Rev. Peter Williams Jr. (1786-1840): Second Ordained African-American Episcopal Priest

Detail of "Rev. Peter Williams [Jr.].” 
From Woodson, The History of the Negro Church, 94­–95 
(courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Peter Williams, Jr. was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey (in the Diocese of New Jersey) in 1786. His family moved to New York soon after, where his father was involved in the founding of the AME Zion Church. Williams attended the African Free School as a child and received tutoring from the Episcopal priests Thomas Lyell and John Henry Hobart. In New York he attended Trinity Church[1] as a young man until he helped to found St. Philip’s African Church, which was the second founded Black Episcopal church in the United States.[2] He published extensively on abolition,[3] jointly founding the first African American newspaper in the United States, Freedom’s Journal,[4] and regularly argued against the racist positions of the American Colonization Society (ACS). In 1808 he delivered an abolitionist address in the City which was to become one of the first published Black abolitionist writings. In this speech he said:

 

Review, for a moment, my brethren, the history of the Slave Trade, engendered in the foul recesses of the sordid mind, the unnatural monster inflicted gross evils on the human race. Its baneful footsteps are marked with blood; its infections breath spreads war and desolation; and its train is composed of the complicated miseries, of cruel and unceasing bondage...[5]

 

Oh, God! We thank thee, that thou didst condescend to listen to the cries of Africa’s wretched sons; and that thou didst interfere in their behalf. At thy call humanity sprang forth, and espoused the cause of the oppressed: one hand she employed in drawing from their vitals the deadly arrows of injustice; and the other in holding a shield, to defend them from fresh assaults: and at that illustrious moment, when the sons of ’76 pronounced these United States free and independent; when the spirit of patriotism, erected a temple sacred to liberty; when the inspired voice of Americans first uttered those noble sentiments, “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and when the bleeding African, lifting his fetters, exclaimed, “am I not a man and a brother;” then with redoubled efforts, the angel of humanity strove to restore to the African race, the inherent rights of man.[6]

 

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1826, the second Black man ordained in the Episcopal church, and became the first rector of St. Philip’s. White leaders of his diocese often sought to control or prevent his abolitionist work,[7] but he remained a persistent voice for equality and freedom. When, following a riot instigated by the ACS in 1834 against abolitionists, in which Williams’ own home was burned and his church temporarily closed, and Bishop Onderdonk exhorted Williams to dissociate himself from the American Anti-Slavery Society,[8] Williams wrote the following firm response:

 

In regard to my opposition to the Colonization Society… that Society has held out the idea, that a colored man, however he may strive to make himself intelligent, virtuous and useful, can never enjoy the privileges of a citizen of the United States, but must ever remain a degraded and oppressed being. I could not, and do not believe that the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Gospel of Christ, have not power sufficient to raise him…[9]

 

For more online about the great Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. see:

 

Peter Williams, Jr., “An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/16/

 

"The Rev. Peter Williams, Jr., 1786-1840" at Episcopal archives

https://episcopalarchives.org/church-awakens/exhibits/show/leadership/clergy/williamssp 

George F. Bragg, History of the Afro-American Group of the Episcopal Church (Baltimore: Church Advocate Press, 1922), especially pp. 81-89:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_the_Afro_American_Group_of_th/RIfZAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

"The Reverend Peter Williams, Jr." at Black Presence

https://blackpresence.episcopalny.org/person/the-reverend-peter-williams-jr-3/

 

"Peter Williams, Jr." at Black Past

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/williams-peter-jr-1780-1840/

 

"Peter Williams, Jr." on wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Williams_Jr.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

 

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[1] Now known as Trinity Church, Wall Street.

[2] First organized in 1809, and formally admitted to the Episcopal Church in 1819. See George F. Bragg, History of the Afro-American Group of the Episcopal Church (Baltimore: Church Advocate Press, 1922), 81-89. The Church has moved location northward to Harlem since its founding.

[3] See, for example, his speech “An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” delivered in 1808: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/16/.

[4] See Jacqueline Bacon, Freedom's Journal: The First African-American Newspaper (Lexington Books, 2007). See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom%27s_Journal.

[5] Williams, “An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” 12.

[6] Williams, “An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” 19.

[7] See D.C. Heath, “The coercion of a black priest: Peter Williams, 1834,” in David B. Davis, ed., Antebellum American Culture (Lexington, MA: 1979), 295-98.

[8] Williams was on the board of the organization.

[9] Heath, “The coercion of a black priest,” 297.

VIDEO: The Lasting Impact of Slavery in New Jersey (Part 2)

 The Price of Silence is a two-part documentary dealing with the history of slavery in New Jersey and its aftermath. Part two addresses "The Lasting Impact of Slavery in New Jersey." The Price of Silence is a production of Truehart Productions and Public Media NJ, Inc. Major funding for The Price of Silence was provided by Chasing the Dream with support from The JPB Foundation and additional funding from The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, and Sue and Edgar Wachenheim, III. "Chasing the Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America" is a multiplatform public media initiative from The WNET Group in New York, reporting on poverty, justice, and economic opportunity, and showcasing promising solutions.

VIDEO: The Forgotten Story of New Jersey's Enslaved People (Part 1)

The Price of Silence is a two-part documentary dealing with the history of slavery in New Jersey and its aftermath. Part one addresses "The Forgotten Story of New Jersey's Enslaved People." The Price of Silence is a production of Truehart Productions and Public Media NJ, Inc. Major funding for The Price of Silence was provided by Chasing the Dream with support from The JPB Foundation and additional funding from The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, and Sue and Edgar Wachenheim, III. "Chasing the Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America" is a multiplatform public media initiative from The WNET Group in New York, reporting on poverty, justice, and economic opportunity, and showcasing promising solutions.

Tinton Falls African Burial Ground: A Site of Memory

Stone marker at Tinton Falls African Burial Ground. Photo J. Pruszinski.

An engraved stone at the Tinton Falls African Burial Ground[1] states the following:

 

ENSLAVED BLACKS, BROUGHT TO LEWIS MORRIS’S IRONWORKS IN 1675, WERE BURIED IN THIS AREA. THE BLACK PEOPLE ON MORRIS’S TINTON MANOR ESTATE WERE THE LARGEST POPULATION OF ENSLAVED BLACKS IN EAST JERSEY FOR NEARLY A CENTURY.

 

A nearby wooden plaque reads:

 

            BURIAL GROUND

This area was a burial ground for enslaved African-Americans who worked at Lewis Morris’s Ironworks in the 1670’s. The Tinton Manor Ironworks was the first in New Jersey, relying on water power from the falls, local supplies of bog iron, and the labor of slaves buried here. Although no grave markers remain, the site is a reminder of our community’s early history and must not be forgotten.

 

There are no other markers for this site, but many things to remember.[2]

The Lewis Morris referenced in the engraving at the burial ground was the uncle of the man who would later become Governor of New Jersey. That younger Morris was the earliest prominent lay booster of the Anglican Church in New Jersey. He was named for his uncle, who had moved to the American colonies from Barbados to care for the young Lewis when his father died. When he emigrated, Morris’ uncle was sure to capitalize on the plantation land grants available in New Jersey for those who brought slaves, bringing at least forty enslaved Black people in 1677.[3] This enabled his accumulation of the 6000-acre Tinton Falls estate where the burial ground is located. There he established a bog-iron works, mill complex, plantation, and manor that, by 1690, enslaved at least sixty-seven Black people.[4] The younger Lewis Morris inherited his uncle’s holdings when he died in 1691. His own accounting of the number of enslaved Black people on the estate at that time was approximately double the number officially recorded in the will.[5]

The iron works was located on Pine Brook, the stream immediately adjacent to the burial ground. The enslaved people, through whose enslavement Morris’ vast wealth was produced, were forced into “backbreaking labor”[6] on the manor. In that place “a sawmill turned timber culled from the thousands of acres of surrounding forest into lumber for use in the manor and for export to New York markets. A gristmill produced flour from the acres of wheat, rye, barley, oats and corn.”[7] The enslaved “planted, tended and harvested these crops,” not unlike “the difficult field labor they [had] performed in the sugar cane fields of Barbados… the enslaved men were forced to work long hours and days with just enough sustenance to keep them going.”[8] Their “rudimentary shelter” involved sleeping on a “dirt floor with hay or straw.”[9] And the “most… dangerous and heavy-duty work for making the valuable bar iron [on the estate] was done by” the enslaved.[10]

The younger Morris accumulated great wealth through enslavement and heavily supported the Church of England as a “staunch patron” and “shining light,”[11] according to church historian Nelson Burr. Morris contributed to the establishment of St. Peter’s (Perth Amboy)[12] and Christ Church (Shrewsbury),[13] St. Michael’s Church (Trenton), and even attempted to establish the Church of England through the New Jersey legislature.[14] He was an early member of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in New Jersey, served on the first vestry of Trinity Church (now known as Trinity Church, Wall Street), and ultimately became governor of the Province of New Jersey. He was one of the most influential lay Anglicans in New Jersey during the colonial period and may have been the most prolific enslaver in the American colonies at the time.[15] And lest we think that the Morrises’ practice of enslavement was somehow enlightened by a significant moral sensibility, we should note that his cousin (and business partner) of Passage Point, also named Lewis Morris,[16] was murdered in 1696 in revenge for killing one of the Black people he had enslaved.[17] The baptism records of the enslaved during this period in Monmouth County similarly show that Anglican “masters” regularly raped the women they enslaved.[18]

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] 750 Tinton Ave., Tinton Falls, NJ 07724.

[2] Some of the following material is drawn from Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Anglican Slavery in New Jersey (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2025).

[3] John Robert Strassburger, “The Origins and Establishment of the Morris Family in the Society and Politics of New York and New Jersey, 1630-1746,” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1976), 67. See also Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865 (Madison: Madison House, 1997), 9.

[4] Dean Freiday, “Tinton Manor: The Iron Works,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 74 (1952): 250-61. There were “60 or 70” enslaved Blacks there according to George Scot, The model of the government of the province of East-New-Jersey (Edinburgh: John Reid, 1685), 128-129. See also Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North, 9.

[5] Rick Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021), 47.

[6] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.

[7] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.

[8] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.

[9] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.

[10] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.

[11] Nelson Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1954), 8, 216.

[12] William McGinnis, A History of St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 1686-1956 (Woodbridge, NJ: Woodbridge, 1956), 21.

[13] George Keith, A Journal of Travels from New-Hampshire to Caratuck on the Continent of North-America (London: Joseph Downing, 1706), 34, 46; David Humphreys, An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to the Year 1728(London: J. Downing, 1730), 57.

[14] Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, 157, 10.

[15] The mine at Tinton Falls accounted for approximately half of the enslaved Black population of Monmouth County at the time (Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North, 12).

[16] Passage Point was a location within Shrewsbury. 

[17] Daniel J. Weeks, Not for Filthy Lucre’s Sake: Richard Salatar and the Antiproprietary Movement in East New Jersey, 1665-1707 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2001), 113.

[18] The parish register of Christ Church Shrewsbury shows evidence of baptisms of 4 “bastards” and 12 “mulatto” “servants,” suggesting impregnation by Anglican heads of household. Parish register of Christ Church, Shrewsbury, N.J. See also Robert M. Kelley, “Slavery Evidenced in the Parish Register,” Christ Church Shrewsbury (January 2019): https://christchurchshrewsbury.org/?page_id=3459.

Toward "Normalizing Reparations"

Compensating those who have experienced harm, financial or otherwise, is something the U.S. federal government does all the time. Need this then be commonly considered so outlandish, atypical, or offensive when it is called “reparations” and is proposed for well-documented, race-based harms? This is the primary question addressed in a recent article by Linda J. Bilmes and Cornell William Brooks titled “Normalizing Reparations: U.S. Precedent, Norms, and Models for Compensating Harms and Implications for Reparations to Black Americans.” It should be required reading for anyone considering whether such reparative proposals have merit, and certainly for those advocating for reparations for the effects of slavery and racism in the United States.

            Bilmes’ and Brooks’ article accomplishes four main things: 1) it provides a “taxonomy of illustrative harms” that have affected Black people in the United States, 2) it summarizes examples of U.S. government programs that involve “reparative compensation”, 3) it describes the commonly articulated obstacles to providing reparative compensation for the effects of slavery and racism in the United States, and 4) it highlights the ways in which the characteristics of existing programs prove that the traditionally identified obstacles to reparative compensation for Black Americans are in fact no obstacles at all.

One of the most useful components of “Normalizing Reparations” is the concise summary presented of “illustrative harms” to Black Americans that have occurred since the Civil War (pp. 32-39). The harms enumerated specifically are housing related, education related, and wage/employment/labor related. Rather than reiterate the obvious conceit that slavery was wrong and harmed Black Americans, the authors describe the history since the Civil War of these three large categories of injustice against Black Americans. This approach serves not only to show that the racial harms experienced by Black people are significant and interrelated, but that they have compounded over time, proving for the skeptical that the negative after-effects of slavery still reverberate and are being amplified across generations.

The next large section of the paper presents an “audit” of the various historical, and currently operating, U.S. government programs that deal with reparative compensation for harms (pp. 39-51). Though in government parlance these initiatives are typically not termed “reparations,”[1] the programs that enact reparative compensation for harms are very numerous and well-established. Bilmes and Brooks note that such programs include compensation for harms experienced by

coal miners; farmers whose crops have failed; workers whose companies have gone bankrupt; victims of terrorism and natural disasters; people exposed to nuclear radiation; military veterans; individuals wrongfully convicted in the legal system; people denied earnings on tribal lands; fishermen facing depleted fish stocks; individuals harmed by pesticides, toxins, vaccines, or medical devices; workers and businesses affected by U.S. trade agreements; depositors in banks; and numerous other categories. (p. 40).

In essence, it is exceedingly commonplace for the federal government to make reparative compensation. “The U.S. government often decides that society (as a whole) will be better off if it compensates for certain losses or hardships that individuals have experienced while contributing to the nation” (pp. 40-41). Among the examples treated more exhaustively are the robust government programs of reparative agricultural subsidies, nuclear testing exposure compensation, pension insurance, and restitutive compensation for abridgments to native land rights. 

Early on in their “taxonomy of illustrative harms,” Bilmes and Brooks enumerate three traditional contentions about the harms that Black Americans have experienced that are commonly “used to argue that reparations are incalculable, impractical, and if not impossible to administer, the [at least] too expensive” (p. 32). These stated obstacles include “the assumed distance between the slavery of the past and the present conditions of Black Americans, the documented breadth of racial harms experienced by Blacks since 1619, and the painful depth of those harms” (p. 32). At the same time, they note polling that suggests that opposition to reparations “is due primarily to doubt over government’s ability to administer reparations, feasibility of valuing slavery’s harms, and the belief that Black Americans are undeserving or are already treated equally” (31). Enumerating these objections clearly enables the very logical rebuttals of these objections which are woven throughout the article.

            Though indeed the “illustrative harms” are grievous,[2] they are neither incalculable nor are they too large to address. Government reparative compensation programs have regularly been initiated before knowing the full scope of harms and have allowed for the expansion of compensation when new harms are discovered or documented. Such was the case with the various initiatives that compensated for harms as the result of nuclear testing and research (pp. 43-46). These programs have amounted to compensation in the tens of billions of dollars, but some initiatives have involved far greater sums including hundreds of billions of dollars in agricultural reparative compensation (pp. 41-42), and trillions which were awarded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (p. 40). The government administers hundreds of such programs successfully and is certainly well positioned to administer similar programs addressing harms to Black Americans. Moreover, many of these programs compensate next-of-kin or descendants[3] for harms done to previous generations,[4] and regularly address issues in the far past, not merely those in the immediate present.[5]

In short, “hundreds of federal, state and local programs provide some combination of restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation to victims of harms” and “millions of Americans are eligible for compensation due to personal injury, illness, disease, economic losses, exposure to toxins, disasters, and other reasons” (p. 40). “Given that Black Americans have long been deprived of the ability to accumulate wealth, [the authors] argue that it is consistent with precedent for the country to choose to secure a more… fair society by providing compensation to Black Americans for unpaid contributions to the country and in recognition of the suffering endured” (p. 41). Further, “by acknowledging the precedent for reparative compensation in parallel, but nonracial circumstances, it is easier to imagine and to articulate the case for reparations related to slavery and its aftermath” (p. 41). As the authors state in their conclusion, “the norm, precedent, and federal expertise are all in place to make reparatory compensation a reality for Black Americans—now” (p. 52). Bilmes’ and Brooks’ article is an excellent resource deserving of your time and attention.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] Though there are exceptions, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission program (p. 41).

[2] The “illustrative harms” section of “Normalizing Reparations” (pp. 32-39) certainly proves that the common argument that “Black Americans are undeserving or are already treated equally” (p. 31) is utterly without merit.

[3] E.g. programs for terrorism related harms (p. 42).

[4] E.g. nuclear weapons testing compensation programs (p. 43, 45), and Native land rights compensation (p. 48).

[5] Though as we see in “Normalizing Reparations,” the harms done to Black Americans are by no means sequestered to the distant past.

VIDEO: NJ Reparations Council Public Session #8 - Economic Justice

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ) has posted video from the eighth of nine public sessions sponsored by the New Jersey Reparations Council, held on December 12, 2024. The content deals with the work of the Committee on "Economic Justice" in New Jersey.

The White Church / Black Church Funding Gap

Charting the racial wealth gap in New Jersey in the NJISJ Study.

Study after study[1] has shown that in the United States there is a persistent gap between per-capita White wealth and per-capita Black wealth as a result of the effects of slavery and racism. This gap has existed since the founding of the republic, with the ratio of White to Black per-capita wealth at the time of the Civil War standing at approximately 60:1. By the year 1900 the gap had closed to 10:1, but since then progress in closing the gap has been very slow. In the intervening 120 years the gap has only closed to a 5:1 per-capita discrepancy at the national level.[2]

            However, the picture in New Jersey is markedly worse. As of 2018, the per-capita ratio of White wealth to Black wealth was approximately 21:1, while the gap at the household level was only marginally better at 18:1.[3]

            What does this have to do with churches in the Diocese of New Jersey? The Diocese is home to ten historically Black churches, most of which were founded so that Black Episcopalians in the diocese could have some degree of protection from racism, including known racism in the church. That the ministry of these churches remains necessary is without doubt. The problem lies with the cost of running a parish. 

It costs Black Episcopalians just as much to run a church as it costs White Episcopalians. But if Black household wealth is dramatically and persistently lower in New Jersey due to the effects of slavery and racism, then Black Episcopalians operate under a default expectation to give a dramatically higher percentage of their wealth to ensure the functioning of their parishes than White Episcopalians attending predominantly White Episcopal Churches operate with. There has been ad-hoc funding at the Diocesan level made available to Black churches since their founding, but it has been in no way commensurate to the racial wealth gap.

One form that reparations could take in the Diocese of New Jersey might involve concrete steps at the Diocesan level, and funding at a commensurate scale, to address this persistent funding gap for Historically Black Churches that has resulted from the negative wealth effects to Black Episcopalians of long-standing racist policies and behaviors in the State of New Jersey.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] For several examples see the forthcoming book See also the forthcoming book by Calvin Schermerhorn, The Plunder of Black America: How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Made (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2025).

[2] See Steve Maas, “Exploring 160 Years of the Black-White Wealth Gap,” https://www.nber.org/digest/202208/exploring-160-years-black-white-wealth-gap.

[3] See the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, “The Two New Jerseys by the Numbers: Racial Wealth Disparities in the Garden State,” https://njisj.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Two_New_Jerseys_By_the_Numbers_Data_Brief_3.23.23-compressed.pdf.