37? //8/J /to. 57/fc BEHOLD THE FIELDS: TEXAS BAPTISTS AND THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Richard L. Elam, B.A., M.A. Denton, Texas May, 1993 37? //8/J /to. 57/fc BEHOLD THE FIELDS: TEXAS BAPTISTS AND THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Richard L. Elam, B.A., M.A. Denton, Texas May, 1993 Elam, Richard L., Behold the Fields: Texas Baptists and the Problem of Slavery. Doctor of Philosophy (History), May, 1993, 252 pp., 9 tables, 2 maps, 4 appendices, bibliography, 364 titles. The relationship between Texas Baptists and slavery is studied with an emphasis on the official statements made about the institution in denominational sources combined with a statistical analysis of the extent of slaveholding among Baptists. A data list of over 5,000 names was pared to 1100 names of Baptists in Texas prior to 1865 and then cross-referenced on slaveownership through the use of federal censuses and county tax rolls. Although Texas Baptists participated economically in the slave system, they always maintained that blacks were children of God worthy of religious instruction and salvation. The result of these disparate views was a paradox between treating slaves as chattels while welcoming them into mixed congregations and allowing them some measure of activity within those bodies. Attitudes expressed by white Baptists during the antebellum period were continued into the post-war years as well. Meanwhile, African-American Baptists gradually withdrew from white dominated congregations, forming their own local, regional, and state organizations. In the end, whites had no choice but to accept the new-found status of the Freedmen, cooperating with black institutions on occa- sion. Major sources for this study include church, associa- tional, and state Baptist minutes; county and denominational histories; and government documents. The four appendices list associations, churches, and counties with extant re- cords. Finally, private accounts of former slaves provide valuable insight into the interaction between white and black Baptists. TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS iv INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter I. BEGINNINGS AND BACKGROUND 13 II. INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS 38 III. THE CHURCHES 73 IV. MASTERS AND SLAVES 106 V. SEPARATION 153 CONCLUSION 205 APPENDICES 211 A. ASSOCIATIONAL MINUTES B. CHURCH RECORDS C. COUNTIES D. BLACK ASSOCIATIONS WORKS CONSULTED . 221 ill LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Tables 1. Black Members of Select Baptist Churches in Texas Before 1865 82 2. Slaveholding Families Among Texas Baptists 109 3. Baptist Slaveholders of the Planter Class 113 4. Slaveownership Among Baptists for Select Years . 115 5. Number of Slaves Held by Texas Baptists for Select Years 116 6. Wealth of Slaveholding Baptists As a Percentage of the Total For all Baptists 118 7. Distribution of Wealth Statewide and Among Baptists Ministers, 1860 123 8. Slaveholding Leadership Within Baptist Churches . 129 9. Black Members of Baptist Churches in Texas After 1865 for Two Associations 159 Maps 1. Counties in Data Subset 108 2. Counties Utilized for Minister Subset 125 IV INTRODUCTION Slavery as an institution created a moral problem for white evangelical Southerners. As creatures of God, humans of African descent needed the Gospel. On the other hand, the socio-economic system required that blacks be treated as less than fully human. For many white Christians, this contradiction was acted out on a daily basis as they expect- ed their slaves to attend religious services, continuously attempted to convert them, and then welcomed them into membership within their churches. At the same time, the legal and social position of their wards was that of chat- tels . The same individuals who worshipped with slaves listed them as personal property along with livestock and bought and sold them on occasion. Slaveholding Baptists allowed their bondsmen to be a part of their churches while maintaining the separation required in a stratified society. They defended the insti- tution of slavery as divinely arranged and obviously bene- fited materially from the acceptance of such a system. More significantly, the importance of slave ownership to economic and social prominence was no different within Baptist churches than without. Such was the predicament of white Texas Baptists. Baptists, both slaveholding and non-slaveholding, had been a part of the earliest Anglo-American migrations into Texas, and as many of their churches were legally established shortly after independence, they quickly came to represent a sizable portion of the state's religious landscape.1 Slavery, as a part of their worldview, had to be accommo- dated to the realities of Baptist life in the mid-nineteenth century. According to historian Charles Sellers the "travail of slavery" was the inability of white Southerners to reconcile their disparate feelings about the institution. Being unable to regard the slaves as consistently "persons" or "property," Southerners remained ambivalent. This was particularly evident in religious circles as the "slave's admission to the privilege of salvation inevitably identi- fied him as a person."2 For Eugene D. Genovese, the slaveholders' dilemma, was their inability to reconcile a belief in "progress," which in•Statistic i s on Churches," Statistics of the United States. (Including Mortality. Property. Etc..1 in 1860; compiled from the original returns and being the final exhibit of the Eighth Census, under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1866), 471-74. According to these data, Baptists were the second largest denomination in Texas (after the Methodists) in number of churches. 2Charles Grier Sellers, Jr., "The Travail of Slavery," from Sellers, ed., The Southerner as American (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), 40, 52-54. incorporated democratic and republican ideals, with slavery. Southern Christians were trapped by this reasoning as well: They . linked Protestant Christianity to econom- ic liberalism and political republicanism, .... But in the slaveholders' perspective, slavery or, more precisely, the several forms of personal servi- tude, provided the necessary foundation for a soci- ety that could sustain a Christian social order and guarantee individual freedom for those who deserved and were competent to wield it. Like Sellers, Genovese offers substantial direct evidence from the slaveholders' themselves to suggest that a moral dilemma did indeed exist for Southerners.3 In the case of Texas Baptists there is no direct evi- dence to support Sellers's thesis that whites agonized over slaveholding. Church records do not show any confrontation between slavery and Baptists ideals. Neither did Texas Baptists struggle outwardly with their concepts of moral progress versus slaveownership. Still, the tone of Baptist rhetoric in defense of slavery, coupled with the time and space devoted to promoting missionary activity among the slaves, hinted at a possible moral tension inherent in white attitudes. A number of studies have looked at certain aspects of Baptists and slavery in Texas. Contemporary accounts often gave an overview of the institution from a paternalistic 3Eugene D. Genovese, The Slaveholders' Dilemma: Freedom and Progress in Southern Conservative Thought. 1820-1860 (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1992), 11, 33. perspective; later studies concentrated on the shared reli- gious experiences of whites and blacks; more recent works have looked at the black experience as unique to itself. What has not been done is to piece these disparate elements together into a coherent whole. In addition, very little has been done on the extent of slave ownership among reli- gious groups in the state.4 This study will draw from the various sources, both contemporary and secondary, narrative and statistical, in order to offer an overview of how one denomination, Bap- tists, interacted with the "peculiar institution" of slavery in one state, Texas. The basic goals of this study will be to indicate the official Baptist position on slavery (as much as this is possible given the congregational nature of Baptist polity) through the use of associational organs and state Baptist reports; describe the relationship of white and black members within mixed congregations; outline the 4For examples of an early accounts see Z. N. Morrell, Flowers and Fruits in the Wilderness. 3rd ed., rev. (St. Louis, Missouri: Commercial Printing Company, 1982) and J. M. Carroll, A History of Texas Baptists (Dallas: Baptist Standard Publishing Co., 1923). More recent works include Robert A. Baker, The Blossoming Desert: A Concise History of Texas Baptists (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1970); Paul Wayne Stripling, "The Negro Excision from Baptist Churches in Texas (1861-1870)" (Ph.D. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theo- logical Seminary, 1967); John Lee Eighmy, "The Baptists and Slavery: An Examination of the Origins and Benefits of Segregation," Social Science Quarterly 49(December, 1968): 666-673; Jerry Berlyn Cain, "The Thought and Action of Some Early Texas Baptists Concerning the Necrro," East Texas Historical Journal XIII(Spring 1975). role blacks played within the parameters