NOTES

THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY

VOL.  I—­OCTOBER, 1916—­No. 4

THE WORK OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE COLONIES

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was organized in London in the year 1701.  During the eighteenth century the British Colonies of the New World constituted the principal field of missionary endeavor for this organization.  There were then in North America 250,000 settlers, whole colonies of whom were living in heathenism while others were adhering to almost every variety of strange faiths.  The work of proselyting these people was too important to be intrusted to individual enterprise and too extensive to be successfully prosecuted by the heads of the Church only.  The ministrations of the Established Church were then limited to a few places in Virginia, New York, Maryland and the cities of Boston and Philadelphia.  To supply this deficiency the Society endeavored to use missionaries as a direct means to convert the heathen of all races, whether Europeans, Indians or Negroes.  There were cruel masters who objected to the conversion of their slaves,[1] but that any race should be denied the message of salvation because of its color was ever repudiated by the Society.  From the very beginning of this work the conversion of the Negroes was as important to the Society as that of bringing the whites or the Indians into the church.  Such dignitaries of the church, as Rev. Thomas Bacon and Bishops Fleetwood, Lowth, Sanderson and Wilson, ever urged this duty upon their brethren at home and abroad.[2]

The first really effective work of the Society was done in South Carolina.  Reverend Mr. Thomas of Goose Creek Parish in that State early instructed the Indian and Negro slaves of his vicinity.  He directed his attention to the Negroes in 1695 and ten years later counted among his communicants twenty blacks, who with several others “well understanding the English tongue,” could read and write.  He further said, in 1705:  “I have here presumed to give an account of one thousand slaves so far as they know of it and are desirous of Christian knowledge and seem willing to prepare themselves for it, in learning to read, for which they redeem the time from their labor.  Many of them can read the Bible distinctly and great numbers of them were learning when I left the province."[3]

This work, however, had not proceeded without much opposition.  The sentiment as to the enlightenment of the blacks was largely that of the youth who resolved never to go to the holy table while slaves were received there.  Others felt like the lady who inquired:  “Is it possible that any of my slaves should go to heaven, and must I see them there?"[4] The earnest workers sent out by the Society, however, did not cease