How Do I Research My Church's Involvement with Slavery? Part 5: Moving Forward

Continued from Part 4: Antebellum & After...

Figure 1: William Clark artist QS:P170,Q21464475 William Clark, 
Slaves cutting the sugar cane - Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (1823), plate IV - BL, CC0 1.0.

PART 5: Moving Forward. 

Can We Approach a Forensic Accounting for Wrong?

In short, no. The wrongs done are utterly massive and truly incalculable. There is a tendency to want to know exact dollar amounts of culpability, to understand the scope. The reality is that this is not possible. Yes, many White people in the American colonies and in the United States have benefitted financially from slavery and racism. Their wealth is a result of theft. And, yes, the Anglican and Episcopal churches have benefitted financially from slavery and racism. But determining what percentage of the gifts given, or the endowments have links to slavery (as in the recent Church Pension Group audit), and what percentage of those funds is encumbered by connection to slavery, involves a gross inaccuracy. It assumes that those who benefitted from slavery and racism reaped the whole value of what was lost by those harmed, an assumption that is entirely inaccurate. 

            The accumulation of wealth through enslavement required the murder of millions to reap the labor value of many fewer. It required the loss of full freedom to create and produce and live and flourish for millions, the limitation of their skilled contribution to humanity, in order to reap the (comparatively lesser) and inhumane value of the (often) menial labor of those millions of souls. The dramatically smaller monetary value reaped by those who enslaved and who benefitted from slavery required the decimation of peoples and the decimation those peoples’ full ability to live and produce to the best of their ability and creativity. Such stolen wealth is not encumbered at its face value. It is supersaturated with encumbrance. Its face value represents only a tiny fraction of the value of what was destroyed in order to steal it. Slavery was a massive wealth destruction event, even as it served to transfer a small portion of the wealth it destroyed to those who benefitted from it. The wealth that remains is a tiny fraction of what was lost. Even that wealth derived from the operation of racist systems of oppression (but not slavery) has a similar supersaturated encumbrance due to the Black wealth destruction and preclusion that occurred in order to produce it.

            This supersaturated encumbrance attached to wealth derived from slavery has a further dimension. The question regularly arises about whether philanthropy (such as to churches) from enslavers should not be considered only partially encumbered by problematic associations with slavery because only part of their wealth was the result of the enslavement they engaged in. This is, again, based on a confused understanding. 

            In general, slave labor was often used in situations where the farming or mining being conducted would have been at a subsistence level had it been conducted by free laborers. The profit gleaned from the endeavor was often the exclusive result of stolen labor value from enslaved peoples. Because the enterprise was typically only profitable as a result of the use of enslaved labor, any ability of the enslaver to donate out of their wealth, was only possible due to profit above the subsistence level through the use of slavery. That means that their charity, regardless of how great their wealth or how diversified their portfolio, was coming from that portion of their enterprise profit above the subsistence level (i.e. directly from their profit from slavery). Not only does this mean that there would be no portion of their giving that was not encumbered, but the giving, due to its connection to slavery is, as previously mentioned, supersaturated with encumbrance. 

 

Research and Moving Forward

            The unfortunate conclusion to be drawn from the reality of supersaturated encumbrance of White (and White church) wealth is that the true scope of the debt can never really be repaid. However, that does not mean that important and necessary steps cannot be taken to address current race-based wealth inequities.[1] Nor does it mean that detailed research into the wrongs committed by Anglicans and Episcopalians against Black people is moot. In fact, such research is necessary to determine with detail the scope and nature of the wrongs in order to enable repentance and to build awareness of the need for critical reparative action. Every church has a responsibility to reckon with both its past and present in this regard. Likewise, every Christian is obliged, by their corporate participation in the systems that have perpetrated the harms of slavery and racism, to reckon with their own responsibility for repair. This responsibility starts with cultivating an awareness of both “the evils we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.”[2] We have not always been aware of all the ways we and the institutions we participate in, have established, perpetuated, or benefitted from slavery and racism. But once we begin to know, we must acknowledge that as Christians we have an inexorable obligation to address this unfortunate history, to recognize its persistent influence in our present, and to do what we can to make it right. “Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”[3]

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] Such ongoing remediation will be necessary until there is no longer a racial wealth gap in the United States.

[2] “Confession,” from Enriching Our Worship 1, page 19: https://www.churchpublishing.org/siteassets/pdf/enriching-our-worship-1/enrichingourworship1.pdf.

[3] This is a popular rendering of a few verses appearing in Pirkei Avot, commenting on that great justice text Micah 6:8. Quoted here from https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/3-jewish-reminders-when-world-seems-overwhelming.

How Do I Research My Church's Involvement with Slavery? Part 4: Antebellum & After

Continued from Part 3: Colonial Era...

Figure 1: Detail from page 1 of the original manuscript of the "Black Birth Book of Monmouth County,
New Jersey." Published in The Black Birth Book of Monmouth County New Jersey, 1804-1848
(Freehold, NJ: Office of the Monmouth County Clerk, 1989), viii.

PART 4: Early Republic (Antebellum) Era Considerations and Leads (and After)

Just as it is important for many churches founded after the colonial era to consider the histories of antecedent colonial parishes for understanding their own history, so is it necessary not merely for churches founded during the early Republic to research their histories of slavery, but for churches founded after the Civil War to consider the history of connected parishes founded during the early Republic. Many post-Civil War churches were birthed, or planted, with the support of an early Republic era parish, so the financial establishment of the founding parish and its relation to slavery is critical to appreciate. And, as previously mentioned, many churches operating today formed through mergers between older parishes, and the slavery-related entanglements of the parent churches bears directly on the generational responsibility born by daughter churches.

            The good news about researching this era is that there are many more documents and resources that have been preserved. The difficulty is that there are so many, and they are so widely dispersed and poorly catalogued that it can be difficult to track them down, and even to survey them all adequately. But do not be daunted by these difficulties, as the work is important to attempt even if we are not always entirely equal to the task.

            During this period following the Revolutionary War, New Jersey kept slavery intact even as increasing strictures were placed on the institution. Under pressure from abolitionists, New Jersey was the last northern state to enact a gradual abolition law (1804), though the law is generally seen as having served to buttress the institution rather than undermine it. It wasn’t for another twenty-one years that any enslaved person in the state became free as a result of the legislation, and once formerly enslaved Blacks became free, they still faced horrible prejudice and a legal (and extra-legal) system of oppression that continued to conspire to limit their freedom. In spite of modest limitations that were enacted over time[1] to slavery, the institution persisted in the state, and White sentiment in favor of it, and against the increasing prospect of living alongside freed Black Americans, persisted as well. 

            Newspapers of the time are full of White fearmongering on the issue. Many churches in the Diocese of New Jersey eagerly participated in the American Colonization Society (ACS), which sought to remove freed Black slaves from the United States and send them to Africa, in order to “solve” the “problem” they saw resulting from the presence of the formerly enslaved.[2] A few churches developed segregated schools at this time, but often these were viewed as a means to continue to control both enslaved and free Black people. Generally speaking, during this time, the Diocese made little effort at ministry to and with Black people, and the funding that did go toward Black ministry was generally dedicated to the ACS and Episcopal mission to Liberia.[3]

            A further difficulty researchers will encounter with material from this period is the prevalent use of euphemism and indirect language for slavery. This requires careful analysis and reading (often between the lines). In documents of this time, the enslaved are regularly referred to as “servants” rather than slaves. In fact, even New Jersey state legislation from 1846, which claimed to “end slavery” in the state, only renamed the enslaved as “apprentices for life” who could still be bought and sold and whose practical status had changed not at all. Ultimately the population of enslaved Black Americans in the state did dwindle into the period of the Civil War,[4] but support for the institution remained strong. Slavery, except as legal punishment for a crime, was only ended in the state once the necessary number of other states had ratified the thirteenth amendment. The Democrat-controlled New Jersey legislature refused to ratify the amendment, and abolition through the thirteenth amendment became the law of the land in spite of New Jersey legislators.[5]

            As with the colonial era, determining prominent members of each congregation is an important first step in the research process. There is comparatively more material to work with here, as many churches from this era have preserved their records, or local church histories were written that are still kept in parish or local libraries. As these histories are all old enough to have entered the public domain, they should be scanned and made available online whenever possible. Diocesan records are rather helpful for this period as well, with the vast majority of diocesan convention journals, which typically in this period include parochial reports, available online.[6] Once you determine who many of the key priests and parishioners were, you can begin to look at whether they enslaved anyone, whether their wealth was derived from slavery, and whether they used their respective positions of authority (either secular or churchly) to support the institution.

            Government records are more robust for this period as well, including at the municipal, county, and state level. Under gradual abolition local New Jersey governments were required to keep an account of births of the enslaved, as well as who their enslavers were. This is a trove of important information, in some instances published in book form (e.g. in the Black Birth Book of Monmouth County [1989]),[7] but otherwise held in local or county archives.[8] A great deal of U.S. Census data is also available online and is searchable.[9] As previously mentioned, many newspaper archives have been scanned and can be accessed through university libraries, and even local libraries. Again, various institutions have begun to collate their material related to slavery and you will likely have some success connecting with local librarians, museums, and historical societies. Also, use NESRI. Some journals to examine as you research this history of the members of your parish include:

 

New Jersey Studies

Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society

Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey

Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies

Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography

New York History

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record

 

            Along with the need for careful discernment in interpreting euphemistic language, is the need to  be aware of the tendency of writers with a Christian bias (e.g. church historians, priests, or diocesan officials) to promote the good things that were done during this period and to downplay the problems. Church histories are full of glowing depictions of the faithful and forgetfulness of the people they have harmed.[10] And even when the faithful did indeed do good, such as in the case of prominent New Jersey Episcopalian Hon. James Parker[11] (who helped stop the Van Wickle slave ring), the way their actions are described in church documents can allow the facts to be misconstrued. For example, the biographical notice[12] on Parker from 1889 states that he was “very prominent in advocacy of the abolition of Slavery within the State,” seeming to suggest that slavery was actually abolished during that time, even though the slavery laws were never meaningfully altered as a result of his advocacy. Rather it appears that the main thing he accomplished was raising awareness of the need to enforce the slavery laws already on the books in New Jersey[13] (which had not yet, at the time of the operation of the Ring, resulted in freeing even a single enslaved person). All this is to say, the primary documents of the time require careful handling in order to ensure honest treatment of the history and avoid misinterpretation. And as with the colonial era, care is required to capture the full geographic scope of the practices of enslavement. Various elite Episcopalians owned large estates in the American South on which they enslaved hundreds of Black Americans. Those holdings account for a great deal of their wealth, even as they may be hard to track down due to geographic removal from New Jersey.

 

What about after the Civil War?

Racism did not cease with the passage of the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, even as the ratification of the amendment (over the protestations of the New Jersey legislature) did make slavery illegal in New Jersey except as punishment for a crime (so slavery did not in fact cease entirely either). And just as slavery had dramatic negative effects on the lives and livelihoods of Black Americans, so has the ongoing operation of racism. There have been many ways that New Jersey residents and citizens of African descent have continued to be harmed through unjust laws, unjust enforcement of laws, and prejudicial treatment, not only through secular avenues, but also by the Episcopal Church. Research in this area at the diocesan level is ongoing, but there is much work to be done. Whenever possible, individual parishes should devote themselves to researching their part in the history as well.[14]

Continued in Part 5: Moving Forward.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] See the DNJRJR article: https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/01/gradual-abolition-and-persistence-of.html. 

[2] As discussed in the DNJRJR article: https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/10/support-for-american-colonization.html. 

[3] As discussed in the DNJRJR article: https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/12/early-african-mission-giving-foreign-in.html. 

[4] Numbers dropped from an official high of 12,422 in 1800 (Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 280 n. 3) to an official low of 18 in the 1860 census, though “probably hundreds of slaves for a term and apprentices [for life were] not properly recorded in the census (Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 240).

[5] A later Republican controlled legislature voted to ratify the amendment.

[6] These have been scanned and can be viewed through https://www.google.com/books, at least through 1920. 

[7] Such as records held by the Middlesex County Clerk, e.g. “Middlesex County Book of Manumissions and Removals... 1800-1825.”

[8] Many resources of this kind are available at the Newark Public Library, including “Essex County Slave Records,” and scans of other county and municipal “slave books.”

[9] See https://www.archives.gov/research/census/online-resources. 

[10] Burr’s The Anglican Church in New Jersey is a clear local example of this.

[11] Neither the first nor last of that name.

[12] Compiled by his descendant, also of that name: James Parker, ed., Historical Sketches of Parishes Represented in the Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New Jersey, 1785-1816, and Biographical Notices of Lay Delegates in Those Years (New York: John Polhemus, 1889), 87-88.

[13] According to newspaper accounts of the time.

[14] The essay “Consulting the Past Through the Archival Record: A Guide for Researching the Impact of Slavery on Church Life and African Americans,” published by The Archives of the Episcopal Church, is a good summary resource of many key questions for all churches to consider. See https://www.episcopalarchives.org/church-awakens/files/original/2253337c254b62e28a5d3b44307faa75.pdf.

How Do I Research My Church's Involvement with Slavery? Part 3: Colonial Era

Continued from Part 2: Getting Oriented...

PART 3: Colonial Era Considerations and Leads

The importance of research into colonial era history for the churches founded during that period is clear, but many churches founded later should also be doing this work for a number of reasons. Firstly, because many churches founded later were birthed, or planted, with the support of a colonial era parish.[1] Thus, the financial establishment of the founding parish and its relation to slavery is relevant for the financial establishment of the later parish. Not only so, but the Church of England established as many preaching stations as churches in New Jersey during the colonial era.[2] Many of these preaching stations went on to develop into churches after the colonial era, but prior to becoming churches, the preaching stations were supported by colonial priests and established parishes, many of whom participated in New Jersey’s plantation economy, to say nothing of those lay Anglicans who directly supported the preaching station ministry.[3] Moreover, a number of churches in our diocese today were formed from mergers with colonial or early-republic-era parishes,[4] and certainly the diocese itself has received the proceeds on occasion from the liquidation of colonial era church property.[5]

            So, clearly, many parishes beyond those parishes founded in the colonial era should be engaged in colonial era research in order to best understand, not only their dependence in their founding upon funds from enslaved labor, but also the ideological and theological positions and presuppositions that shaped the diocese from its outset and which produced the culture and attitudes of its later churches. But what should be considered in such research? What should researchers be aware of?

            As we’ve described elsewhere,[6] slavery was not merely legal, but was encouraged both by the Crown, and by many elite Anglicans and priests. The legal system was set up, in part by Anglicans, to enable it, and the system of law enforcement, in which Anglicans were often influential,[7] worked to ensure its smooth functioning. Most agriculture in New Jersey’s plantation economy was occurring at the subsistence level. That means that farming of any large property involved the use of either hired labor, or, more typically, enslaved labor. Many churches derived income from “glebes,” a term for church owned agricultural lands rented out for farming. Such large-scale agriculture on church lands also typically involved enslaved labor.

            The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) was the Anglican organization sending priests to the colonies at this time. Its funding was partly derived from the operations of its large plantation in Barbados, which was run using the labor of hundreds of enslaved Africans at a time. Thus all income for those priests serving in New Jersey in the colonial era was derived, in part, from profits of enslaved labor.[8]

            As can be seen from these general observations, the structures of oppression operating through the use of enslavement in the plantation economy of colonial New Jersey were clearly intertwined with many aspects of Church funding and life. Though many records from the colonial era have been lost, the overall picture of New Jersey society generally, and the Anglican Church specifically, allow many conclusions to be drawn about individual colonial era churches’ complicity in slavery. However, the further details on a church by church basis matter a great deal and it cannot be said that more than a start has been made in parish-level research. As such, many historical resources for tracing parish histories in this research area have yet to be analyzed.

            Of course, the most critical information to gather at the outset is information about who the leaders and members of each congregation were. A few parishes still have parish registers from the colonial era and these should be digitized for the benefit of future researchers. Such registers sometimes contain information about baptisms of the enslaved. In some instances the Diocese holds scans of early documents in its archives.[9] Regarding colonial era New Jersey priests, the most exhaustive primary sources available are the SPG letter archives. Nelson Burr’s The Anglican Church in New Jersey[10] is a helpful reference for finding leads as you are starting to work with this archive, but the archives themselves are directly available as digital scans through the British Archives Online.[11] Various other sources of information are available for learning about parish leadership as well. The most widely accessible are early New Jersey legal documents, including Church-related legal documents such as charters and deeds. These have often been published and many are available online,[12] but also through local libraries, state archives, and research libraries. Such documents often list lay church leaders who were party to or witnesses of legal proceedings, but also furnish useful information about church property.[13]

            Once it has been determined who was involved with a particular church, research can begin on the ways those specific individuals were involved with enslavement. There are a variety of possible avenues for investigation. Due to the increasing interest in New Jersey’s history of slavery, many institutions have begun to work to collect and organize their records that help illuminate that history. Among these are local libraries, historical societies, museums,[14] municipal and county governments,[15] colleges and universities,[16] and the State of New Jersey.[17] Local institutions may be able to point you to relevant resources on the colonial history of slavery in your area. Some of these records have been formally published, and some excellent resources have been made available online. Often at least a record of the existence of records can be found through many institutional websites, especially at universities and the state level. Evidence of engaging in enslavement can be found in escaped slave advertisements from newspapers,[18] in census documents, in wills,[19] and a variety of other colonial era legal documents. Many of these records are available through the Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI).

            Don’t forget that it is important to consider not merely direct engagement in enslavement in your research, but support for the institution. Many Anglicans helped to pass the legal codes that established slavery and benefitted and protected enslavers. Others supported the institution through public advocacy in newspapers,[20] or enforced it as agents of the state. Many inherited wealth produced through enslavement. These relationships matter for understanding all the ways that Anglicans made slavery an integral part of life in the colony. And research should not be limited to New Jersey only. In many cases, wealthy Anglicans owned property in multiple colonies. New Jersey at the time was very closely linked both to New York City and to Philadelphia, and so consideration must be given to records from those regions as well.

(Continued in Part 4: Antebellum & After)

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] For instance, the now defunct St. Mary’s, Colestown (founded in 1703), at the time of its destruction by fire in 1899, was considered a “mother church” by many nearby Camden area churches (Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, 573).

[2] Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, 114-15.

[3] See, for example the brief history of Trinity Church, Princeton published in the DNJRJR: https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/04/trinity-church-princeton-and-slavery.html.

[4] For instance, St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Elizabeth, NJ was formed through serial mergers incorporating a number of historic congregations including Christ Church, Elizabeth (formed 1853) and Trinity Church, Elizabeth (formed in 1859). 

[5] Such as from the liquidation of the property of Christ Church, Allentown around 1940 (founded in 1730).

[6] In the DNJRJR: https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2022/11/new-jersey-anglicans-and-slavery-in.html.

[7] Including through the system of jails and sheriffs.

[8] The initial bounty paid to priests when they were first sent, known as the King’s or Queen’s Bounty, also came partly as a result of the Crown’s monopoly profits from the Atlantic slave trade.

[9] Reach out to the diocesan archivist and historiographer, as of the date of publication, Rev. Cn. Richard Wrede, to see what he can find for you in the diocesan archives.

[10] Although there are significant problems with how Burr deals with slavery and racism. See the recent review which appears in DNJRJR: https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/11/review-anglican-church-in-new-jersey-by.html.

[11] See British Archives Online, S.P.G. Correspondence at https://microform.digital/boa/collections/11/america-in-records-from-colonial-missionaries-1635-1928. 

[12] https://www.google.com/books has many of these. A good start can be made with Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New Jersey, a multivolume series published from the archives of the State of New Jersey which is in the public domain. See also New Jersey, Laws of the State of New Jersey (New Brunswick: Abraham Blauvelt, 1800).

[13] If you are having trouble knowing where to start, or have difficulty finding much about the early years of your colonial church, Nelson Burr’s The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1954), focuses on the colonial era, and is held in many Episcopal church libraries in the state. While it is not a great guide to issues of slavery and racism, it does reference many useful primary documents, and if you can read between the lines and filter its rosy perspective, it can provide some helpful leads, at the very least providing some information on key early leaders in most churches. You can then research the ties these individuals have to slavery.

[14] E.g. the Morven Museum: https://www.morven.org/slavery-at-morven. 

[15] E.g. the "Gloucester County Slavery Records" at http://www.westjerseyhistory.org/docs/gloucesterrecs/slavery/.

[16] E.g. Rutgers University (https://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu/), Monmouth University (https://guides.monmouth.edu/RaceRacismPolicing) , Princeton University (https://slavery.princeton.edu), and Princeton Theological Seminary (https://slavery.ptsem.edu).

[17] E.g. https://www.nj.gov/state/archives/catsuslaves.html. 

[18] Many of which have been published in Richard B. Marrin, ed., Runaways of Colonial New Jersey: Indentured Servants, Slaves, Deserters, and Prisoners, 1720-1781 (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2007), and Graham Russell Hodges and Alan Edward Brown, eds., “Pretends to Be Free”: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey (New York: Garland, 1994).

[19] See, for example, Harry B Weiss, The Personal Estates of Early Farmers and Tradesmen of Colonial New Jersey, 1670-1750 (Trenton: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1971).

[20] Many archival resources for period newspapers are available online, including the databases developed through the National Digital Newspaper Program https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/. Various online resources for digitized archival newspapers can be accessed through most local libraries. Many sermons and other publications appear in the “Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue” and the “Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue,” resources also accessible through many library systems.

How Do I Research My Church's Involvement with Slavery? Part 2: Getting Oriented

Continued from Part 1: Limitations...

PART 2: Getting Oriented
At the outset it is important to familiarize yourself with the general and local history of the period you are researching. Read through the research that has already been done, both by the Diocese and by other researchers. Be sure to read through the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review, especially those articles related to colonial-era history or your local area. There are several helpful books that have been published on the colonial and antebellum history of this region, slavery in this region, and Black history of New Jersey. Familiarize yourself with them. Here are a few to get you started:

Rick Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021).

James Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).

Travis Glasson, Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Graham Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865 (Madison: Madison House, 1997).

Graham Hodges, Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018.

(Continued in Part 3: Colonial Era)

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

How Do I Research My Church's Involvement with Slavery? Part 1: Limitations

If you belong to a colonial or antebellum-era Episcopal church in the Diocese of New Jersey and want to begin to investigate your church’s ties to slavery and racism, we want to help. There is so much work to be done to uncover and document this under-acknowledged history and the prospect of beginning the work can feel daunting. Where does one start? What should be considered? Here are a few thoughts and resources to get you started.

Christ Church, Shrewsbury, a historic congregation in the Diocese of New Jersey that has conducted
significant research on its ties to slavery (Dpsherman, Christ Church (Episcopal), CC BY-SA 4.0).

PART 1: Limitations
        It will help to begin by admitting that you are not going to find everything out. There is a lot that happened for which there is no documentary evidence. And even if there once was documentary evidence, a great deal of it has been lost or destroyed, and much that remains has yet to be catalogued (and as a result is very hard to find, or to even know that it exists). Research programs of this kind must admit their own limitations. Any researcher attempting to paint a picture of the past will paint, at best, a partial picture of what happened. That picture may be (and hopefully will be) representative, but it will not be exhaustive. The limitations of the research endeavor are important to acknowledge, and even as the limitations of the process may be disappointing to a beginning researcher, it is nevertheless important to discover and document what can be found. To discover what can be known about what happened regarding slavery and racism, even with the limitations on what can be known, is necessary for the process of repentance and repair. 
        It is also important to understand the limits of your research for knowing how to speak responsibly about your work. Sweeping generalizations have a way of being inaccurate, while carefully caveated and contextualized reporting is inherently more defensible, and therefore, valuable. You are only making a beginning, but a responsible beginning is far better than, on the one hand, inaccurately claiming to give the final word, or, on the other, giving up entirely because you will not be able to give the final word.
Moreover, it is critical to understand the limitations of your context. The vast majority of churches in the Diocese of New Jersey are, and have been, overwhelmingly White. If this is your context you must understand that this is a limited context from which to research. Looking through your parish records, or looking into the actions of historic parish leaders will only get you so far. 
        One of the key dynamics at play in this New Jersey church history of slavery and racism is that White people have often produced institutions, communities, and spaces that have alienated Black people. That means that in the records of Episcopal churches in New Jersey there is often little overt mention of Black people, or the treatment of Black people. That doesn’t mean that there were no Black people, or that nothing can be known of Black people, or that Black people were treated well. It simply means that Episcopal church sources, generally, are under-reporting the Black experience. Thus, as a source for the information on how Black people were treated, Episcopal church records, while a necessary element of the research program, are very limited. White churches are institutions generationally shaped by White ideas, assumptions, biases, and decisions. In order to work to overcome these structural limitations as much as possible, White researchers from White churches will need to look beyond their own experience and institutions. They will need to look for sources and stories from their broader local community, surrounding communities and their larger region, non-Episcopal churches, and secular historical sources. They will need to work to overcome the separation of their church community from the records they need. This separation is the result of generations of unjust actions that have alienated their church communities from the people they have hurt. Much of this story is housed outside the church, and if one is to uncover and attempt to tell this story, and to admit the church’s role in that hurt, a great deal of humility is required. It is not only your story. It is not even primarily your story. Tread lightly. Be sensitive. Be willing to learn. Be willing to apologize. Know that your own biases limit your understanding and caveat the products of your research accordingly.

(Continued in Part 2: Getting Oriented)

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

NEWS: The Church Pension Group Publishes Slavery Audit of Episcopal Church Funds

The Church Pension Group (CPG), which runs the pension funds for the Episcopal Church, has published the results of its recent audit of the historical links to slavery of CPG funds. The report can be found at the CPG website. Reporting on the release appears in the Episcopal New Service. The Church Pension fund endowment is one of the largest fifteen endowments in the world, and third largest if university endowments are excluded. The audit is a response to a general convention resolution calling for a forensic audit of the fund. However, the initial ENS reporting on the methodology employed in in the audit suggests that it is perhaps overly generous to suggest that it was "forensic." The researchers themselves admit that they did not research the majority of donors, ostensibly because their donations were small and it would have been a time-intensive process. That means that the official findings of "no" direct connection to slavery, and comparatively greater but still modest indirect links slavery, should be taken with a grain of salt. The producers of the study also readily admit that the donors were, almost without exception, White, and that the economic structures of society that enabled the accumulation of wealth by White Americans prior to and following the Civil War were deeply racist. As Patric Favreau, the Executive VP of CPG, noted (according to ENS reporting), "wealth accumulation for much of the 19th century cannot be separated from the economics of enslavement." This means that even as the overt connections to slavery discovered in the audit appear modest, the White wealth that provided the foundation for the Church Pension Fund, and its predecessor funds associated with the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, should be understood to be inextricably linked to racist processes of White wealth accumulation which functioned to prevent wealth accumulation by Black Americans.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

VIDEO: Reparations Webinar Sponsored by NJ Faith Allies for Reparations, April 25, 2024

 

On April 25, 2024, the Diocese of New Jersey hosted a reparations webinar organized by New Jersey Faith Allies for Reparations entitled "Journey Toward Reparations: New Jersey's Opportunity to Learn from New York & California." Led by Reverend Charles Wynder, Jr., the panel discussion included insights from NY State Senator James Sanders, Jr., the Reverend Dr. Darrell Armstrong, and the Reverend Charles Boyer.