Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- "Cords of love": religious cultures intertwined, yet separate -- "Blooming like a green bay tree": the Black church's Baptist roots in the slave South -- "Down in de valley": the transformation of the Methodist mission -- "Souls to be saved": mission promoters confront the slave system -- "They are our masters no longer": Black religion under white protection in Southern cities -- "Simple guileless teachers": Sunday schools, catechisms and the print culture -- "Under our own vine and palm tree": the colonizing mission to Liberia -- "Their good and his glory": the slave missions and Southern nationalism -- "Jesus break slav'ry chain Lord": the Black church and freedom -- Notes -- Bibliography
Summary
Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South examines the fascinating but perplexing interactions between white missionaries and slaves in the 1840s and 1850s, and the ways in which blacks used the missions to nurture the formation of the organized black church
Janet Cornelius uses church records and slave narratives and autobiographies to show that black religious leaders - slave and free - took advantage of opportunities offered by missions to create a small break in the oppression of slavery: to conduct their own meetings, become literate, and build the black community. Slave missions also provided whites with a rationale for training and supporting black leaders and protecting black congregations, particularly in the visible city churches
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-284) and index
