[4] Rhode Island had failed to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

[5] During the first forty years of the republic there was much talk about colonizing the Negroes in the West.

[6] The writer refers here to the acts of Pennsylvania, providing for the abolition of slavery.

[7] In 1740 South Carolina enacted a law prohibiting any one from teaching a slave to read or employing one in “any manner of writing.”  Georgia enacted the same law in 1770.

[8] This letter was originally published in England, where the number of Negroes had considerably increased after the war in America.

[9] The country expression for the woods was “Bush.”

LETTERS SHOWING THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE EARLY NEGRO CHURCHES OF GEORGIA AND THE WEST INDIES[1]

AN ACCOUNT OF SEVERAL BAPTIST CHURCHES, CONSISTING CHIEFLY OF NEGRO SLAVES:  PARTICULARLY OF ONE AT KINGSTON, IN JAMAICA; AND ANOTHER AT SAVANNAH IN GEORGIA

A letter from the late Rev. Mr. Joseph Cook of the Euhaw, upper Indian Land, South Carolina, bearing date Sept. 15, 1790, “A poor negro, commonly called, among his own friends, Brother George, has been so highly favoured of God, as to plant the first Baptist Church in Savannah, and another in Jamaica:”  This account produced an earnest desire to know the circumstances of both these societies.  Hence letters were written to the Rev. Mr. Cook at the Euhaw; to Mr. Jonathan Clarke, at Savannah; to Mr. Wesley’s people at Kingston; with a view to obtain information, in which particular regard was had to the character of this poor but successful minister of Christ.  Satisfactory accounts have been received from each of these quarters, and a letter from brother George himself, containing an answer to more than fifty questions proposed in a letter to him:  We presume to give an epitome of the whole to our friends, hoping that they will have the goodness to let a plain unlettered people convey their ideas in their own simple way.

Brother George’s words are distinguished by inverted commas, and what is not so marked, is either matter compressed or information received from such persons to whom application has been made of it.

George Liele, called also George Sharp because his owner’s name was Sharp, in a letter dated Kingston, Dec. 18, 1791, says, “I was born in Virginia, my father’s name was Liele, and my mother’s name Nancy; I can not ascertain much of them, as I went to several parts of America when young, and at length resided in New Georgia; but was informed both by white and black people, that my father was the only black person who knew the Lord in a spiritual way in that country:  I always had a natural fear of God from my youth, and was often checked in conscience with thoughts of death, which barred me from many sins and bad company.  I knew no other way at that time to hope for salvation but only in the performance