The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on September 3, 1846 in Albany, New York

Albany, New York

Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...

. The main purpose of this organization was to abolish

Abolition

Abolish means to put an end to something or to stop something.Abolition may refer to:*Abolitionism *Abolition of death penalty *Abolition of monarchy*Prison abolition movement...

 slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, to educate African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s, to promote racial equality, and to promote Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 values. Its members and leaders were of both races and chiefly affiliated with Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian churches.

History

The American Missionary Association was started by members of the American Home Missionary Society (AHMS) and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the first American Christian foreign mission agency. It was proposed in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College and officially chartered in 1812. In 1961 it merged with other societies to form the United Church Board for World...

 (ABCFM), who were disappointed that their first organizations refused to take stands against slavery and accepted contributions from slaveholders. From the beginning the leadership was integrated: the first board was made up of 12 men, four of them black.

The organization started the American Missionary magazine, which published from 1846 through 1934. (Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 Library has editions accessible online in its Making of America digital library.) Among its efforts was the founding of anti-slavery churches. For instance, the abolitionist Owen Lovejoy

Owen Lovejoy

Owen Lovejoy was an American lawyer, Congregational minister, abolitionist, and Republican congressman from Illinois. He was also a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad...

 was among the Congregational ministers of the AMA who helped plant 115 anti-slavery churches in Illinois before the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, aided by the strong westward migration of population from the East.

Members of the AMA started their support of education for blacks before the Civil War, and it recruited teachers for the numerous contraband

Contraband

The word contraband, reported in English since 1529, from Medieval French contrebande "a smuggling," denotes any item which, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold....

 camps that developed in the South during the war. By war's end, there were 100 contraband camps, and many had AMA teachers. The AMA also served the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony (1863-1867). Located on an island occupied by Union troops, the colony was intended to be self-sustaining. It was supervised by Horace James, a Congregational chaplain appointed by the Army as "Superintendent for Negro Affairs in the North Carolina District". The first of 27 teachers who volunteered through the AMA was his cousin, Elizabeth James. By 1864 the colony had more than 2200 residents, and both children and adults filled the classrooms in the several one-room schools, as they were eager for learning. The missionary teachers also evangelized and helped provide the limited medical care of the time.

The AMA's pace of founding schools and colleges increased during and after the war. Freedmen, historically free blacks, and white sympathizers alike believed that education was a priority for the newly freed slaves. Altogether, "the AMA founded more than five hundred schools and colleges for the freedmen of the South during and after the Civil War, spending more money for that purpose than the Freedmen's Bureau of the federal government." Among the eleven colleges they founded were Berea College

Berea College

Berea College is a liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky , founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students...

 and Atlanta University

Clark Atlanta University

Clark Atlanta University is a private, historically black university in Atlanta, Georgia. It was formed in 1988 with the consolidation of Clark College and Atlanta University...

, (1865); Fisk University

Fisk University

Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...

, (1866); Hampton Institute (1868) and Tougaloo College

Tougaloo College

Tougaloo College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts institution of higher education founded in 1869, in Madison County, north of Jackson, Mississippi, USA.Academically, Tougaloo College has received high ranks in recent years...

, (1869); Dillard University

Dillard University

Dillard University is a private, historically black liberal arts college in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1930 incorporating earlier institutions that went back to 1869, it is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church....

, Talladega College

Talladega College

- External Links :* -- Official web site*...

, LeMoyne/LeMoyne-Owen College

LeMoyne-Owen College

-External links:*...

, Tillotson/Huston-Tillotson University

Huston-Tillotson University

Huston–Tillotson University is a historically black university in Austin, Texas, United States. The school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, and the United Negro College Fund....

, and Avery Normal Institute (1867) (now part of the College of Charleston

College of Charleston

The College of Charleston is a public, sea-grant and space-grant university located in historic downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States...

). Together with the Freedmen's Bureau

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands

The Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency that aided distressed freedmen in 1865–1869, during the Reconstruction era of the United States....

, the AMA founded Howard University

Howard University

Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 in 1867.
In addition, the AMA organized the Freedmen's Aid Society, which recruited northern teachers for the schools and arranged to find housing for them in the South.

By the 1870s, the AMA national office had relocated to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Its magazine American Missionary had a circulation of 20,000 in the 19th century, ten times that of the abolitionist William Garrison

William Garrison

William Garrison may refer to:* William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist* William Garrison , geographer and professor* William F. Garrison, US general who commanded the operation depicted in the film Black Hawk Down...

's magazine. The Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 Library has editions from 1878-1901 accessible online in its Making of America digital library.

While the AMA became notable in the United States with its work in opposition to slavery and in support of education for freedmen, it also worked in missions in numerous nations overseas. The nineteenth-century missionary effort was strong in China and east Asia.

Over time, the association became most closely aligned with the Congregational Christian Churches

Congregational Christian Churches

The Congregational Christian Churches were a Protestant Christian denomination that operated in the U.S. from 1931 through 1957. On the latter date, most of its churches joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church in a merger to become the United Church of Christ. Others created the National...

. Most of those congregations have become members of the United Church of Christ

United Church of Christ

The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...

 (UCC). The AMA maintained its distinct identity until 1999, when a restructuring of the UCC merged it into the Justice and Witness Ministries division.

The records of the American Missionary Association are housed at the Amistad Research Center, located at Tulane University

Tulane University

Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...

in New Orleans.

External links

• "Constitution of the American Missionary Association", The American Missionary, Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony (1863-1867) Website
• "American Missionary Association", North by South, Kenyon University, 1998
• The American Missionary magazine, Project Gutenberg, most issues from 1888-1900
• "Guide to the Records of the American Missionary Association", Amistad Research Center