Methodist minister grapples with slavery in antebellum Florida

George Washington Fagg

America had been a sovereign nation for just 24 years and President John Adams would be succeeded by Thomas Jefferson in a few short months when George Fagg was born in Virginia on December 31, 1800. Nothing is known of his early life but church records show that by the time he was 27 years old he had moved to Kentucky and been admitted to the Methodist Conference “on a trial basis.”  He moved up quickly, becoming a deacon at the age of 30 and was ordained as an elder by the time he was 32. A history of Methodism in Kentucky mentions George Fagg alongside other “sturdy pioneer ministers” who traveled over rough roads and unmarked trails to preach the gospel.

By 1850, Rev. Fagg had relocated to South Georgia. Around 1852 he was living in Gadsden County, Florida in the same community where I would live and grow up over 100 years later.

Old Mt. Pleasant Church

Glen Julia Methodist Episcopal Church South

I learned about Rev. Fagg when researching my maternal ancestors in the community of Mt. Pleasant.  Rev. Fagg was pastor of the Old Mt. Pleasant Methodist Church beginning in 1853, serving intermittently until 1873.  This church was part of the same circuit and is just a few miles away from the Glen Julia Methodist Church which has been attended by members of my family for over 150 years. Growing up in Mt. Pleasant I joined and regularly attended Glen Julia Methodist and on occasion, the Old Mt. Pleasant Church.  

I was intrigued when I came across this letter Rev. Fagg wrote in 1837 to the Secretary of the American Colonization Society seeking help to relocate his slaves to Liberia.

Letter addressed to the Secretary of the American Colonization Society, Source: The African Repository and Colonial Journal, Vol. XIII, Published by Order of the Managers of the American Colonization Society, Washington: Published by James C. Dunn - 1837

I wanted to know more about the American Colonization Society.

The American Colonization Society 

Certificate of Membership 1840

Though America had outlawed the importation of slaves in 1808, birth rates increased their numbers as owners in Maryland and Virginia bred and sold enslaved persons to provide labor for the cotton and rice plantations of the South.  As black enslaved persons began to outnumber whites in some regions, slave owners feared rebellion and yeoman farmers and tradesmen saw free blacks as economic competitors. The solution? Form the American Colonization Society (ACS) and send willing free persons of color and newly emancipated slaves to the colony of Liberia on the west coast of Africa.

ACS supporters could seem like strange bedfellows. White abolitionists saw the organization as a humanitarian effort that would allow newly freed slaves to pursue an independent life away from the prejudice they experienced in America. Protestant churches and clergy saw it as an answer to the evils of the slave system, hoping to literally purchase freedom for slaves who would help to spread Christianity throughout the African continent. Finally, and most significantly, the powerful monied planter class of slave owners saw the ACS as a way to rid the country of free persons of color who might help slaves escape or encourage rebellion and whom they viewed as threatening the institution of slavery upon which they relied for their livelihood and very way of life. Many political leaders attempting to mollify these groups were also very supportive. Not surprisingly, most free persons of color opposed the organization’s efforts and did not wish to relocate to another country as they viewed America as their home. 

                   Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln

Founded in 1816 by a Presbyterian clergyman and such notable Americans as Kentucky Senator and statesman Henry Clay, the ACS was supported by Presidents James Madison, James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson. Even President Abraham Lincoln at one time voiced support for the idea. In 1854, the future president gave a speech that mentioned colonization as an appealing solution to the moral evils of slavery—but noted its logistical and ethical challenges:

“If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing insti­tution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,–to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible.”

Certificate of Membership 1837

Funding Sources

The Society raised money by selling memberships. Amazingly, ACS members  were able to successfully pressure President Monroe for support resulting in the Society receiving $100,000 from Congress in 1819.  For his part, Rev. Fagg more modestly helped to fund the ACS, collecting almost $500 in contributions while he was the Kentucky State Agent for the Society in 1838. Many of the contributions he collected were earmarked to finance the journey of specific named persons. In 1839 he added his own personal contributions totaling $10 for the Liberia Mission. Source: THE AFRICAN REPOSITORY & COLONIAL JOURNAL, published by the American Colonization Society in 1838 (google books) and Treasurer’s Account of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Minister and slave owner

How did George Fagg reconcile being both a minister of the gospel and an owner of human beings? My research has not revealed any of his personal writings, sermons, or other documents that can answer this. There is conflicting evidence about whether Rev. Fagg actually freed his own slaves. The 1840 edition of the African Repository and Colonial Journal reported “Mr. Fagg, the State Agent of Kentucky, besides devoting the prior year to Colonization, in soliciting funds, and preparing for the expedition from that State, liberated his own slaves, 7 in number, and proposed to accompany them to Liberia and remain with them until they were comfortably settled on their farms. He was compelled however, due to ill health, to relinquish the voyage.” (Source:: The African Repository and Colonial Journal, Feb 18, 1840 (Google Books)

In 1842 while still living in Kentucky Rev. Fagg married Eliza Ann Skiles. By 1850 the couple was living in Decatur County, Georgia, on the northern border of Gadsden County, Florida. The slave schedule of 1850 indicates that while living in Decatur the Rev. Fagg owned six people, a man and woman, both aged 50, and four males aged 21, 18, 16, and 14. Could this be the same family he was seeking assistance for in his 1837 letter and that were reported as “freed” in the 1840 publication? Perhaps  he was unable to raise funds sufficient to finance the journey to Liberia and without any other means of support the family may have remained with Rev. Fagg. Free people of color were few in number and faced many hardships, they were not considered full citizens, were subject to special state and local taxes, and were barred by law from working in certain occupations, particularly in the South.

It is also unclear whether the six enslaved persons listed on the 1850 census moved with Rev. Fagg from Georgia across the state line to Florida. However,  the 1860 Slave Schedule shows that while living in Gadsden County he still held two persons in bondage, a 28 year old male and 19 year old female.  

Exactly when Rev. Fagg and his wife came to Mt. Pleasant is unknown but they had connections with Gadsden County citizens as Eliza Ann Fagg was one of the signatories who witnessed the will of Joshua Davis in 1849. Davis was a prominent plantation owner whose home was located on the Old Spanish Trail (US Highway 90) near where the Old Mt. Pleasant Church would eventually be established. They built a home in the community and Rev. Fagg was the one who first who referred to the Methodist church as Mt. Pleasant, according to church history. In addition to his religious duties, he earned some income from his appointment and service as postmaster in 1855 and again in 1870.

Rev. Fagg was much loved in the community. In 1857 he was appointed guardian of two of Joshua Davis‘s granddaughters after the untimely death of their father. Uncle Fagg, as he was affectionately called, accompanied the girls from Mt. Pleasant to North Carolina to attend the Asheville Female College. Traveling by stage coach, the journey took several weeks, with frequent stops for Rev. Fagg to preach. (The Davis-Wood Family of Gadsden County, Florida and Their Forebears by Fenton Garnett Davis Avant, copyright 1979)

Sadly, Rev. Fagg’s wife Eliza died in 1852 at the age of 48. She is buried in the Old Mt. Pleasant cemetery.

Sacred

to the memory of 

Eliza Ann

Consort of Rev’d G.W. Fagg

of the Florida Conference

Happy in life, joyful in death

Who departed this life

in joyful hope

of that which is to come

28 June 1852 in her 48^th year

Happy in life, joyful in death 

Patient sufferer thy pilgrim days

are numbered

Farewell until we meet again

Seven years after the death of his first wife, George W. Fagg married 44 year old Sophia Hayden in 1859. The 1860 census shows them living in Gadsden County where his occupation is listed as Methodist Minister and his wife, Sophia, as Professor of French. 

Methodist Episcopal records indicate Rev. Fagg was assigned to the Apalachicola conference from 1856 to 1858 and at times served in Franklin and Wakulla counties. He must have been a busy man as he was also associated with two Georgia educational institutions during this time. Both were sponsored by the Methodists, the Fletcher Institute which was a coed boarding school in Thomasville and the Bainbridge Female College. It is likely that Mrs. Flagg taught French at one of these institutions.

Black and White membership in the Methodist Church

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was appalled by slavery in the British colonies. When the Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1784, the denomination officially opposed slavery. Numerous Methodist missionaries toured the South in the "Great Awakening" and tried to convince slaveholders to manumit their slaves. In the first two decades after the Revolutionary War, many did free their slaves. The number of free blacks increased markedly at this time, especially in the Upper South.

During the early nineteenth century, Methodists and Baptists in the South began to modify their approach in order to gain support from common planters, yeomen, and slaves. They began to argue for better treatment of slaves, saying that the Bible acknowledged slavery but that Christianity had a paternalistic role to improve conditions. 

Disagreement on the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church caused a split that resulted in the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1844. It would be 1933 before the North and South churches were reunified as the Methodist Conference.

In 1860 about 10.8% of Florida’s slave population were recorded as members of the Methodist church.  Between 1846 and 1860 blacks never constituted less than 34% of all Florida Methodists, and in 1861 about 43% of the 15,453 members of the Florida Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, were black. Source: Page 88, Masters & Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South, 1740-1870 by John P. Boles (Google Books)

Between 1830, when the Tallahassee District became a subunit of the newly formed Georgia conference, and 1849, several missions reached out to black members.  The Gadsden County Colored Mission and the Lake Jackson Colored Mission, both founded exclusively for slaves, reported a combined total of 373 members in 1844.  Rev. Fagg was listed as a superintendent of the Gadsden Colored Mission (Tallahassee District) in 1860 and 1862. (Minutes of Annual Conference of Methodist Episcopal Church South, pgs 271 and 411)

In 1865 the Tallahassee District Membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church South included 1,604 white and 2,174 colored members. The Tallahassee District included the towns of Quincy and Monticello, and the counties of Liberty, Leon, Gadsden and Wakulla. (Minutes of Annual Conference of Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1858-1865, Google Books)

 

Gadsden County’s Mount Pleasant Methodist was one of many Florida Methodist Congregations having numerous slave members.  The design of its third structure, built in 1855 when Rev. Fagg was pastor, not only provided for the segregation of men from women but also included a slave gallery extending across the south side of the building.  Mt. Pleasant’s sixty-odd slave members were listed in the church records by first names only, grouped according to plantation and labeled either “S” for  “sinner” or “B” for “believer.”  Source: Page 89, Masters & Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South, 1740-1870 by John P. Boles (Google Books)

Rev. Flagg is still living! 

So joyously proclaimed a Kentucky church publication in 1870. Mr. Fagg is still living and belongs to the Florida Conference. (HISTORY OF METHODISM IN KENTUCKY published 1870 (p. 372). 

He would live eight more years, dying at the age of 77 on May 22, 1878. He is buried in the Old Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.

In memory of Rev. George W. Fagg, a member of the Florida Conference, born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Died in Mt. Pleasant, Gadsden County, Florida. 

In life his faith was strong. In death his way was bright.