8. Quotation: JLW to RA, 12 June 1836, ABCFM.
9. Dubose, Memoirs, 20–21; John Miller Wells, Southern Presbyterian Worthies (Richmond, VA, 1936), 51–52. For JLW’s acknowledgment of the secret world of black slaves, see J. Leighton Wilson, Western Africa: Its History, Condition, and Prospects (New York, 1856), 215. This secret world continued in the local African American community for a number of generations. Interviews by the author with older members of the African American community organized by the Reverend Ella Busby, Goodwill Presbyterian Church, Sumter County, South Carolina, 13 May 2011. Most striking were the memories of root doctors and the experience of having hags take the breath away. William Warren of Charleston said that he and other whites had had similar experiences. Following his experience, black friends told him that it was a hag who had ridden his chest. Interview on 15 May 2011.
10. “A List of Colored Members of Mt. Zion Church,” Session Records, MZPC; “Mt. Zion Church Bond for the Year 1844,” Deacons Book, MZPC; Howe, History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, vol. 2, 250–251, 347–348, 484.
11. JLW to MMW, 4 January 1832, SCL; Murchison, “John Leighton Wilson,”5. For the character of the plantation kitchen with its equipage, see John Michael Vlack, Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993), 43–47. For the best account of foods prepared in the plantation kitchens of the South Carolina Lowcountry, see Karen Hess, The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection (Columbia, SC, 1992).
12. DuBose, Memoirs, 13; Murchison, “John Leighton Wilson,” 6. Cf. C. Van Woodward, Thinking Back: The Perils of Writing History (Baton Rouge, LA, 1986), 14.
13. Wilson later spoke of the “less open form” of slave life in the American South. See Wilson, Western Africa, 215.
14. Older blacks in Sumter County have vivid memories of the ways in which whites sought to control blacks. Interviews at Goodwill Presbyterian Church, Sumter County, South Carolina, 13 May 2011.
15. For a review of scholarly discussions of slave day-to-day resistance, see Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York, 1989). See also, for slave resistance, Philip Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill, NC, 1998); John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (New York, 1999).
16. For the “Pine Grove” name, see JLW to JB, 30 April 1833, CTS. For small farms of the Lowcountry, see Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Lowcountry (Oxford, 1995).
17. DuBose, Memoirs, 20–21; Wells, Southern Presbyterian Worthies, 51–52.
18. For the role of landscapes in shaping human perspectives and emotions, see Benjamin Z. Kedar and R. J. Zwi Werblowski, Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land (New York, 1998); Frederick Turner, Spirit of Place: The Making of an American Literary Landscape (San Francisco, 1989); and Wendell Berry, What Are People For? (Berkeley, CA, 1996). For the role of place, history, and tradition among many white Southerners, see Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., The Fourth Ghost: White Southern Writers and European Fascism, 1930–1950 (Baton Rouge, LA, 2009), 24–70. For the relationship of memory to place and identity, see Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago, 2004), 41, 56–92.
19. JLW to RA, 12 June 1836, ABCFM; JLW to RA, 23 January 1843, ABCFM; JBW to RA, 1 April 1843, ABCFM; “Report on Slavery,” The Liberator, 30 September 1842, 154. For slaves’ attachment to the places where they “were born and brought up,” and the reasons for such attachments, see Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881; reprint, New York, 1962), 97.
20. JLW to MMW, November 1828, SCL; DuBose, Memoirs, 11, 22–27; Murchison, “John Leighton Wilson,” 5; John Adger, My Life and Times (Richmond, VA, 1899), 58–69.
21. Quotations: JLW to “Dear Sisters,” 1 March 1828, SCL.
22. JLW to MEW, 1 August 1828, SCL.
23. Quotation: ibid.
24. DuBose, Memoirs, 24–25. For comparison of the Catskill region to distant places, see J. Leighton Wilson, “Journal of a Tour to Grabbo,” 3 March 1837 to 5 April 1837, ABCFM.
25. For the Wilson family, see Wilson “Births,” “Deaths,” and “Marriages,” Wilson Family Bible, CTS.
26. Quotation: Howe, History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, vol. 2, 651–652. For JLW’s deepening concern over slavery and his own ownership of slaves, see JLW to JB, 29 December 1832, CTS; JLW to RA, 12 June 1836, ABCFM; JLW to RA, 23 January 1843, ABCFM.
27. Quotation: DuBose, Memoirs, 29. On the Adgers, see Adger, My Life and Times, 34–40; Tom Downey, “Adger, James,” in The South Carolina Encyclopedia, ed. Walter Edgar (Columbia, SC, 2006), 4–5.
28. For Palmer as a progressive church leader, see Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (Oxford, 2009), 254. For the membership of Circular Congregational Church, see Circular Congregational Church, Independent C. Church Register, 1796–1824, Book of Church Records, 1825–1850, and the 1818 Statement of Faith and Constitution with List of Signatures, Circular Congregational Church archives. For the social profile of the congregation, see Erskine Clarke, Our Southern Zion: Calvinism in the South Carolina Low Country 1690–1990 (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1996), 142–164.
29. Good entry points for the Second Great Awakening are Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, CT, 1972), 385–510; Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT, 1989); Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, MI, 1992), 163–244. For Palmer and those joining Circular Congregational Church, see Benjamin Morgan Palmer, “Pastor’s Book,” SCHS; Circular Congregational Church, Membership Records, SCHS. Note that Snetter left for Liberia before his formal preparation for church membership was completed. His wife was already a member. See JLW to JHBL, 6 September 1836, MSCS.
30. Quotations: JLW to MMW, 2 August 1830, SCL.
31. This understanding of his conversion and conversion in general developed over the years. At first the focus was on turning his heart over to God and being accepted by God. But from the first there was also the experience of Jesus as his redeemer and savior. See JLW to MMW, 2 August 1830, SCL; JLW to “My Dear Sisters,” 9 September 1830, SCL; JLW to MMW, 30 October 1830, SCL; JLW to SSW, 14 January 1831, SCL.
32. Quotations: JLW to MMW, 30 October 1830; hymn “Amazing Grace.” For JLW’s reflections on the death of a Christian, see JLW to RA, 28 January 1837, ABCFM; JLW to “Dear Parents, Brothers, Sisters and Friends,” 27 October 1841, CTS. For JLW’s comparison of the death of a Christian with that of one “with no hope,” see J. Leighton Wilson, “Journal of a Tour to Grabbo,” 3 March 1837 to 5 April 1837, ABCFM.
33. For JLW’s commitment to self-knowledge and reflection, see JLW to MMW, 2 August 1830, SCL; JLW to “My Dear Sisters,” 9 September 1830, SCL; JLW to MMW, 30 October 1830, SCL. For an example of praise for JLW’s character and integrity—by one who differed strongly with him in regard to colonization and missions and who was in frequent conflict with him—see James Hall, Colonization Journal, 2nd ser., vol. 2 (1843): 3.
34. Benjamin Morgan Palmer, “Pastor’s Book,” SCHS. For Snetter as a barber, see State Free Negro Capitalization Tax Book for 1823, 1826, and 1827, SCHS; and “93 Market Street,” Directory for the City of Charleston, 1829, SCHS. For the important place of black barbers in Southern society, and Charleston in particular, see Douglas Walter Bristol, Jr., Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom (Baltimore, 2009), 104–105, 126–127, 137–138, 160–162. For Snetter’s relationship to Grimké, see JLW to JHBL, 6 September 1836, MSCS. On Thomas Grimké, see Adrienne Koch, “Two Charlestonians in Pursuit of Truth: The Grimké Brothers,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 69 (1968): 159–170.
35. Quotation: James 1:23. For the reform im
pulse stirred by the Second Great Awakening, see Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, 415–428.
36. For the debate over colonization in Charleston, see Ford, Deliver Us from Evil, 318–322. In recent years historians have engaged in a vigorous debate about Denmark Vesey and the alleged insurrection associated with his name. For helpful summaries and judicious reflections on the debate, see ibid., 207–298; and David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (Oxford, 2006), 221–225.
37. For the American Colonization Society, see P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816–1865 (New York, 1961). For a sympathetic contemporary interpretation of colonization by a Princeton Seminary professor, see Archibald Alexander, A History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa (Philadelphia, 1846). See also below, Chapter 4, note 22, on the colonization movement.
38. Henry and his family had lived with Gregorie on Anson Street in Charleston in the 1820s. See State Free Negro Capitalization Tax Book for 1822, SCHS. Quotations: The Friend 5 (1832): 283.
39. Henry and his family sailed on the Hercules and landed on 6 January 1833. For Snetter, see The Friend 5 (1832): 384. For the death of Charles Henry and family members from fever, see http://ccharity.com/shipherculess1833.htm.
40. Quotation: Minutes, Charleston Union Presbytery, 1 March 1830, PHS. Note that this was before JLW’s conversion experience.
41. For the democratic impulse in the Western revivals, see Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity, esp. 49–66. Cf. Clarke, Our Southern Zion, 165–166.
42. Quotation: Howe, History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, vol. 2, 416–417. See also Clarke, Our Southern Zion, 119–121.
43. Quotation: JLW to MMW, 4 January 1832, SCL. For the students enrolled, see Louis C. LaMotte, Colored Light: The Story of the Influence of Columbia Theological Seminary, 1828–1936 (Richmond, VA, 1937), 298.
44. For the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, see Joseph Tracy, “History of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,” in History of American Missions to the Heathen, from Their Commencement to the Present Time (Worcester, MA, 1840), 27–33; Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, 423–424.
45. Quotation: JLW to MEW, 6 January 1832, SCL.
46. Quotation: Howe, History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, vol. 2, 416–417. See also JLW to JB, 29 December 1832, CTS; “Letter of J. L. Wilson,” Charleston Observer, 5 August 1837; Dubose, Memoirs, 40.
47. JLW to SSW, 27 October 1832, SCL. LaMotte, Colored Light, 70–73.
48. Quotations: JLW to SSW, 27 October 1832, SCL; Thomas Smyth, Autobiographical Notes, Letters and Reflections, ed. Louisa Cheves Stoney (Charleston, SC, 1914), 79.
Chapter Four: A Place Seen from Afar
1. Quotations: JLW to SSW, 27 October 1832, SCL.
2. JLW to JB, 1 December 1832, CTS; Hampden C. DuBose, Memoirs of Rev. John Leighton Wilson, D.D., Missionary to Africa and Secretary of Foreign Missions (Richmond, VA, 1895), 43–44. For the Joseph Cumming family, see “Cumming, Sarah Wallace,” in The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War, ed. Robert Manson Myers (New Haven, CT, 1972), 1499. For the Sunday school at First African Baptist taught by members of Independent Presbyterian Church, see James M. Simms, The First Colored Baptist Church in North America (Philadelphia, 1888), 91–92; Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savannah, 1788–1864 (Fayetteville, AR, 1996), 25. For descriptions of JB, see JLW to JB, 13 September 1833, CTS; DuBose, Memoirs, 69. For descriptions of JLW’s appearance and “remarkable physical strength,” see Minutes of the Synod of South Carolina at Its Annual Sessions, October 20–22, 1886 (Spartanburg, SC, 1886), 21–22; DuBose, Memoirs, 21; John Miller Wells, Southern Presbyterian Worthies (Richmond, VA, 1936), 51–52.
3. Quotations: JLW to JB, 1 December 1832, CTS; JLW to JB, 10 December 1832, CTS.
4. JLW to JB, 10 December 1832, CTS.
5. For James Eckard, see A. A. Hodge, The Life of Charles Hodge D.D. LL.D: Professor in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ (New York, 1880), 18; Missionary Register (London), 1 January 1834, 63; “Eckard, James Reed,” in Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian Church, ed. Alfred Nevin (Philadelphia, 1884), 207–208. For the early history of the Ceylon and South India mission, see Clifton Jackson Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World: The First Half Century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810–1860 (Cambridge, MA, 1969), 32–56. For the context of the Tamil mission, see T. Sabaratnam, “Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Growth of Nationalisms,” September 2010, Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka in the USA, www .sangam.org/2010/09/Tamil_Struggle-8.php.
6. Quotations: JLW to JB, 18 December 1832, CTS. JLW quotes from JB’s letter.
7. JLW to JB, 28 December 1832, CTS. For an important analysis of the nullification controversy, see William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (New York, 1990), esp. 213–286.
8. For the comparison of imperialism in Africa with white imperialism against the Cherokees, see JLW to RA, 25 September 1838, ABCFM. For the Cherokee removal, see Gary E. Moulton, John Ross, Cherokee Chief (Athens, GA, 1978); and Michael D. Green, ed., The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 1995).
9. Quotation: JLW to JB, 21 June 1833, CTS.
10. Ibid.
11. Quotations: JLW to JB, 3 July 1833, CTS. See also JLW to JB, 28 December 1832, CTS, for opposition in Savannah. Perhaps the single most influential dismissive statement about the character of Africans was by Hegel: “The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality—all that we call feeling—if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character.” For Hegel, sub-Saharan Africa “is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History (New York, 1956), 93, 99. For examples of other such images, see George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York, 1971); James Brewer Stewart, “The Emergence of Racial Modernity and the Rise of the White North, 1790–1840,” Journal of the Early Republic 18 (1999): 181–217; Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa,” Massachusetts Review 18, no. 4 (1977): 782–794; Philip D. Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850 (Madison, WI, 1964), esp. 28–57. For an important analysis of these images, see V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington, IN, 1988), esp. 1–23. For a powerful visual presentation of degrading stereotypes of Africa and Africans, see Jan Nederveen Pieterse, White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture (New Haven, CT, 1995).
12. JLW to JB, 3 July 1833, CTS; JLW to JB, 7 July 1833, CTS.
13. Quotations: JLW to JB, 20 July 1833, CTS.
14. Quotation: Simms, The First Colored Baptist Church in North America, 88. On Clay, see JLW to JB, [?] August 1833, CTS.
15. Quotation: JLW to JB, [?] August 1833, CTS. For other plans involving Margaret Strobel, see JLW to JB, 1 September 1833, CTS. In 1817, Savannah had outlawed schooling for both slaves and free people of color. See Jacqueline Jones, Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War (New York, 2008), 54.
16. Quotation: JLW to JB, 1 September 1833, CTS. For an angry response to the “rabble” who attacked Pinney and for details of his address, see “So Persecuted They the Prophets Before You,” Charleston Observer, 28 September 1833. For the context of the attack on Pinney and for the “infidel party” in South Carolina, see Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (New York, 2009), 449–480; Erskine Clarke, Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic (New Haven, CT, 2005), 169–172. For background on Pinney, see The Missionary Herald, [?] July 1844, 222; James A. Cogswell, No Turning Back: A History of Americ
an Presbyterian Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1833–2000 (Philadelphia, 2007), 6–7. For the American Colonization Society, see P. J. Staudenraus, The American Colonization Movement, 1816–1865 (New York, 1961); Tom W. Shick, Behold the Promised Land: A History of Afro-American Settler Society in Nineteenth-Century Liberia (Baltimore, 1977); Lamin Sanneh, Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 182–237. For the history of the colony and the Liberian state from an African perspective, see Amos J. Beyan, The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State (Lanham, MD, 1991). For the larger picture of African Americans and the attraction of Africa, see James T. Campbell, Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787–2005 (New York, 2006).
17. JLW to JB, 8 September 1833, CTS; JLW to JB, 13 September 1833, CTS; “Ordination of a Missionary,” Charleston Observer, 28 September 1833.
18. Quotation: JLW to JB, 13 September 1833, CTS.
19. For the challenges and hardships facing Liberian settlers, see Antonio McDaniel, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Costs of Colonizing Liberia in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1995); Svend E. Holsoe, “A Study of Relations Between Settlers and Indigenous Peoples in Western Liberia, 1821–1847,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 4, no. 2 (1971): 331–362; and cf., Wilson Jeremiah Moses, ed., Liberian Dreams: Back-to-Africa Narratives from the 1850s (University Park, PA, 1998).
20. For the Maryland Colonization Society and its colony, see Richard L. Hall, On Afric’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834–1857 (Baltimore, 2003); Penelope Campbell, Maryland in Africa: The Maryland State Colonization Society, 1831–1857 (Champaign, IL, 1971); Jane Jackson Martin, “The Dual Legacy: Government Authority and Mission Influence Among the Glebo of Eastern Liberia, 1834–1910” (PhD diss., Boston University, 1968); Eugene S. Van Sickle, “A Transnational Vision: John H. B. Latrobe and Maryland’s African Colonization Movement (PhD diss., West Virginia University, 2005). For JLW’s reception by Latrobe, see JLW to JB, 21 September 1833, CTS. For James Bayard’s response to Latrobe, see James Bayard to JHBL, 22 October 1833, MSCS.
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