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ADVISORY BOARD
Vincent Brown, Duke University
Andrew Cayton, Miami University
Cornelia Hughes Dayton, University of Connecticut
Nicole Eustace, New York University
Amy S. Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University
Ramón A. Gutiérrez, University of Chicago
Peter Charles Hoffer, University of Georgia
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, New York University
Joshua Piker, College of William & Mary
Mark M. Smith, University of South Carolina
Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University
DIVIDING THE FAITH
The Rise of Segregated Churches in the Early American North
RICHARD J. BOLES
New York University Press
NEW YORK
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
© 2020 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Boles, Richard (Richard J.), author.
Title: Dividing the faith : the rise of segregated churches in the early American North / Richard Boles.
Description: New York : New York University Press, [2020] | Series: Early American places | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020015043 (print) | LCCN 2020015044 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479803187 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479801671 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479801657 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Race relations—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Segregation—Religious aspects—Christianity. | African Americans—Segregation—New England. | Indians of North America—New England—Social conditions. | African Americans—Religious life. | African American churches—History. | Indians of North America—Religious life. | New England—Race relations. | New England—Church history.
Classification: LCC F15.A1 B65 2020 (print) | LCC F15.A1 (ebook) | DDC 305.800974270.089—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015043
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015044
For Christiane, Beatrice, and Louisa
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction
1. “Not of Whites Alone, but of Blacks Also”: Black, Indian, and European Protestants, 1730–1749
2. “I Claim Jesus Christ to Be My Right Master”: Black-White Religious Conflicts and Indian Separatists, 1740–1763
3. “Compassion upon These Outcasts”: Evangelism and Expanding Interracial Worship, 1764–1776
4. “Slavery Is a Bitter Pill”: Interracial Churches, War, and Abolitionism, 1776–1790
5. “To Restore Our Long Lost Race”: The Rise of Separate Black Churches, 1791–1820
6. “Suffering under the Rod of Despotic Pharaohs”: The Segregated North and Black and Indian Christian Radicalism, 1821–1850
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Note on Sources
Notes
Index
About the Author
Figures
I.1. Title page and frontispiece of Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)
1.1. Map of Congregational and Anglican church locations in New England that baptized and/or admitted blacks or Indians, 1730–49
2.1. Trinity Church of New York City as it appeared from 1737 to 1776
3.1. Ezra Stiles, minister of Second Congregational Church, Newport, Rhode Island
3.2. Map of northern Anglican churches that baptized multiple black people, 1764–76
4.1. Reverend Lemuel Haynes
4.2. Peter Williams Sr., an early African American member of the John Street Methodist Church
5.1. Black Philadelphians gathering for worship at their Episcopal church
5.2. The African Meetinghouse of Boston, Massachusetts, built by the First African Baptist Church in 1806
6.1. Colored Schools Broken Up, in the Free States
6.2. Reverend William Apess, Pequot
Tables
1.1. Black baptisms in Boston’s Congregational and Anglican churches, 1730–1749
2.1. Black baptisms in Boston’s Congregational and Anglican churches, 1730–1749
2.2. Black baptisms in Boston’s Congregational and Anglican churches, 1750–1763
2.3. Select list of Church of England parishes in which black people were baptized, 1750–1763
3.1. Select list of churches in which one or more Indians were baptized or admitted and approximate numbers, 1764–1790
4.1. Examples of Methodist societies and number of white and black members, 1790
5.1. Numbers of white and “colored” members in the Methodist churches in northern states, 1796–1801
6.1. Predominantly white Episcopal churches