[Footnote 61:  J.B.  Earnest, The Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia (Charlottesville, 1914), pp. 72-83.  For the similar trend of church segregation in the Northern cities see J.W.  Cromwell, The Negro in American History (Washington, 1914). pp. 61-70.]

At Baltimore there were in 1835 ten colored congregations, with slave and free membership intermingled, several of which had colored ministers;[62] and by 1847 the number of churches had increased to thirteen or more, ten of which were Methodist.[63] In 1860 there were two or more colored congregations at Norfolk; at Savannah three colored churches were paying salaries of $800 to $1000 to their colored ministers,[64] and in Atlanta a subscription was in progress for the enlargement of the negro church building to relieve its congestion.[65] By this time a visitor in virtually any Southern city might have witnessed such a scene as William H. Russell described at Montgomery:[66] “As I was walking ...  I perceived a crowd of very well-dressed negroes, men and women, in front of a plain brick building which I was informed was their Baptist meeting-house, into which white people rarely or never intrude.  These were domestic servants, or persons employed in stores, and their general appearance indicated much comfort and even luxury.  I doubted if they all were slaves.  One of my companions went up to a woman in a straw hat, with bright red and green ribbon trimmings and artificial flowers, a gaudy Paisley shawl, and a rainbow-like gown blown out over her yellow boots by a prodigious crinoline, and asked her ‘Whom do you belong to?’ She replied, ’I b’long to Massa Smith, sar.’”

[Footnote 62:  Niles’ Register, XLIX, 72.]

[Footnote 63:  J.R.  Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 206.]

[Footnote 64:  D.R.  Hundley, Social Relations in our Southern States (New York, 1860), pp. 350, 351.]

[Footnote 65:  Atlanta Intelligencer, July 13, 1859, editorial commending the purpose.]

[Footnote 66:  W.H.  Russell, My Diary North and South (Boston, 1863), p. 167.]

CHAPTER XXI

FREE NEGROES

In the colonial period slaves were freed as a rule only when generous masters rated them individually deserving of liberty or when the negroes bought themselves.  Typical of the time were the will of Thomas Stanford of New Jersey in 1722 directing that upon the death of the testator’s wife his negro man should have his freedom if in the opinion of three neighbors named he had behaved well,[1] and a deed signed by Robert Daniell of South Carolina in 1759 granting freedom to his slave David Wilson in consideration of his faithful service and of L600 currency in hand paid.[2] So long as this condition prevailed, in which the ethics of slaveholding were little questioned, the freed element remained extremely small.