the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. It
had notable officials, the Archbishop of Canterbury being its first president; it worked in America
82 years, accomplishing something but after all
not very much, on account of the persistent objection of the masters. The Moravians were more
eager and sent missionaries to the Negroes, converting large numbers in the West Indies and
some in the United States in the 18th century.
Into the new Methodist Church which came to
America in 1766, large numbers of Negroes
poured from the first, and finally the Baptists in
the 18th century had at least one fourth of their
membership composed of Negroes, so that in 1800
there were 14,000 black Methodists and some
20,000 black Baptists.[1]
It must not be assumed that this missionary work acted on raw material. Rather it reacted and was itself influenced by a very definite and important body of thought and belief on the part of the Negroes. Religion in the United States was not simply brought to the Negro by the missionaries. To treat it in that way is to miss the essence of the Negro action and reaction upon American religion. We must think of the transplanting of the Negro as transplanting to the
- ↑ Charles C. Jones, Religious Instruction of the Negroes, Savannah, 1842.
