Dwelling Place

by Erskine Clarke

  This dynamic and reciprocal relationship between their faith and their low-country home was to have a profound impact on the work Charles was beginning to undertake at the very time the house at Montevideo was being constructed and the Maybank plantation was being inherited. Because his spirituality was so deeply rooted in the physical and social landscape of Liberty County, Charles’s missionary work was deeply ideological. It served to distort and hide the bitter realities of slaves, as when he would speak of masters and slaves being “spiritual brothers” in ways that concealed the power of the masters. And his work served ideological purposes by legitimizing the power and wealth of those who lived in the plantation houses and by supporting the social order that kept them and their children as the rulers of those who lived in the settlements.40

  But strange to say, his missionary work also played a part in challenging these ideological purposes and the assumptions that supported them. For there was in his preaching and in what he taught an alternative vision, a vision that called into question the slave sales in Riceboro and the slave settlements on the plantations and all the social arrangements that made whites owners and blacks owned. It was this alternative vision that had troubled his heart in Andover and at Princeton and that informed his report to the synod in Columbia. His work never embraced the vision in its fullness, but it served to strengthen those in the settlements who saw through the limits of his work to a promise for a new day and for a new ordering of the social landscape by the waters of the Newport and the marshes of the Medway.41

  11

  THE STATIONS

  Charles began his missionary work the same month he and Mary rode over to Montevideo to survey the landscape for their new home. He had already sent a notice to the planters, and word had been circulated in the settlements of an interior section of the county that he would hold a service on the next Sabbath at the Fraser station.1

  Leaving Solitude early on the morning of 9 December 1832, Charles rode ten miles to the appointed meeting place. The sandy road he traveled gradually took him away from the swamps and low-lying areas of the county toward a gravelly hill where longleaf pines grew to great heights and water drained quickly away. Planters had discovered that it was a healthful area, largely free from the miasmas that infected the rice fields and swamps, and some families had built summer homes in the neighborhood. Among them was Simon Fraser, who donated four acres for a meetinghouse. When Charles arrived at the Fraser station on this early December day, there was as yet no building, but the planters had begun a subscription for a meetinghouse that would serve the white families at their retreats and as a station for the new missionary of the Liberty County Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negroes. The spot was one of seven places designated, after some negotiations, as stations for the work of the association during the coming year.2

  Between 150 and 160 slaves had left the surrounding settlements that morning and had walked to the station to hear what this missionary might have to say to them. Charles was pleased to see such a crowd when he rode up. Getting off his horse, he greeted those whom he knew. They gathered around and he opened the meeting by stating to them the great desire that he “had long had of preaching the Gospel to them; that such preaching might be blessed to their true conversion, and they would be expected to second my efforts, by good attendance, and attention, and orderly behaviour.” Charles had thought carefully about how to begin his work, and he had decided that he should begin at the beginning with a series on the book of Genesis. And so on this first Sabbath, his subject was “The Creation—Genesis 1.” Their behavior, he noted, was decorous, their attention good, and the meeting was “marked with quietness”—all of which greatly pleased him. He left them in the afternoon “much animated for my work.”3

  The next Sabbath he was back at the same station and was greeted by a larger gathering of about 200 slaves. He began by reviewing the previous lesson and found that they “seemed to have retained it very well.” He taught them Cowper’s “beautiful hymn beginning: ‘There is a fountain filled with blood’” and then turned to Genesis 2, with its story of how God rested on the Sabbath after God had created the Garden of Eden and made Adam out of “the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Charles read to them that God had made Adam to fall into a deep sleep, and had taken a rib from Adam and made woman, and had brought her to Adam, who had said “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” And Charles then read: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Such a text provided a focus on the Sabbath as a day of rest, and on the “primitive state of man and the institution of marriage.” He knew it was too much for one day, but he felt it necessary to at least introduce all the subjects.4

  Charles had thought carefully not only about the subject of these first sessions but also about his pedagogy, about how a white missionary could best teach slaves who could not by law be taught to read. As a Calvinist, he was convinced they needed to know the Bible and its story of salvation. What, he had wondered, was the best mode of oral instruction that would inform their minds, touch their hearts, and reform their lives? The method he developed during these early days was later fine-tuned, but he followed its basic approach throughout the rest of his ministry.5

  On this second Sunday at the Fraser station, he began, after a few hymns and a prayer, by reading the text slowly and deliberately but in “a lively fashion.” He then gave a brief exposition of the story of Genesis 2, essentially retelling the story in his own words. He used “Scripture cards,” large posterlike pictures of a Bible scene to make the story more vivid. During the coming sessions there would be scenes of Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Eden; of Noah, the Ark, and the animals; of the Tower of Babel; and of Abraham and Sarah journeying in the Promised Land with camels and donkeys. The cards, produced by the American Sunday School Union, provided pictures of far-off places and memorable scenes that could help shape the imagination and interpretation of a text. “The eye,” Charles believed, “greatly assists the memory.”6

  Scripture card used by the Jones family (courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Presbyterian Church [USA], Montreat, N.C.)

  Next came questions and answers from a catechism that Charles wrote specifically for the text being studied—a method that was to be closely associated with his name and his missionary labors. Charles asked those gathered at the station: “Is it lawful for us to do any work on the Sabbath day?” And then he had them say together: “No, excepting works of necessity and mercy.” He asked: “After man was made, how came he to be a living soul?” And they repeated: “God breathed into him the breath of life.” “What does that teach us?” Charles asked, and they said in unison: “That God gives life and He only.”7

  The questions that most concerned his students, however, were those that dealt with Adam and Eve. He found that there was “great interest manifested in the audience on the subject of marriage,” and he was glad, for he believed that “fornication and adultery are their crying sins.”8 Charles asked: “What did God say to them?” And the students said together: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife.” “What does God mean by this?” Charles asked, and again the students said together: “That a man must love his wife more than all other persons.” “And does God require the same love from the wife to the husband?” “Yes, the same.”9

  Charles then asked questions and gave answers that must have been heard at many levels by those who lived in the settlements and knew all too well about slave sales in Riceboro and about wills and estates that could send a spouse to distant plantations.

  Q. And what more did God say?

  A. And they shall be one flesh.

  Q. And what does God mean by this?

  A. That they are never to be parted while life lasts.

  Q. Is it lawful for a man to have more than one woma
n or a woman more than one man?

  A. No, it is not lawful.10

  With such questions and answers, Charles was using the familiar pedagogy of the catechism, a pedagogy used for generations by whites as a way to instruct children and those new to the church. Charles had himself learned the Westminster Shorter Catechism as a young person, and he liked the method—the questions and answers could be sharply focused and carefully constructed; and memorization, he believed, was an important avenue to the heart and a way of shaping and informing one’s understanding of the world and God’s ways with the world. Such a method with its drills also seemed the best way to teach those who could not have a Bible or a devotional text as a resource, but had to depend on what they could remember. Moreover, the responses of hundreds of men and women speaking together in unison gave an authority to the answers that Charles would never have alone. Their united voices saying, “They shall never be parted while life shall last” was a way for the students to gather the questions and answers and claim them also as their own. What Charles did not clearly realize, however, was that the biblical story, and even the questions and answers with their tight constructions, could not be controlled once they were set loose. Those hearing the questions and those repeating the answers would give their own interpretations to the stories. They would remember and interpret what they heard only as it was filtered through their lives in the settlements, through the conversations around evening fires, and through the traditions that they brought with them to the stations.11

  Charles believed that if the biblical stories and the catechism were an avenue to the heart, the heart itself must be opened if a lesson was to be internalized and owned by his listeners. And so he turned after the questions and answers to what he called “Practical Remarks.” “Having filled our heads with the sense of the Word,” he told those gathered before him, “let us strive now to fill our hearts with the duties, etc.” The Sabbath, he said, is a gift of God for man and beast. It is a day of rest for the body. “How sweet is Sunday to the labouring man and beast.” The day is also a gift of rest to the soul, he told his flock, when worldly cares can be laid aside and holy things taken into the heart. Because the Sabbath is such a gift, we ought to bless God for it and keep it faithfully.12

  As for marriage, it is, Charles said, between one man and one woman, and its foundation must be love. He spoke of its “perpetuity.” A man and woman becoming “one flesh” means, he emphasized, that they are never to be separated. They take each other “for better or for worse.” No matter if one partner “is old, or sick,” they are not to separate. “It is their lot, they must remain together.” Only death or adultery were causes for separation. Moreover, the marriage should be lawfully contracted so that everyone would know that the couple should “live together as man and wife.” Then he asked those gathered before him: “Are you lawfully married? Have you more wives than one?” If so, he said, it is a sin, it is adultery. “Will you live as a heathen? As brutes?” “Abhor such wickedness. It ruins character…. Repent.”13

  In this way, following this pattern, Charles lectured to the slaves of Liberty County during the following months. He met with them on Saturday afternoons and Sundays—one place on Saturday and another station on Sunday. During the winter and spring, he met them at the Fraser station, at the Baptist Church at North Newport, where up to five hundred would gather, at the Cross Roads near the parade ground, where hundreds more would gather, at Midway and at his own home at Solitude for those from Carlawter and other nearby plantations. When summer came and with it the dangers of miasmas and fevers from the swamps and rice fields, meetings were held at the Baptist Church in Sunbury and in the Sand Hills at the little village of Walthourville, which, like the Fraser station, was found to be a healthy spot during the sickly season.14 Week after week Charles moved through the early chapters of Genesis. Week after week he asked questions: “Why did Cain hate and murder Abel?” “Did God determine to save Noah?” “How did God cause the work to cease at Babel?” “What was the character of the men of Sodom?” “How is Abraham a blessing to the world?”

  And week after week he led his students as they said together: Cain hated Abel because Abel “was a holy man.” “Yes,” God determined to save Noah, “and he gave him warnings.” God caused the work at Babel to cease “by making the people speak different languages.” The men of Sodom were “exceedingly wicked.” And Abraham was a blessing to the world because “he preserves for us the True Religion, the Bible, and his children first preached it to us, and he is the father of our Lord.”15

  And week after week Charles gave some “Practical Remarks” about what the lesson had to teach those who lived and worked on the plantations of Liberty County. Abraham, he said, was a good master. “He loved his servants and desired them to live in peace, and it was ever his delight to teach them the fear of the Lord.” And while Abraham was a very rich man, he was “not above looking after the comfort and peace of his people. He was not above giving them religious instruction, and guiding them in the ways of God.” “Learn then, my friends,” Charles told the slaves, “what masters need to make them good masters. It is religion; pray therefore for your masters that God would give them new hearts and make them like to Abraham. And do nothing yourselves to [arouse] their tempers, and lead them away from that which is good.” Charles taught his listeners that the greatest blessing “that can come upon a plantation is a pious, holy master.” And what about slaves? What servants also need is religion: “This will make them kind to each other, faithful in their families; faithful and obedient to their masters; fearing God and working righteousness.” “Whenever I see trouble on a plantation,” Charles said, “I see and know that they need religion there.” He encouraged those who had come from surrounding settlements to “Pray therefore for your unconverted brother servants, old and young, that God would bestow on them new hearts.” And when he told the story of Abraham, and Sarah, and their slave Hagar, he said they “all sinned greatly,” and he noted “the influence of masters and mistresses over servants”: Abraham and Sarah had abused Hagar and led her to sin, and she had consented. And he appealed to his listeners to resist such abuse: “No, no my friends,” he said, “you are made for higher service.”16

  In all of his reading of the Scriptures, his questions and answers, and his “practical remarks,” Charles was struggling to transcend the racial assumptions that marked so much of southern white culture, indeed of U.S. and European culture. He wanted to treat those who gathered before him as “friends,” as those who were “immortal beings” possessed of “immortal minds.” Yet he read the texts and interpreted their meanings as a white southerner, a white southern master of slaves, who had been deeply touched by the evangelical and reform impulses of his day. What he found in Genesis supported slavery and did not call into question an economic and social system founded on the ownership of men, women, and children. And yet what he found in Genesis and the stories that he told could become weapons for those who lived in the settlements. If masters wanted slaves to work on the Sabbath, could slaves not protest that was against the law of God? And if masters persisted, could not their reputations be hurt in the community or could not their abuse of the Sabbath be resisted openly? And if masters threatened to divide a husband and wife, could not slaves protest by saying: “They are never to be parted while life lasts.” Such weapons were all too obviously the “weapons of the weak”—they could not stop an indifferent or determined owner—but they were nevertheless weapons for a people glad to get whatever weapons they could find.17

  In July 1833 Charles began a second, parallel series of Bible lessons—this one on the Epistle to the Hebrews. While he used the same format, and developed a catechism to work through the epistle, Hebrews must have seemed tame compared with Genesis and its stories of murder and floods, of sodomy, incest, and intrigue, of burning cities and slaves set free. “In what language were the books of the New Testament written?” he asked. “In the Greek language” was the resp
onse of the slaves. And Charles explained why:

  Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. overran Western Asia introducing the manners and customs and language of the Grecians and founding Greek colonies in various parts. After his death his empire was divided into four parts, and the Greek still continued to prevail, and did prevail and was universally spoken in and around Palestine.18

  It all sounded a little too much like notes from Andover or Princeton and he never used the Hebrews catechism again after that first summer. But for all of its stilted character and for all of its voices from distant classrooms, this series of lessons also showed something important about Charles’s assumptions and his approach to the slaves. He wanted to teach them so that they could know the biblical story, and he was committed to giving them the best he could muster. Some whites might complain that such teaching was “casting pearls before swine,” but for Charles it was his duty to men and women fully capable of understanding and interpreting the Bible. There was in his seriousness, even in his paternalism, a respect for his students. The respect, to be sure, was set within the confines of a southern world and worldview and always flowed downward from his position of power and authority. Yet even as the respect flowed from such lofty heights, it was felt by many of the slaves of Liberty County, who came in increasing numbers to hear him and to learn from him in the years ahead. As time would tell, they received his respect not as a gift, not even as the duty of a paternalistic white preacher, but as nothing less than their due.19