George Whitefield, the great itinerant minister, traveled the length of the colonies in his seven trips to America between 1739 and 177.0. He was the first person to be well known throughout America and succeeded in bringing probably thousands of individuals to Christ through his powerfully emotional preaching. Many early Americans recorded their impressions of Whitefield. One was Olaudah Equiano, an African slave. In his autobiography he remembered hearing Whitefield when their paths overlapped in Savannah, Georgia, in 1765:
I came to a church crowded with people; the church-yard was full likewise, and a number of people were even mounted on ladders, looking in at the windows. I thought this a strange sight, as I had never seen churches, either in England or the West Indies, crowded in this manner before. I therefore made bold to ask some people the meaning of all this, and they...