Absalom Jones

• Born: November 6, 1746
• Birthplace: Sussex County, Delaware
• Died: February 13, 1818
• Place of death: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Religious leader

A former slave, Jones helped other free African Americans gain religious independence by creating, with his colleague Richard Allen, the Free African Society. He aided in the founding of the African Church of Philadelphia and served the community as an Episcopal minister.

Areas of achievement: Abolitionism; Religion and theology

Early Life

Born into slavery on Cedar Town plantation in Sussex County, Delaware, Absalom Jones (AB-suh-lahm) took advantage of the opportunities presented to him by a fairly benevolent master, Benjamin Wynkoop. Rather than suffer the physical and mental drudgery of field work, Jones was taken into the plantation house, learned to read, and gained confidence in himself at a young age.

When Wynkoop moved to Philadelphia in 1762, he took the teenager with him after selling the rest of Jones’s family. In Philadelphia, Jones worked in his master’s shop and eventually persuaded Wynkoop to allow him to attend a local school for African Americans. Equipped with reading, writing, and other skills, and aware of the growing abolitionist sentiments abounding in Philadelphia, Jones continued to prepare for a better—perhaps free—life.

In his mid-twenties, Jones married a neighbor’s slave, Mary, in a ceremony in St. Peter’s Church. Eventually he purchased his wife’s freedom and his own and acquired property. Most likely he began using the surname Jones after acquiring his freedom. He continued to work as a wage earner for Wynkoop, but unlike numerous African Americans, he did not join the loyalist, or British, side during the American Revolution.

Life’s Work

After buying his freedom, Jones sought spiritual independence by leaving the church of his former master and joining other freed African Americans who worshiped at St. George’s. Here, he met Richard Allen, the black Methodist preacher. Allen, Jones, and two other former slaves discussed the formation of a religious society for free African Americans. The outcome of these talks became, in April of 1787, the Free African Society, a benevolent society modeled after similar white organizations. Jones played a leading role in the formation of this society and guided the organization to acquire a place for a black cemetery, to begin recording marriages of black couples, and to work toward providing a place for independent black religious services. Meanwhile, African Americans continued to worship in white churches.

When the Free African Society’s practices began to seem more Quaker and less Methodist, Allen left with several followers and Jones became the society’s leader. He began an association with the Philadelphia physician and abolitionist Benjamin Rush that would help Jones not only legitimize the work he did for former slaves and other African Americans but also help raise funds for a nondenominational, independent African American church. Jones continued to strive—despite financial difficulties, a yellow fever epidemic, and harsh criticism from those who did not want to see African Americans worship in their own church—to build the African Episcopal Church of Philadelphia.

Jones’s vision, to build an independent and socially oriented black church, would not be completely fulfilled until the summer of 1794. One incident that illustrated the need for a racially separate religious institution had occurred nearly two years earlier. While worshipping at St. George’s, a church they helped build, Jones, Allen, and other African American community leaders were asked to move to the segregated balcony. Instead, they walked out. A pamphlet written by Allen and Jones describing the incident was the catalyst for several African Americans in the community to support an independent black church.

The next year, Philadelphia was hit by a yellow fever epidemic. Rush, who had helped Jones secure funding and support for his vision, called upon the religious leader and head of the Free African Society to help the city through the crisis. Mistakenly believing African Americans to be immune to the disease, Rush enlisted their help in caring for the sick and disposing of the dead. Several members of Philadelphia’s black community succumbed to the disease. Jones had agreed to aid the white community when called upon because he believed it would prove the black community’s worthiness; however, despite their efforts, disdain for independent black institutions remained after the worst of the epidemic passed. The vision of a racially separate worship facility would take longer than Jones had expected.

As the church neared completion two years after the incident at St. George’s and a year after yellow fever hit Philadelphia, it was decided that the denomination would be Episcopal. On July 17, 1794, the African Church of Philadelphia held its dedication ceremony as St. Thomas’s African Episcopal Church.

As St. Thomas’s spiritual leader, Jones preached black pride. In addition, he guided members of his congregation in founding other institutions for the black community, such as schools, mutual aid societies, and literary societies. Jones’s activism included the formation of an insurance company for African Americans, advising local African Americans in real estate matters, and participating in abolition efforts in Philadelphia as well, including an antislavery petition addressed to the U.S. Congress. St. Thomas was Jones’s life for over twenty years; after his death in 1818, its cemetery was his final resting place.

Significance

As one of few African American religious leaders during the colonial period, Jones—who knew from experience how difficult the transition from slavery to freedom could be—served as a model and mentor for others by preaching and living black pride. As leader of the Free African Society and minister of the first black Episcopal church in the United States, he legitimized African American independence and pride at a time when the American colonies were gaining their own independence and legitimacy as a nation.

Bibliography

Episcopal Church. “African-Americans and the Struggle for Justice.” The Church Awakens, 2008. http://www .episcopalarchives.org/Afro-Anglican‗history/exhibit/about/index.php. The Church Awakens is the official electronic publication of the Archives of the Episcopal Church; this exhibit showcases the role of African Americans in the church’s history and includes a brief biography of Jones.

Nash, Gary B. “Absalom Jones and the African Church of Philadelphia.” In The Human Tradition in America from the Colonial Era Through Reconstruction, edited by Charles W. Calhoun. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2002. This chapter, by an expert on African American history during America’s colonial period, offers one of the most extensive biographies of the subject to be found in one piece.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720-1840. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. A scholarly examination of the postrevolutionary black experience in one of the major urban centers of America, this narrative is a relevant and useful text for African American studies as well as religious studies.

Newman, Richard. Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Although this work focuses on Allen, it includes numerous references to Jones and the historical context in which he and Allen operated.