The Slave Preacher--Portrait of a Leader

Abstract

That a slave preacher was the author of the first printed production written by a Negro in the continental United States offers little surprise to the person who is familiar with the conventionally popular conception that the early Negro possessed a peculiar bent for religious enthusiasm and emotionalism. In the same connection, the student of the literature published in America during the Revolutionary period notes that the earliest prose writings by American Negroes were suffused with religious fervor and with references to the remarkable providences which preserved so humbleand imaginative-a believer as perhaps, Briton Hammon or John Marrant. While one recognizes the limitations of these early works in light of their crudities, inaccuracies, and irrelevancies one may not overlook the fact that the pioneers of Negro writers in America were religious leaders. These precursors sketched the pattern of activities which many slave preachers and exhorters,l were to follow in the years to come. Although Colonial days saw the beginning of the ministry of Negro preachers in America, and Revolutionary days witnessed the widespread fame of a few Negro preachers like Black Harry,2 it was on the plantation during the thirty or forty years preceding the Civil War that the leadership ability of the Negro preacher