African Americans

Baptist Theology and the Written Record

Baptist records are a direct reflection of Baptist attitudes and theology. On the American frontier, Baptists spread like wildfire during the Second Great Awakening (1790-1830). However, records were not always kept for those converting in revival meetings.

Reasons Why Baptists Were Poor Record Keepers

Historically, many frontier ministers were not professionally trained. They “received a call from God” to preach and that was their credentials. A literate frontier minister was secondary to the “call to preach.” The reason for this is based in the idea that a person’s salvation was based upon a personal experience between the individual and God. Literacy was not the focus as salvation and God’s word was open to all people.

Aligned to this is the importance of the local congregation. If patterned after the ancient New Testament Church, then the local congregation of believers was qualified to their own inspiration. They were fully capable of interpreting and living the principles of the New Testament.

As the frontier was settled, congregations established, and education more available, records were generated. This helped document members, transfers in and out, donations, and disciplinary actions. All record keeping was at the judgment of the local congregation. The believers, as the congregation, together make up the body of Christ. The local congregation is a sacred Baptist concept.

Baptist Theology and the Records Left Behinds

In Baptist theology, salvation is an experience based upon the faith and confession of the believer. It is not based upon baptism. Baptism is by total immersion as a sign of commitment, faith and admission into the church. A record of the “believer’s baptism” may or may not have ever been kept.

An excellent introductory text is Bill J. Leonard’s Baptist Questions, Baptist Answers: Exploring Christian Faith (2009). For the development of Baptist doctrine see James Leo Garrett’s work Baptist Theology: A Four Century Study (2009). For contemporary in-depth systematic theologies representing a general Baptist or Baptist-Calvinistic perspective, I recommend:

Akin, Daniel L., ed. A Theology for the Church (2007). Position: Southern Baptist Convention; revised edition due in 2014.

Bird, Michael F., Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (2013). General evangelical approach by an Australian Baptist theologian.

Enns, Paul, The Moody Handbook of Theology: Revised and Expanded (2008). Position: conservative evangelical and dispensationalist.

Erickson, Millard J., Christian Theology (3rd ed., 2013). Position: Baptist-Calvinistic and General Protestant.

Geisler, Norman L. Systematic Theology 4 vols. (2002-2005). Position: Baptist-Calvinistic, conservative evangelical. His four volume series is now condensed into one.

Grudem, Wayne, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (2000). Position: Baptist-Calvinistic, Charismatic and General Protestant.

Lewis, Gordon R. and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology: Historical, Biblical, Systematic, Apologetic, Practical (1996). Position: conservative Baptist.

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American and Baptist: What Kind? (Part 2)

21 Jan By Dwight Leave a Comment

Baptists often divided over cultural, racial, political, polity and doctrinal issues. The listing below will outline major traditions, both white and black.

Major Baptist Denominations in the United States

American Baptist Churches USA: Considered Mainline Protestant, it has historically been known as “Northern Baptists.” The American Baptist Churches traces back to the first Baptists, but the convention itself back to 1814. This multi-ethnic denominations is concentrated in the Midwest and Northeast.

Free Will Baptists: Concentrated mainly in the South and Midwest, although at one time it was strong in New England, the largest organization, the National Association of Free Will Baptists traces its lineage from two different lines dating to 1727 and 1780.

General Baptists: Located mainly in the Midwest, the General Association of General Baptists is rooted back to 1823 in Indiana.

Independent Baptists: Independent Baptists began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in reaction against liberalism and modernism. Congregations nationwide maintain their autonomy.

National Baptists: An African American denomination founded in 1880, the National Baptist Convention, USA is the world’s second largest Baptist denomination.

Primitive Baptists: Historically known as Hard Shell, Anti-Mission, or Old School Baptists, the Primitive Baptists formed in the early 1800s mainly in and the mountainous regions of the Southeast. The white Primitive Baptists have Internet websites where you can find more general information Primitive Baptist Church as a whole. The African American denomination is the National Primitive Baptist Convention, USA.

Seventh Day Baptists: Coming out of English Baptists, the first congregation was formed in Newport, RI in 1671. The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference worships on Saturday.

Southern Baptist Convention: The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Baptist denomination in the world. Founded in 1845 over slavery issues; it is heavily concentrated in the South. Historically, it was predominately white.

Each tradition generated a paper trail and wove itself into the local and national experience, helping define what it meant to be an American.

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American and Baptist: What Kind? (Part 1)

17 Jan By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Baptist tradition is so interwoven into American history that it cannot be separated out. This alone makes Baptist Studies an important part of your family history research. For your Irish Studies, vast numbers of Scots-Irish and their descendants joined the Baptist Church in America as did many Irish Catholics after immigrating.

What Kind of Baptist Church Did Your Ancestors Belong

In documenting a Baptist family, the first question to ask is: What kind of Baptist? Today, all Baptists combined comprise the second largest religious grouping in the country; with the Southern Baptist Convention being the largest Protestant denomination.

Baptists congregations range from militantly independent conservatives on the right to socially oriented and ecumenically minded on the left. There are those who worship on Saturday or Sunday; small groups in almost compound-like settings and mega churches hosting tens of thousands of worshipers at a time. Congregations also can change their allegiance to a larger convention or association or establish their own governing body or none at all.

The Roots of Baptists in America

The earliest Baptists came from England with the first congregation founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1639 by William Rogers. If you do not find an ancestor, for example, in the predominant Congregational Church in New England, then they may have been Baptists.

During the Second Great Awakening (1790-1830), Baptists would spread into new areas and people. It was also the Baptists, along with the Methodists who would win the hearts of African Americans. So whether you are tracing a white, black or even a mixed-blood Indian lineage; chances are you will come across Baptist ancestors along the way.

In Part 2 of this blog, I will discuss the major Baptist denominations in the United States as they all left behind records from which to document an ancestor.

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Baptist Archives in the United States

9 Oct By Dwight Leave a Comment

One of the most difficult tasks in Baptist research in the United States is the congregation was the most important entity. For this reason, records may or may not have been kept depending on the congregation. Another difficulty is determining what happened to a congregation, let alone it records. Types of records which can be helpful would include memberships, transfers in and out, disciplinary, adult baptisms and general minutes. The occasional death, marriage and biographical sketches are always handy.

Congregations are Created and Dissolved

In rural areas, congregations came and went. On the frontier, especially in places such as Mid-South in the 1830s, entire congregations were swept up in the rising tide of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. Thus, a one-time Baptist Church became a Christian Church! In settled areas, such as New England, a Baptist congregation may have been in the same town for several hundred years. Some congregations united with others or changed their names when they moved.

In your search for Baptist records, if you do not live locally in the area of your research, then contact the local genealogical society in the county starting with the links found on sites such as the USGenweb. The local state archive may also have deposited records. Never neglect the microfilm at the Family History Library

Major Baptist Historical Archives

For specific Baptist archives, your search query could use a combination of the word Baptist with Archives, Library or Genealogy. Main repositories are:

American Baptist Historical Society

Free Will Baptist Historical Commission

The Primitive Baptist Library of Carthage, Illinois

Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives

Seventh Day Baptist Historical Society

If you are wondering about your Baptist ancestry, click here to begin your journey…

Colonial Laws and the Indentured Servant (Part2)

16 Dec By Dwight Leave a Comment

Laws governing human bondage in the English colonies did not happen overnight. As needed, laws were enacted by the colonial assemblies. The Virginia and Maryland colonies were the two most powerful mainland colonies. They lead the way in defining exactly what human bondage really meant. Lawmakers didn’t think in terms of color, but in people as a commodity. For this reason, colonial laws would apply to all races.

Using Virginia colony as an example; in a December 1662 law, women servants who became pregnant by their masters were to finish out their term and then be bound over to the local church to be sold for an extra two years of servitude. An October 1670 law pronounced that all non-Christians brought by shipping (by sea) shall be a slave for life, but if brought by land (from another colony) as children they were to serve until they are 30 years old. If they were adults and brought by land, they were to serve for only 12 years. In April 1691, all whites, bond or free were forbidden from intermarrying with blacks, mulattos or Indians. This law also stated that free white women who had an illegitimate child by a black, mulatto or Indian would be bound out by the local parish church for five years and the child bound until the age of 30.

It was a series of Virginia laws passed in October 1705 which began to define in detail what a slave was. The main points were:

*Slaves brought into the colony by land or sea (except Turks and Moors) remained slaves regardless of converting to Christianity.

*Free people who were Christians in their own country were not to be sold as slaves.

*No black, mulatto, Indian, Jew, Muslim or other infidel could purchase Christian white servants.

*White men or women intermarrying with blacks and mulattoes were to go to prison for 6 months with no bail.

*If any slave resists their master during correction, it was legal to kill them as part of the correction. Escaped slaves could be killed.

*A Christian baptism does not exempt a person from bondage, and the status of all children was according to the condition of the mother.

This was the world of our colonial ancestors regardless of color!

Colonial Laws and the Indentured Servant (Part 1)

15 Dec By Dwight Leave a Comment

Until the laws caught up governing human bondage in the English New World, several systems were in place. One was outright slavery which included political prisoners, criminals, innocent kidnapped individuals, the homeless and orphans sold into bondage. Once shipped to the Caribbean, Virginia or Maryland colonies, many simply disappeared.

Another was the “indentured servant” which was different than outright slavery, however, this is a technicality if the servant didn’t survive. They were basically slaves for a contracted period of time in exchange for either passage over or for promised land. A study of white bondage using England as the focus reveals the following comparison between indentured servants, transported convicts and free immigrants in the colonial period:

Variable Indentured Servants Transported Convicts Free Immigrants

Emigration Reason escape poverty imposed punishment varies

Average age 15-24 years 20-30 years varies

Companions rarely family/friends rarely family/friends family/friends

Social status lower/lower middle lower class middle/upper middle

Select master could not could not not applicable

Marriage none none not applicable

The America before 1776 was a complex time as human slavery fueled the economy. The line between who was a slave and who wasn’t became thin. It took a century for the laws to be put into place that defined who had rights and what those rights were.

Irish Catholics were an important part of this colonial trade. By the 1600s English began to colonize a conquered Ireland. They planted Ireland with Scots and English. Workers left Ireland not only by force as convict slaves, but also were persuaded to leave as indentured servants. Ireland was so bad at the time that many gladly took up the offer to be enslaved for a set number of years. This went on for at least 100 years. The Caribbean islands, Virginia and Maryland were where most of the Irish were transported. Indentured servants would later go in large numbers to the Pennsylvania and New York colonies.

In tomorrow’s blog, I will discuss the laws which governed the practice of bondage and defined human rights, and what constituted slavery. Once the laws were in place, then slavery and servitude became color based.

The Great Migration (1910-1930)

7 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

For many African Americans of Irish heritage, they have to first trace their ancestors back into the Southern United States. This blog will focus on “The Great Migration” which was the first massive exodus out of the South. By 1900 about 90% of blacks lived in the South. The years 1910 through 1930 (some historians see 1916-1940) saw 1.6 million blacks leaving. There are some general migration patterns, although not set in stone:

Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas westward to: Oakland and Los Angeles, California.

Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas northward to: a.) St. Louis, Missouri (onward to Quincy and Springfield in Illinois), b.) Davenport, Iowa and c.) Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee northward to: a.) Louisville, Kentucky, b.) Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio, c.) Indianapolis, Indiana, d.) Chicago, Illinois, e.) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, f.) Detroit, Michigan, g.) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia northeastward to: a.) Richmond, Virginia, b.) Washington DC, c.) Baltimore, Maryland, d.) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, e.) Newark, New Jersey, f.) Albany, New York City, Buffalo and Rochester, New York, g.) New Haven, Connecticut, h.) Boston, Massachusetts, i.) Providence, Rhode Island.

There were many reasons for leaving. Racism (lynching, terror, and Jim Crow Laws) was not the only reason. Many left seeking employment away from sharecrop farming. They took urban jobs in the service industry NOT in the factories and in the heavy industry.

Blacks replaced whites who originally held those jobs. Another reason for leaving was to provide a better education for children and have a voice. Other factors contributed, such as the Great Mississippi Flood (1927), which displaced hundreds of thousands of farm laborers.

The majority of migrants were from the rural South. Also during this time period, settling in the same cities were poor rural Europeans. Both groups were competing for the same jobs in the service industry, with the railroads, meatpacking plants and stockyards being favored.

When tracing a Great Migration family, the 1910, 1920, 1930 and newly released 1940 U.S. Census are essential tools. Once you know a state of birth, then you are ready to work backwards. This is where the adventure really begins!

Using the 1870 U.S. Census in African American Research

18 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

In order to trace the Irish connection to an African American family; it’s first necessary to get past one major hurdle; the 1870 U.S. Census. This was the first federal census schedule to list the freed slaves by name, age, and birthplace. For this reason alone, it is among the most important genealogical resources which you can use in this type of research.

There are several factors to consider. The first is that this was only five years after the Civil War ended. The newly freed slaves were getting on their feet, and many were getting ready to move on. This means it was common for the freed slaves to be working on the very plantation they were freed from, or at least very close by. This was in a sharecropping arrangement where the freed slave would work the crops for part of the profit. Reality was usually much different. It actually differed little from slavery. Poor whites, and Tri-Racial Isolates, were also sharecroppers alongside the African Americans.

With all of its faults, abuses, and horrors, the sharecropping system at least kept families fed. It also bought families a few years of transition prior to moving far away from the old plantation. From a genealogical perspective, this means that the 1870 neighborhood where a black family was living was the old plantation itself. For our Irish Studies, this means the slave owner, who will be listed nearby in the same census can be identified. If he wasn’t the father, then you at least identified the last slave owner.

With the name of the last slave owner, this opens up surviving plantation records, and the county deeds documenting the buying and selling of slaves. Once the slave owner(s) are identified, then the way is clear to explore the Irish connection.

Who are the Melungeons?

23 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

Whenever I research in the mid-south region of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, I always look for Melungeon ancestry, based upon surnames and race prior to 1870. Melungeons were “free color” not slaves.

The word Melungeon is believed to mean mixture. They intermarried usually with poor whites and among their community. Today, their descendants number in the milliions and are scattered across North America. Common family surnames:

Bolen/Bowling, Bunch, Cole, Collins, Delp, Denham, Fields, Freeman, Gann, Gibson/Gipson, Goins, Goodman, Graham, Hale, Ivey, Lawson, Lucas, Maloney, Miner/Minear, Mize, Moseley, Mullins/Melons, Nichols, Noel, Piniore, Sexton, Sweat/Sweet/Swett, Williams. It’s not difficult to pick out the Irish ones.

Reports from DNA studies on Melungeon families fill the Internet. Studies reveal a mixed-blood heritage now referred to as “Tri-Racial Isolates.” They came out of Colonial Virginia. The product of white indentured servants (thus the Irish surnames), blacks and Native Americans. Current books on Melungeon will have a chapter on the DNA findings.

From a genealogical perspective, two path breaking articles by Virginia Easley DeMarce and published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly are: “Verry Slitly Mixt”: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South – A Genealogical Study,” 80 (March 1992): 5-35 www.genpage.com/DeMarce.pdf and “Looking at Legends – Lumbee and Melungeon: Applied Genealogy and the Origins of Tri-Racial Isolates,” 81 (March 1993): 24-45 http://historical-melungeons.blogspot.com/2008/04/looking-at-legends-lumbee-and-melungeon.htmlThe colonial roots for many of these families have also been explored in Paul Heinegg’s monumental two volume work, Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina: From the Colonial Period to About 1820 (2005): www.freeafricanamericans.com/Virginia_NC.htm and his Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware from the Colonial Period to 1810 (2000): www.freeafricanamericans.com/maryland.htm

The Melungeons are yet another chapter in our racially mixed colonial history involving the Irish. They like other Tri-Racial Isolates have survived historically because they didn’t fit in either the white and black communities.

India and the Colonial America Connection

15 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

Don’t be surprised if your Colonial American ancestors were actually from India. The colonial vocabulary used the term “East Indies” to describe the Indian subcontinent.

So how did these people get to the New World in the 1600s? The records themselves provide answers, and are extracted by Paul Heinegg as “Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware”: www.freeafricanamericans.com/East_Indians.htm

Mr. Heinegg, notes that East Indians came in bondage as indentured servants and slaves

from England. He documents East Indians from the court records in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. He notes that although they tended to marry into the Free Black community, they also intermixed with the indentured white community, many of whom clearly had Irish surnames. The court records used often use the term “East India Indians.”

One very interesting case from the Spotsylvania County Order Books (1735-38) showed the distinction between the East Indians and African slaves (page 440):

“Zachary Lewis, Churchwarden of St. George Parish, presents Ann Jones, a servant belonging to John West, who declared that Pompey an East Indian (slave) belonging to William Woodford, Gent., was the father of sd child which was adjudged of by the Court that she was not under the law having a Mullato child, that only relates to Negroes and Mullatoes and being Silent as to Indians, carry sd. Ann Jones to the whipping post.”

In this case, Ann Jones, a presumed white indentured servant, had a child by Pompey, an East Indian slave. The laws were already in place restricting white indentured servants having children with African slaves. Yet, it had not caught up with the East Indian issue. In the end, Ann’s sentence was the whipping post!

What a fascinating piece of history with records to back it up.

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