gain a broad hearing for its educational mandate in the denomination.[1] This was the result of significant hostility among white Episcopalians in the South, and significant apathy among white Episcopalians in the North.[2] This broad failure was certainly evident in the Diocese of New Jersey, though a modest base of support had been developed.[3]
As Black migration to New Jersey grew after the Civil War, there was an increasing awareness that the Episcopal Church should do something for Black Christians, but the prevailing pattern of thought in the diocese was that it should occur somewhere else. This was, in part, the result of longstanding white Episcopal cooperation with the American Colonization Society (ACS) in New Jersey, which had popularized the idea that white society was threatened by free Black people and that any “solution” required Black people to be removed.[4] The Episcopal African Mission in what became Liberia, birthed in collaboration with the ACS, further encouraged the idea among white Episcopalians in New Jersey that Black ministry and Black thriving should happen elsewhere.[5] The resulting default assumption among white Episcopalians in New Jersey, that Black education, ministry, and thriving should happen, but that it was not a local issue, fit perfectly with the program of “Home Missions to Colored People (in the South),” which ostensibly encouraged support for Black thriving, but “somewhere else” rather than among in-state neighbors in the North.[6] That the operative ideology behind financial support for the HMCP was similar to that which had first motivated ACS giving, and then Africa Mission giving,[7] is shown by the fact that as parochial giving to the Freedman’s Commission increased, Africa Mission giving in the diocese decreased almost to zero.[8]
However, the base of support for “HMCP” that had been built in New Jersey by 1878, though modest, was not insignificant. Several churches gave on a yearly basis, and the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Board of Missions in the state had a division dedicated[9] to the HMCP, collecting hundreds of dollars a year for the effort.[10] While the support was, in truth, modest, it still managed to outstrip several other categories of mission giving on a regular basis.[11]
While the diocesan reporting of financial support was usually presented in summary form, and giving for HMCP was not an exception to this rule, there were nevertheless many instances of specific earmarked gifts for various institutions and initiatives that fell under the heading of “Home Missions to Colored People.” Clearly the Commission and its agents made significant efforts to connect congregations with particular projects, missionaries, and needs in the missions, and these connections regularly bore the fruit of financial support.[12]
Table 1: Earmarked Parochial Giving in the Diocese of New Jersey to the HMCP from 1865-1890
Year... From... Gift... To
1868... St. Matthew’s, Jersey City... $41.85... “Normal school” for “colored” children, NC[13]
1870... St. Philip’s, Newark... $6.77... “Colored miss.,” Petersburg, VA[14]
1872... St. Paul’s, Newark... $10... “Colored people, (in the South,) per Rev. R.J. Love”[15]
1873... St. John’s, Elizabeth... $500... “Colored people, (in the South,) Theol. Education”[16]
1875... Grace Church, Elizabeth... $15... “Colored people, per Rev. Mr. Love”[17]
1880... St. Andrew’s, Bridgeton... $65... “Mrs. Buford’s work among the Blacks, Va.”[18]
1880... Christ Church, Riverton... $10... “colored Sunday School in Mississippi”[19]
1880... St. Peter’s, Freehold... $5... “for Rev. Mr. Thackara’s school in Florida”[20]
1880... Trinity, Princeton... $8.31... “to Rev. O.P. Thackara, for work among Freedmen”[21]
1881... St. Peter’s, Freehold... $47.31... “Freedmen’s school at Ogeechee...box of clothing”[22]
1881... Christ Church, Riverton... $5... “Colored Institute, Princeton George, Md.”[23]
1881... Trinity, Princeton... $15.16... “work among the Freedmen… Rev. O.P. Thackara” FL[24]
1882... Chapel, Burlington College... $2.79... “Colored Mission of St. Mary the Virgin, Baltimore”[25]
1882... Grace Church, Crosswicks... $5... “Home for Poor Colored Children, Charleston, S.C.”[26]
1882... St. Peter’s, Freehold... $45... “box and money to Freedmen’s School at Ogeechee, [GA]”[27]
1884... St. Peter’s, Freehold... $34... “barrel of Clothing for Freedmen’s [sch…] Ogeechee, [GA]”[28]
1884... Trinity, Moorestown... $25... “[HMCP], including box to Mrs. Buford”[29]
1884... Trinity, Mount Holly... $15... “[HMCP], Mrs. Buford”[30]
1884... Trinity, Mount Holly... $25... “Bishop Lyman’s colored school”[31]
1884... Holy Cross, Perth Amboy... $19... “[HMCP], box sent… to Rev. Mr. Berry, Asheville, N.C.”[32]
1884... Christ Church, Shrewsbury... $17.90... “Missions in Virginia to colored people”[33]
1885... Ascension, Atlantic City... NA... “Box for Mrs. Buford’s Hospital, (unestimated)”[34]
1885... St. Stephen’s, Beverly... $40... “Box for Mrs. Buford’s School and Hospital”[35]
1885... Christ Church, Elizabeth... $4.07... “Missions to Colored People in Missouri”[36]
1885... Christ Church, Elizabeth... $37... “to Colored People in East Carolina”[37]
1885... St. John’s, New Brunswick... $32... “for Colored Mission, in Virginia”[38]
1886... St. Stephen’s, Beverly... $67.00... “Box for Mrs. Burgwin’s School, Virginia”[39]
1886... Trinity, Mount Holly... $32.70... “[HMCP], to Mrs. Burgwin’s School”[40]
Trajectory of Giving to the HMCP in the Diocese of New Jersey
The initial modest success in developing some level of regular parochial support for the mission (1869-1877) seems to have worn off by the time the HMCP was folded into the Board of Missions generally in 1878. It took several years for giving to return to the levels seen in the early 1870s. However, it seems that through the efforts of the Board of Missions and its Woman’s Auxiliary, and likely as a result of the increasing awareness among white Episcopalians in New Jersey of the challenges recently freed Black people were facing,[41] giving to the HMCP began to gain significant traction in the mid-to-late 1880s.[42]
The Woman’s Auxiliary contributed very significantly to the raised profile of the mission needs, and the level of giving to the mission in the Diocese during this time. Reporting for Woman’s Auxiliary to the Board of Missions was inconsistent in Diocesan convention records, and it is unclear to what degree the funds reported were also included in parochial reports (at times there was definitely overlap), but it is certainly the case that the work the Auxiliary was doing was having a serious effect.
HMCP Support Went beyond “Education” Alone
Although the “Home Mission to Colored People” was ostensibly limited in its scope to educational and ministry initiatives, the parochial giving to the mission frequently included “boxes” and “barrels” in addition to cash gifts. The donation of such in-kind gifts as clothing, food, and other necessities indicates that there was an awareness among white Episcopalians in the diocese that the needs within the HMCP missions were neither purely educational nor religious, that the missions were also oriented around (at least some degree of) material provision, and that donors wanted to help meet those significant material needs as well. This direct aid, essentially contrary to the express purpose of the mission, was nevertheless channeled through the missions to address (albeit, in a limited way) the significant material needs of the recently freed.
These advances in awareness and concern among some white Episcopalians in the diocese of New Jersey were not, however, representative of the overall perspectives predominating in the diocese. In no year did more than a small minority of churches in the diocese give in support of the HMCP, and in general, most white Episcopalians still viewed Black ministry, education, and needs as something relevant to other regions and not their own. Bishop Scarborough exemplifies this prevailing (white) opinion in the diocese (though perhaps with a greater degree of concern than was typical) in his convention address of 1888:
There are many and important questions before the church to-day, earnestly discussed in their various bearing, and clamoring for an answer; but as they do not pertain specially to the work of our own Diocese, I need not detain you with their consideration at any length here. The four millions of negroes who were in servitude little more than a quarter of a century ago, are now increased to seven or eight millions. What effect this ignorant mass will have on our civilization is a question that concerns the statesman as well as the Christian. The whole question on both its social and religious side is hemmed in with difficulties. As yet our own Church has done little toward its solution or settlement. A new agency has been created with the hope of rousing new interest. I bespeak for the cause a hearing and a favorable answer.[43]
This paternalistic and racist attitude toward Black people was normal among white Episcopalians at the time, and the sense that such issues did not “pertain specially to the work of our own Diocese” was likewise typical.
By the end of the nineteenth century the need for giving to support Black education and ministry through HMCP had not decreased, but the awareness of and concern for Black neighbors exhibited especially by a few priests like H.C. Rush and J.H. Townsend,[44] and the quick response of the burgeoning Black population of places like Elizabeth and Camden, forced diocesan leaders to pay attention,[45] and began to shift white Episcopal thinking about Black ministry in the diocese. Some white Episcopalians in New Jersey continued to see the need for increased giving to “Home Missions to Colored People” for work in the South, but in New Jersey itself, large-scale Black immigration after the Civil War had finally, slowly awakened some white Episcopalians to the reality that Black Episcopal ministry was not just something that should happen somewhere else. On the contrary, dedicated and sustained diocesan support for local Black ministry in New Jersey was both beginning to be seen as necessary for a self-identified “catholic” faith to be true to its “catholicity,” and was finally, in earnest, actually beginning.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
Appendix 1: Reported Parochial Giving to HMCP in the Diocese of New Jersey, 1877-1900[46]
1866 $19.92 and two barrels of clothing[47]
1867 $221.12[48]
1868 $388.06[49]
1869 $709.03[50]
1870 $247.81[51]
1871 $1090.71[52]
1872 $368.77[53]
1873 $1179.81[54]
1874 $443.04[55]
1875 $172.13[56]
1876 $212.79[57]
1877 $725.06[58]
1878 $360.07[59]
1879 $210.79[60]
1880 $236.10[61]
1881 $202.03[62]
1882 $285.29[63]
1883 $173.35[64]
1884 $376.37[65]
1885 $461.67[66]
1886 $995.14[67]
1887 $1484.59[68]
1888 $859.61[69]
1889 $703.78[70]
1890 $727.94[71]
1891 $998.09[72]
1892 $897.82[73]
1893 888.62[74]
1894 $1333.39[75]
1895 $903.31[76]
1896 $1417.76[77]
1897 $1101.34[78]
1898 $1380.86[79]
1899 $1556.84[80]
1900 $921.49[81]
Appendix 2: HMCP Giving Reported by the Diocese of New Jersey Women’s Auxiliary to the Board of Missions (1877-1900)[82]
1877 $578.40[83]
1878 $107.57[84]
1879 $275.50[85]
1880 $407.41[86]
1881 $287.63[87]
1882 $595.92[88]
1883-87 no summary reports in convention journals
1888 $568.99[89]
1889 $439.11[90]
1890 $985.00[91]
1891 $893.38[92]
1892 $1079.20[93]
1893 $1357.50[94]
1894 $2987.68[95]
1895 $730.63[96]
1896 $725.80[97]
1897 $882.37[98]
1898 $1261.27[99]
1899 $1384.55[100]
1900 $962.14[101]
This shift occurred immediately. In the yearly parochial reports from the 1868 diocesan convention journal there are four congregations listed with designated giving to African Missions. See Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Eighty-Fifth Annual Convention, Held in Grace Church, Newark, on Wednesday and Thursday, May 27th and 28th, MDCCCLXVIII (New York: John W. Amerman, 1868). Over the next three years this fell to an average of one congregation per year. And in the nineteen-year period between 1872 and 1890 there were only five reported instances of parochial giving to Africa Missions in the Diocese of New Jersey.
Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Convention, 159.
