The Dimissory Letter of James C. Ward: First ordained Black Deacon in the Diocese of New Jersey

Not much is known[1] about the canonical residency of the first ordained Black deacon in the Diocese of New Jersey, but diocesan records indicate that the Rev. James C. Ward was indeed canonically resident approximately from 1829 to 1831. He is mentioned as being received into the diocese in the convention journal of 1830, though no assignment or place of service is noted. There are no known records of him officiating or teaching during this time, though he had previously been a school teacher in Pennsylvania, and would go on to teach again in Maryland after his tenure in New Jersey. The diocesan convention journal of 1832 indicates that he had moved to Maryland with the approval of Bishop Croes. 

 

Figure 1: The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City (Elisa.rolle, Pierpont Morgan Library, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Though the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City holds the manuscript of the letter dimissory furnished by Croes in 1831 for Ward’s transfer, the letter sheds little light on Ward’s activities in the diocese. It is essentially a form letter, offering little in the way of clues:

 

The Rev.’ James C. Ward (a coloured man,) a Deacon of this Diocese, having made application to me for a letter dimissory to the Rt. Rev.’ the Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland, I hereby cheerfully grant his request, and do certify, that he has not, so far as I know, been liable to evil report for error in religion or viciousness of life, during the the [sic] three years last past.[2]

 

It seems most likely that Rev. Ward moved to New Jersey in the hope of teaching for the diocese or a church of the diocese in a segregated school, even though none were then formally or consistently in operation. Apparently no adequate opportunities became available, and he moved to the Diocese of Maryland, where such a teaching position had become available. It was not for decades yet that segregated Episcopal-affiliated schools in New Jersey were taught by Black instructors, and it seems that at the time the Rev. Ward first sought to do so, no White parishes were willing to sponsor him.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] See an initial treatment in Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski “Rev. James C. Ward (1777-1834), the first African American clergyman in the Diocese of New Jersey,” DNJRJR, October 9, 2023.

[2] John Croes to Revd. James C. Ward, July 16, 1831; Record ID 108178, Accession number MA 365.121, courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.

Perth Amboy Ferry Slip: A Site of Memory

The ferry slip at Perth Amboy hosts a UNESCO port marker as a site of memory associated with the Middle Passage of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Perth Amboy served as the primary port of entry for ships bringing enslaved persons from Africa and regularly hosted a slave market.

Figure 1: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (front), photo Jolyon Pruszinski

 

Figure 2: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (back), photo Jolyon Pruszinski

The text of the marker reads:

 

            Enslavement and the Trans-Atlantic Human Trade: 

 

Near this site enslave Africans disembarked at Perth Amboy, the principal port in eastern New Jersey. During colonial times, numerous slave ships such as the Catherine, William, Africa and Sally were present in Raritan Bay, sending their captives upon the city pier – now the present-day site of the Historic Ferry Slip. In one day alone, the Catherine arrived with 240 enslaved people, leaving 17 dead at sea, and depositing 130 survivors in Perth Amboy.

In Africa, traders captured approximately 24 million children, women and men, half of whom died on the march to coastal prisons or within the prisons awaiting transport across the Atlantic. Chained and tightly packed in dark, filthy, stifling hot cargo holds, 12 million endured ocean crossings that often took months. During these voyages, known as the Middle Passage, 2 million people died from disease, malnutrition, dehydration, abuse and suicide.

African slavery in New Jersey began with the early Dutch settlement named New Netherland. Ideally suited as a maritime port of entry, Perth Amboy, the colonial capital of East Jersey, was an arrival location for ships during the trans-Atlantic human trade. Because the colony of New Jersey imposed no tariff on the importation of captive Africans, many traders disembarked their human cargo at this location, avoiding taxation while supplying buyers in New Jersey and other colonies.

In 1790, New Jersey’s enslaved African population was 11,423. It was the last Northern state to adopt gradual emancipation in 1804. By 1854, the Eagleswood section in Perth Amboy became a major station of the Underground Railroad. Slavery was not completely abolished until 1865[1] by the adoption of the 13^thAmendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 2019, Perth Amboy was designated a “Site of Memory” by the UNESCO Slave Route Project.

 

Anglicans and Episcopalians were intimately involved in the legal establishment of slavery in New Jersey, in defending the trade, and in profiting from enslavement.

One of the most recent instances of Episcopal engagement with the slave trade in Perth Amboy occurred in 1818 in connection with the Van Wickle slave ring. As many have documented elsewhere,[2]  Van Wickle was one of the most notorious enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey. As a Middlesex County Judge he facilitated the illegal trafficking out-of-state of well over one hundred African-Americans who were either already free in New Jersey, or who would have become free under gradual abolition. They were permanently enslaved in the south through Van Wickle’s actions. Public outcry shut down the operation of the ring in late 1818, but not before Van Wickle had convinced the other lay leaders of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Spottswood to defend his actions in print.[3] Van Wickle managed to orchestrate the sailing of one last ship of enslaved persons out of Perth Amboy, late in 1818, after public pressure on the ring had already begun to mount. On October 26, 1818 the ring smuggled forty-eight people[4] out of Perth Amboy aboard the Schoharie. These are their names from the shipping manifest: 

 

William M. Clare, 25; John C. Marsh (of New York); John C. March (on board); Jafe Manning, 21; Robert Cook, 17; Ben Morris, 22; Sam Prince, 19; Sam Peter, 30; George Phillips, 18; James Thompson; Edward Gilbert, 22; Dan Francis, 20; James, 15; Charles, 19; Susan Wilcox, 36; Nelly, 18; Betsey Lewis, 28; Jane Clarkson, 23; Eliza Thompson, 21; Jane Cook, 15; Ann Moore, 29; Julian Jackson, 21; Jane Smith, 33; Peggy Boss, 21; Mary Harris, 21; Sally Cross, 20; Rosanna Cooper, 22; Mary Simmons, 18; Hannah Jackson, 18; Hanna Crigier, 18; Harriet Silas, 15; Fanny Thompson, 14; Elizabeth Ann Turner, 16; Susan Jackson, 20; Hanna Johnson, 20; Hannah, 18; Cane, 22; William Stone (New York); Jack, 22; Lewis, 22; Peter 14; Frank, 21; Caleb Groves, 50; John, 21; Collins, 35; Othello, 16; Anthony Fortune, 21; Joseph Henricks, 19; Jane, 23; Susan 21; Lena, 38. 

 

Van Wickle was never even indicted for his crimes.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] This is an inaccuracy in the site marker text. Slavery was not fully abolished by the 13^th Amendment because the text of the amendment specifically allowed slavery as a legal punishment for a crime.

[2] See the various primary sources and public history project related to Van Wickle and the slave ring listed in Jolyon Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopalian Lay Leader,” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[3] Again, see Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[4] Documented at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.

The Enslaved in the Parish Register at Christ Church, Shrewsbury

This address and reading were delivered by Christ Church, Shrewsbury historian Jamie Greene and parishioners Bill Cuff, Connie Goddard, and Robert Maber at the Stations of Reparations service of repentance on March 25, 2023 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Freehold.[1]

 

Figure 1: Christ Church, Shrewsbury parishioners at the Stations of Reparations Service, 2023.
Screen capture of the St. Peter's, Freehold recording: 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU.

“As you enter the narthex at Christ Church, Shrewsbury, on the left you’ll see a large plaque commemorating Lewis Morris at whose home in 1702 our first church service was held. On the right you’ll see another plaque with a list of rectors including Samuel Cooke, the sixth rector, who was the driving force behind our current 1769 church building. Both men were slaveholders. Lewis Morris owned scores to work his bog-iron works. Rev. Cooke and his family had multiple slaves. But as slaveholders in Shrewsbury and Christ Church, Shrewsbury they were not alone. Historian Rick Geffken who is with us here today found that there were fifty-seven Shrewsbury slaveholders in 1771. Twenty-five of those worshipped at Christ Church. Rather than focus on the enslavers though, we’d like to remember today some of the fifty-four “negroes” and “mulattos” who were baptized at Christ Church between 1733 and 1775 using the original language found in our parish registers for those years.”

 

August 5, 1746.

John: Negro servant of Thomas Clayton, resident, Freehold; under sentence of death.

 

September 18, 1748.

Henry: Negro servant (of Mr. Leonard) whose name was “Fortune.”

 

June 13, 1749.

Peter: A free negro living with Mrs. Deuill.

 

September 8, 1749.

Zebulon: Son of a mulatto woman commonly called “Black Robin.”

 

September 22, 1749.

Anthony: A negro child belonging to Mrs. Jane Forman.

 

October 28, 1749. 

Edith: 8-month-old mulatto, infant daughter of Edith Finemore.

 

August 19, 1750. 

William: A negro servant of Mr. Tunis Dennis, commonly called “Forturian.”

 

July 24, 1751.

Sarah West: Father (Robin West) is a mulatto.

 

October 4, 1751.

Elizabeth: A negro woman of Mrs. Morford.

 

March 30, 1752.

Oliver: A negro child belonging to Samuel Leonard.

 

August 23, 1752.

Elizabeth: A negro woman belonging to the widow Forman.

 

August 23, 1752.

Diego: A negro belonging to Mr. Joseph Throckmorton.

 

May 6, 1756.

Rachel: Adult negro servant of Ms. Isabella Kearny [sister in law of Rev. Samuel Cooke] and the children of Rachel (Mary, Margaret, Robert Johnson, Bella).

---

[1] Transcript created by Jolyon Pruszinski from the St. Peter’s, Freehold video broadcast of the service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU. Additional documentation is available in the article “Remembering the Enslaved at Christ Church,” hosted on the Christ Church, Shrewsbury homepage: https://christchurchshrewsbury.org/?p=6658. Note: often at this time, a designation of “mulatto” suggests rape as a likely circumstance of conception.

Sandy Hook: A Site of Memory

One of the most notorious Episcopal enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey was Middlesex County Judge, and long-serving church warden of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Spotswood, Jacob Van Wickle. Culminating in 1818, he orchestrated an illegal slave-trading ring that resulted in the fraudulent removal out-of-state of well over one hundred enslaved African Americans, some of whom had formerly been free and had been kidnapped by the agents of the ring. Many scholars and public history projects have sought to document his actions,[1] and documentation of his Episcopal affiliation and leadership has been made previously on the DNJRJR, including the efforts of fellow church leaders to deny any illegal behavior.[2] On March 10, 1818 the first ship carrying individuals trafficked by the ring set sail from Sandy Hook, New Jersey.[3]

Figure 1: Sandy Hook, NJ from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski

The ship manifest of the Mary Ann documents[4] the names and ages of those thirty-nine individuals kidnapped or trafficked under false pretenses and sold south into permanent slavery: 

 

Peter, age 15; Simon (age unknown, a free person); Margaret Coven (age unknown, a free person); Sarah, age 21; Dianna, age 7 months; Rachel, age 22; Regina, age 6 weeks; Hager, age 29; Roda, age 14; Mary, age 2; Augustus, age 4; Flora, age 23; Susan, age 7 months; Harry, age 14; James, age 21; Elmirah, age 14; George, age 16; Susan Watt, age 35; Moses, age 16; Lydia, age 18; Betty, age 22; Patty, age 22; Bass, age 19; Christeen, age 27; Diannah, age 9; Dorcas, age 1; Claresse, age 22; Hercules, age 2; Lidia, age 22; Harriett Jane, age 3; Bob (no age given); Rosanna (no age given); Claus (no age given); Ann (no age given); Rosino, a child; Jenette (no age given); Charles, a child; Elias, a child; Robert, a child.

 

Van Wickle was never indicted for his actions.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] Some excellent documentation of primary sources related to Van Wickle and the slave ring are available through the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center which hosts New Jersey slavery records. See “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” at https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/item/1284, accessed September 26, 2023. See also Francis Pingeon, “An Abominable Business: The New Jersey Slave Trade, 1818,” New Jersey History 109.3 (1991): 15-35; James J. Gigantino, II, “Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77.3 (2010): 281-302; Calvin Schermerhorn, The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 69-80; Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), 79; and Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 157-160. See also the presentation from the Lost Souls Memorial Project (“Inside the Van Wickle’s Slave Ring: ‘Exposing a Scene of Villany’” at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org/wp-content/uploads/Inside-Van-Wickles-Slave-Ring.pdf, accessed September 25, 2023); the material published by the East Brunswick Historical Society (“Van Wickle and Morgan Slave Ring Leaders East Brunswick, NJ (1818)” at https://purehistory.org/van-wickle-and-morgan-slave-ring-leaders-east-brunswick-new-jersey-1818/, accessed September 26, 2023); “The 1619 Project” article by Anne C. Bailey, “They Sold Human Beings Here,” New York Times, February 12, 2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/12/magazine/1619-project-slave-auction-sites.html, accessed September 26, 2023; the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center article “Removal to Louisiana: The Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu/archive/exhibits/show/hub-city/removal-to-louisiana, accessed September 26, 2023); Regina Fitzpatrick “New Jersey State Archives Van Wickle Slave Ring Free Digital Collection,” at https://www.njstatelib.org/news/vanwickleslaveringcollection/, accessed September 26, 2023; and the State of New Jersey, “Documents at the New Jersey State Archives relating to the Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://www.nj.gov/state/darm/WebCatalogPDF/VanWickle/VanWickleTableOfContents.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.

[2] Jolyon Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopalian Lay Leader,” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[3] Sandy Hook can be viewed from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook in Atlantic Highlands, NJ: www.monmouthcountyparks.com. Take Rte. 36 / Ocean Ave east to jug-handle signs for “Red Bank / Scenic Road.” Follow signs for the park.

[4] Also to be found at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.

NEWS: Diocesan Reparations Commission Making the Case for Reparations

Figure 1: Commission Retreat participants, June 8, 2024: Dr. J. Pruszinski, W. Coleman, 

Cn. B. Bach, Rev. S. Sutton, Rev. P. Shoaf-Kozak, Cn. A. Buchanan, Rev. Cn. C. Sang, 

Rev. B. Rauen Sciaino, J. Gloster, Bishop S. French, J. Rodriguez (photo).

The Reparations Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, co-chaired by Canon Annette Buchanan and Canon Barbie Okamoto Bach, is actively making the case for reparations in the Garden State.
        In March the Commission organized its second Stations of Reparations, a Lenten service of repentance, which was hosted by St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Asbury Park on Saturday March 16, 2024. Modelled on the traditional Stations of the Cross, the service focused on the Post-Civil War history of systemic racism in the diocese. The first Stations service, held in 2023, was the inspiration for the recent Province II collaborative service of repentance for slavery in which the Diocese of New Jersey was a participant. The March St. Augustine’s service featured testimony from members of Monmouth County Episcopal churches including Charles ​Hughes of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Red Bank, Rev. Chase Danford of Trinity Episcopal Church, Asbury Park, and ​Linda Shomo of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Asbury Park, as well as testimony about the general history of racism in the diocese based on Commission research. The service was well attended, with dozens of churches from the diocese represented among the participants. The Commission is planning additional future services in other parts of the diocese.

Figure 2: Stations of Reparations Service, St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Asbury Park, NJ, 

March 16, 2024 (Photo by Jolyon Pruszinski).

        On April 25, 2024, the Commission organized an educational reparations webinar, sixth in the "Journey Toward Reparations" series, subtitled “New Jersey's Opportunity to Learn from New York & California.” Guest speakers included New York State Senator James Sanders, Jr., the Reverend Charles Boyer of Greater Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church in Trenton, and the Reverend Dr. Darrell Armstrong of Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton. The panel was moderated by the Reverend Charles Wynder, Jr., Dean of the Chapel at St. Paul’s School, Concord, NH. Co-sponsored by New Jersey Faith Allies for Reparations, a coalition of thirty-four  faith and social justice organizations with the single goal of convincing legislators to pass bills A602/S3164 to establish a state task force to study the case for reparative justice for the lasting harms of slavery, the webinar provided an excellent chance to hear from those who have been on the front lines of advocacy for reparations in state settings.
        Commission historian, Jolyon Pruszinski, Ph.D., preached at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Ewing, New Jersey for their April 28 Anti-Racism event sponsored by the St. Luke’s Black Lives Matter committee. He and co-convener Cn. Barbie Bach presented after the service to a packed room on the historic connection between Episcopalians/Anglicans in New Jersey and slavery and racism, as well as ongoing effects in the Church, and the role of reparations in repairing, restoring, and making amends for the historic wrongs of slavery and racism.
        May 23^rd saw organization of the New Jersey Faith Allies Lobby Day at the State House in Trenton. Reparations Commission members are critical leaders in this movement and the Lobby day included direct engagement with over 20 individual legislators. Lobby day was followed quickly by a Rally Day on June 6^th in front of the State House Annex. Participants urged New Jersey legislators to take action on the aforementioned task-force bills. Co-sponsors of the Rally Day included the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ), the People's Organization for Progress, Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) of New Jersey, and the Montclair Branch of the NAACP.

        The Commission retreat on June 8^th saw Commission members connecting with and learning from Alexizendria “Zena” Link of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, who has been intimately involved in the creation and organization of the Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice (https://episcopalcoalition.org). This new non-profit entity, set up by the Episcopal Church's 80th General Convention as a voluntary association “dedicated to the work of becoming the Beloved Community,” will serve as a hub for “facilitating… supporting, and networking efforts of Episcopal dioceses, parishes, organizations, and individuals for racial justice and equity.”[1] A Reparations Commission exhibit booth at the General Convention in June will highlight diocesan racial justice efforts and provide an opportunity to network with other diocese pursuing racial justice while we await full operationalization of the Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice.
        Commission activities in research, education, and organizing are ongoing. These include efforts to uncover and share the history of congregations in the diocese, preservation of the oral histories of African American lay and clergy people, and solicitation of the needs of historically Black congregations in the diocese in support of near-future resource commitments for reparations. This summer be on the lookout for forthcoming information regarding an in-state pilgrimage connecting various historical sites with the Episcopal Church’s history of slavery and racism. The Commission would also be happy to visit your church to present, preach, or support your racism research and reparative initiatives. Please contact Canon Annette Buchanan (email), Canon Barbie O. Bach (email), or Dr. Jolyon Pruszinski (email) to make arrangements.
 
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

[1] https://episcopalcoalition.org/about.

NEWS: Boston Churches Planning Reparations Initiative

Figure 1: Trinity Church, Boston
(Gregg Squeglia, Copley Square with Trinity Church and Hancock Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0).

While the City of Boston has approved a reparations task force, and hired a team of researchers to conduct an initial historical study, White churches in the area have been asked to participate in the process of reckoning with their history with slavery and racism. The Boston People's Reparations Commission (an entity distinct from the City task force which includes various area church leaders), chaired by the Rev. Kevin Peterson, is in talks with some of Boston's historic White Churches to contribute financially to the reparations initiative. Included among the  churches in question are Arlington Street Church, Trinity Church, Old South Church, and King's Chapel. The Commission initiative is an important step toward recognizing that White churches that supported and benefitted from slavery have a reparative obligation beyond their own walls, and beyond the affiliations of their own denominations. Though some denominations have begun to take steps to consider reparative initiatives within their denominations, in many instances, those who were harmed are no longer (or never were) part of the churches that perpetrated the harm. Though many organizers expect the process of building a case for reparative action to be "a marathon," initiatives like those in Boston show that there is increasing traction in churches for addressing current inequities that have resulted from the historic injustices of slavery.

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.