 |
Figure 1: Promotional Materials for the Episcopal African Mission. Detail of “Episcopal Mission Buildings, Fishtown or Fairhaven, Nine Miles North of Cape Palmas, W. A.,” from Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A., An Historical Sketch of the African Mission of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. (New York: Foreign Committee, 1884), 14. |
At this time, dedicated ministry to African-Americans within the diocese was very limited. According to diocesan records[5] St. John’s Church, Elizabethtown periodically ran a segregated Sunday School starting in 1818, initially said to have 20 students of color,[6] but it does not appear to have been in operation consistently. Baptisms of African American “domestics” are specifically mentioned in the diocesan reporting of St. Peter’s Church, Spotswood, and we know that multiple other churches performed similar baptisms at this time. In 1832 the diocesan Sunday School Society noted 23 “coloured children” participating in its schools,[7] but this modest number only accounts for five percent of total students. In 1834 Trinity Newark reported that it was running a segregated “coloured infant school,” but no similar school for older children. All this is to say, only limited attention had been given to ministry specifically to African-Americans in the diocese at the time.
Over the following decades, giving to the African mission continued, and generally increased (see Table 1),[8] however, in many ways this giving operated as an outlet for White Episcopal “philanthropy” ostensibly aimed at Black people, while never actually challenging either the status quo of their treatment within the Diocese or White Episcopalian control.
The African mission of the Episcopal church was born of much the same impetus that formed the American Colonization Society (ACS), an organization committed to removing freed Black people from the United States and using them to colonize Africa.[9] This idea was promoted as beneficial for Africans, who would receive the influence of western culture and Christianity from African-American settlers, for freed African-Americans, who would have an opportunity to thrive independently from Whites (assuming they could never do so in a majority-White society), and for White Americans who felt threatened by the presence of free Black people in the United States and that the presence of free Blacks created a difficulty for the effective functioning of a slave society. Though the work was presented as “charitable,” on each of the aforementioned counts the plan was clearly racist, and nearly all African Americans rejected the scheme and the ACS.[10] Nevertheless, the Episcopal Church actively cooperated with the ACS in the colonial-missionary enterprise, particularly at its founding, and Churches within the Diocese of New Jersey continued to support the ACS (see Table 2) in parallel to their support for the Episcopal African Mission (though donations to the Episcopal African Mission giving eventually well outpaced ACS giving in the Diocese).
Essentially, the African Mission was viewed by White Episcopalians as a way of “giving back” to formerly enslaved Black people, while also removing them from the U.S., and simultaneously Christianizing Africa (a win-win-win in the racist imagination). This giving and attention paid to the African Mission also enabled churches in the Diocese to ignore the needs of their free and enslaved African-American neighbors, and little designated giving or program for domestic African-American ministries in the diocese developed until after the Civil War. Further, the governance structure of the African Mission for decades privileged the leadership and authority of White Americans (including the long-governing first Bishop of Liberia, John Payne). Thus the effect of African Mission giving in the diocese during this period was to siphon money and concern away from potential use in domestic African American ministry and toward a largely White-controlled foreign mission significantly aligned with the goal of the removal of African-Americans from the U.S. and the promotion of western cultural hegemony in Africa.
During this period African Americans in the Diocese of New Jersey, almost without exception, continued to be consigned to marginal status, excluded from leadership, relegated to balconies and segregated seating, and, in general, treated as second-class citizens even when free (their baptisms and confirmations are often reported as if they were unusual events). The only significant Black ministries begun during this time (of otherwise absolutely exponential growth in the diocese)[11] were St. Philip’s (African) Church, Newark (admitted to the diocese in 1848),[12] the outreach ministry of Christ Church, Shrewsbury in the “African” settlement of Macedonia in Tinton Falls,[13] and a small handful of segregated parish schools including those at St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy,[14] St. Michael’s Church, Trenton,[15] Trinity Church, Princeton,[16] and Christ Church, Shrewsbury.[17] These schools were typically, though not always,[18] taught by White teachers, and oriented toward keeping Black students “in their place.” The funding for these domestic Black ministries constituted a vanishingly small percentage of church and diocesan budgets, certainly in no way approaching an amount commensurate with the proportional representation of African Americans in the general population at the time. African Mission giving among the White churches diverted (already meager) funds and concern away from domestic Black ministries and was part of a culture in the diocese at the time that prioritized maintenance of a status quo oriented around Black marginalization.
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
Table 1: Congregational Giving to the Africa Mission in the Diocese of New Jersey (through 1865)[19]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1835, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $2.50.
1835, St. Andrew’s Church, Mount Holly: $8.88.
1835, St. Mark’s Church, Orange: $5.00.
1835, St. James’ Church, Piscataway[20]: $0.09.
1835, Trinity Church, Woodbridge: $0.61.
1835, St. James Church, Knowlton: $1.07.
1836, St. Luke’s Church, Hope: $0.62.
1840, Christ Church, Shrewsbury: $3.08.
1841, Christ Church, Shrewsbury: $5.13.
1842, Christ Church, Shrewsbury: $5.25.
1842, St. John’s Church, Elizabethtown: $21.43.
1847, St. Paul’s Church, Hoboken: $10.00.
1851, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley at Clarksboro: $28.00.
1852, Christ Church, Shrewsbury[21]: $2.00.
1852, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley at Clarksboro: $22.00.
1853, St. John’s Church, Elizabethtown: $1.32.
1853, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley at Clarksboro: $42.25.
1854, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley at Clarksboro: $37.23.
1854, St. Stephen’s Church, Mullica Hill: $9.27.
1855, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley at Clarksboro: $36.43.
1855, St. Stephen’s Church, Mullica Hill to: $8.00.
1856, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley, at Clarksboro: $46.61.
1856, St. Peter’s Church, Morristown[22]: $5.00.
1856, Church of the Redeemer, Morristown[23]: $???.
1857, St. John’s Church, Salem[24]: $62.00.
1857, St. Peter’s Ch., Berkeley at Clarksboro[25]: $142.72.
1857, St. Stephen’s Church, Beverly: $75.00.
1857, Trinity Church, Hoboken[26]: $20.00.
1858, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley in Clarksboro: $52.00.
1858, St. Stephen’s Church, Beverley: $75.00.
1858, Trinity Church, Hoboken[27]: $20.00.
1859, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $120.00.
1859, St. Stephen’s Church, Beverly: $60.00.
1859, Grace Church, Jersey City: $2.00.
1860, St. Stephen’s Church, Beverly: $50.00.
1861, Trinity Church, Princeton: $66.54.
1861, Christ Church, Bordentown: $17.50.
1861, St. Stephen’s Church, Beverly: $40.00.
1862, St. Andrew’s Church, Mount Holly: $1.00.
1862, Christ Church, Allentown: $23.50.
1862, St. Stephen’s Church, Beverly: $30.00.
1863, Christ Church, Allentown: $37.00.
1863, Grace Church, Crosswicks: $4.00.
1863, St. Andrew’s Church, Mount Holly: $1.00.
1864, Christ Church, Allentown: $47.50.
1864, Grace Church, Crosswicks: $9.00.
1865, Grace Church, Crosswicks: $7.00.
Overall Total (1835-1865)[28] = $1202.53
Table 2: Congregational Giving to the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the Diocese of New Jersey[29]
--------------------------------------------------------------
1834, Trinity Church, Newark: $17.43.
1834, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $14.00
1835, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $6.68
1836, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $7.50
1837, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $6.70
1838, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $6.30
1838, Christ Church, New Brunswick: $7.00.
1839, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $7.00.
1840, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy[30]: $5.725.
1841, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $8.00.
1842, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy: $15.00
1856, St. John’s Church, Somerville: $49.00.
Overall Total: $150.335
[1] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey, Journal of the Fifty Second Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey; Held in St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, on Wednesday the 27th, and Thurday the 28th Days of May, 1835 (Burlington, NJ: The Missionary Press, 1835), 12-27.
[2] George W. Doane, Episcopal Address Delivered at the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New-Jersey; May 28, 1834 (Camden: Josiah Harrison, 1834), 33.
[3] For more on the history of the mission see D. Elwood Dunn, A History of the Episcopal Church in Liberia 1821-1980 (London: Scarecrow Press, 1992), and James T. Yarsiah, The Episcopal Church – Early Missionaries in Liberia 1821-1871: Positive and Negative Impact of Missionary Activities (Saarbrucken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2014). For a rather hagiographic promotional account see The Protestant Episcopal Church, An Historical Sketch of the African Mission of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. (New York: Foreign Committee, 1884).
[4] Even so, in 1835 dollars this is not a lot of dollars, and six out of thirty-two churches is only 18.75%.
[5] Gleaned from yearly convention journal reporting.
[6] There is no discrete financial accounting reported for this school in diocesan convention journal annual reports of the time.
[7] Cost to educate is not broken out, nor are the number of the “coloured” scholars listed by participating church. See The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Forty-Ninth Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey (New Brunswick: Terhune & Letson, 1832), 33.
[8] Though the total number of churches giving in any particular year (through the end of the civil war) never exceeded the initial six in 1835. See Table 1 for the record of giving.
[9] Bishop Doane’s elision of these ideas in his aforementioned address in 1834 is indicative.
[10] See all of Ousmane K. Power-Greene, Against Wind and Tide: The African American Struggle against the Colonization Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2014).
[11] Doane’s tenure from 1832 to 1859 saw the number of churches in the diocese increase from 32 to 85, clergy from 18 to 98, and communicants from approximately 800 to 5000. See Nelson Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1954), 478.
[12] The long financial hardship of which is indicated, in part, by pleas from Doane for support. See, for example, The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., LL.D., Diocese of New Jersey: The Episcopal Address, to the Seventy-First Annual Convention, in Grace Church, Newark, Wednesday, May 31, 1854 (Burlington: Printed at the Gazette Office, 1854), 14.
[13] First mentioned in parochial annual reports to the diocese in 1854.
[14] First mentioned in parochial annual reports to the diocese in 1856.
[15] First mentioned in parochial annual reports to the diocese in 1860.
[16] A segregated school was run out of the church and supported by its leadership, though it appears that it may formally have been a separate project not reported in diocesan records. It seems it was intended to provide a school for Black children taught by White teachers as an alternative to the other segregated school in town run by local African-American leader Betsey Stockton. See Kyra N. Pruszinski and Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski (ed.), “Trinity Church, Princeton and Slavery: A Brief Introduction,” Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review (April 10, 2023), https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/04/trinity-church-princeton-and-slavery.html, last accessed October 10, 2023.
[17] First mentioned in parochial annual reports to the diocese in 1854.
[18] The annual parochial report to the diocese in 1857 suggests that Christ Church, Shrewsbury had hired John N. Still, a “colored” teacher for their segregated “African” school of 112 students.
[19] As reported in diocesan convention journals (1835-1865).
[20] Nine cents is not a typo.
[21] Christ Church Shrewsbury reported jointly with Christ Church, Middletown and Trinity Chapel, Red Bank.
[22] Specifically designated for “Leacock Fund, Africa.”
[23] The annual report by Rev. J. H. Tyng states that the “interest of the Sunday school is devoted to the African Mission” but no specific financial numbers of any kind appear in his report.
[24] This giving is designated for “Foreign Miss.” and Africa is mentioned, but no specific dollar amount for funds dedicated to the African mission particularly are specified.
[25] Specifically designated for “Mrs. Thompson, Africa.” so in this unusual instance, the gift is designated specifically for a Black missionary.
[26] Specifically designated for “Grace Wright” scholarship in Africa.
[27] Again, designated for the “Grace Wright” scholarship in Africa.
[28] This table does not include general account Foreign Missions giving during this period, which, at least during the tenure of Bishop Payne (Liberia) went more to the Liberia Mission than any other mission. Dunn, A History of the Episcopal Church in Liberia 1821-1980, 96.
[29] As reported in diocesan convention journals (1834-1865).
[30] This donation does in fact include a half-penny.
