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Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890 PDF

375 Pages·2009·6.26 MB·English
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CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION 1861-1890 AND SOUTHERN BLACKS, M. JOE RICHARDSON THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS TUSCALOOSA To Twyla Richardson, my first and best teacher The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0308 © 1986 by Joe M. Richardson All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States Paperback printing 2008 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Richardson, Joe Martin. Christian reconstruction: the American Mission ary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890/ Joe M. Richardson. p.cm. Originally published: Athens: University of Geor gia Press, c1986. Includes bibliographical references (p. and index. ISBN 978-0-8173-5538-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) l. American Missionary Association-History-19th century. I. Title. BV2360.A8R53 2009 266'.02208996073-dc22 2008024702 Contents Preface Vll 1. A Grand Field for Missionary Labor 1 2. Wartime Expansion 15 3. AMA Common Schools Mter the War 35 4. Freedmen's Relief 55 5. Friends and Allies 69 6. Administration and Fund Collecting 85 7. Public Schools and Teacher Training 107 8. The AMA Colleges 121 9. The AMA and the Black Church 141 10. Yankee Schoolteachers 161 11. Black Teachers and Missionaries 187 12. The AMA and the White Community 211 13. The AMA and the Black Community 235 Mterword 257 Notes 263 Bibliography 323 Index 337 v Preface ON 3 September 1846 the Union Missionary Society, the Committee for West Indian Missions, and the Western Evangelical Missionary So ciety united to form the American Missionary Association as a protest against the silence of other missionary agencies regarding slavery.1 The association leadership was staunchly antislavery. Prominent lead ers and supporters Lewis Tappan, Simeon S. Jocelyn, Gerrit Smith, Joshua Leavitt, George Whipple, and William Jackson were all evan gelical abolitionists who believed that the gospel was a powerful weapon against slavery. As a part of the Tappan wing of the antislav ery movement, the AMA advocated political activity, insisted upon the essentially antislavery nature of the Constitution, and was dedicated to purging the churches of the stain of slavery. 2 In its early work the association strengthened the existing missions of its parent societies in Africa and Jamaica and created or accepted the care of others in Hawaii, Egypt, the Sandwich Islands, and Siam. In 1847 it began to provide clothing for slave refugees who had fled to Canada, and later it sent teachers and preachers among the refugees to establish schools and churches and to administer relief. It main tained its Canadian missions until after the Emancipation Proclama tion. The AMA's largest activity, however, was in the United States, preaching the gospel "free from all complicity with slavery and caste." By the mid-1850s it had financed more than one hundred missionaries in the Northwest and the slave states of Missouri, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Antislavery churches were founded in the Northwest, and in the South the AMA began education and religious instruction "on an avowedly antislavery basis." In Missouri, Stephen Blanchard, an AMA worker, was indicted for circulating "incendiary" books, and the Reverend Daniel Worth was imprisoned in North Carolina for the vii viii Preface same offense. A Kansas missionary barely escaped proslavery violence in 1856. A Kentucky mob viciously whipped an association agent and drove another missionary, John G. Fee, out of the state. After being disinherited by his slaveholding father for his antislavery views, Fee in the mid-1850s moved to a small plot ofland given him by the notorious antislavery figure Cassius M. Clay. He called his new home Berea. Fee built a rude log cabin and organized a church and school that recog nized no distinction of race, caste, or color. The school later became Berea College. At different times Fee was dragged from the pulpit to be ducked in the river, hunted through the mountains to be whipped, and shot at in his home, but he, like other AMA agents, persisted in his antislavery teaching.3 When the Civil War erupted, the AMA was probably more an anti slavery than a missionary society, yet its experience, organization, and fund-gathering capability enabled it to lead the way in providing sys tematic relief and education for slaves escaping from Confederate lines. It sent agents to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, in September 1861. The number of teachers and missionaries sent to assist freedmen in creased to 250 in 1864 and to 320 in 1865. By 1868 the AMA had 532 agents in the southern and border states. The association provided relief, attempted to help blacks acquire land, demanded civil and polit ical rights for former slaves, established schools and churches, and fought for a system of public education in the South. The first AMA schools were elementary, but from the beginning the association planned to establish normal schools and colleges. It early decided that blacks should eventually furnish their own teachers. No race, AMA officials thought, should be permanently dependent upon another race for its development. Though whites should assist, and initially would provide leadership and teachers, blacks must eventu ally playa major role in working out their future with their own edu cators and leaders. As soon as the southern states began to establish public schools, the AMA deemphasized common schools and concen trated on graded schools, normal schools, and colleges. Although its elementary training and relief were significant, the AMA's most last ing contribution was the establishment of normal schools and colleges. Association officers were motivated by religion and patriotism, and an educated, moral, industrious black citizenry was their goal. Equal ity before the law was "the gospel rule," the AMA concluded, and the Preface ix country's "political salvation" depended upon its implementation. Un fortunately the association sometimes failed to live up to its own lofty ideals. It failed to recognize the richness and vitality of black culture and institutions and only belatedly to comprehend black insistence on self-determination. Paternalism and racial prejudice were too often present in its agents. Nevertheless, the AMA became the most signifi cant of the many benevolent societies assisting blacks during the Civil War and Reconstruction, and it came closer to a full recognition of black rights and needs than did most nineteenth-century Americans. This study is an attempt to portray the strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures of the American Missionary Association in its efforts to bring blacks into the mainstream of American life. Many people assisted in the preparation of this book. I appreciate the courtesies extended to me by the library staffs at Dillard Univer sity, Fisk University, Talladega College, Berea College, Florida State University, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of South Carolina, Louisiana State University, the University of Texas, the University of Arkansas, Yale University, Bowdoin College, the Ar kansas Historical Commission, Syracuse University, the South Car olina Department of Archives and History, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress. I am especially grateful to Clifton H. Johnson, executive director of the Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, and his efficient staff. Cliff's encouragement and advice were invaluable. Maxine D. Jones cheerfully shared her knowledge of and enthusiasm for the American Missionary Association. My son, Joseph, patiently listened to stories about the association, even when he was not interested. I have been fortunate in having Charles East copyedit the manuscript. He also offered advice on the use of illustrations. Portions of chapter 9 ap peared in an article in the spring 1979 issue of Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South and are herein used with per mission. I am indebted to Patricia Richardson, Clifton H. Johnson, W. Augustus Low, Leslie Richardson, and Maxine D. Jones for read ing the manuscript and giving me advice on both style and content. It is not their fault if I sometimes failed to follow their advice.

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"Joe Richardson's Christian Reconstruction is a solid addition to historical scholarship on the work of Yankee missionaries among the freedmen during the Civil War and Reconstruction. . . . Without question, this is the most comprehensive history of the American Missionary Association (AMA), and no
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