JAKES COLONY, Guadalupe Texas and the AFRICAN
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH ( A.M.E.)
1870 Jakes Colony Census
Jerimiah "Jerry" Webster Family
Wilcox Family
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JAKES COLONY, TEXAS
Jakes Colony,
nine miles south of Seguin and two miles west of what is now State Highway
123 in southern Guadalupe County, off of Elm Creek Rd on County Rd 419 or Jakes County Rd. It was established by former slaves. In 1904
it had a one-teacher school for seventy black students. There were a few
scattered houses and a church in the area in 1946. Though the 1987 county
highway map did not show any evidence of the community, a population of thirty
was reported for Jakes Colony in 1990. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin (Guadalupe County).
AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church
grew out of a protest by Richard Allen against racial discrimination in St.
George's Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, in 1787. Rather than suffer
indignities in that white-controlled church, Allen formed a separate black
congregation. In 1816 he organized several black Methodist congregations
into a new denomination called the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In
the tense times leading to the Civil War,qv the AME Church was not permitted
to operate in Texas, or in most other parts of the slaveholding South. The first African Methodist Episcopal Church missionary in Texas, M. M. Clark, arrived in Galveston in 1866, after the surrender of the Confederacy and the end of slavery.qv Like African Methodist missionaries elsewhere in the former slave states, Clark wanted to organize black Methodists. Although Texas had had no AME congregations previously, many black Methodists had worshipped in the Methodist churches of their masters. Clark intended to bring them into the AME Church and to recruit others to Methodism. The congregations that he and other missionaries organized were originally supervised by Bishop Jabez P. Campbell from New Orleans. A meeting to organize an annual conference in Texas took place in Galveston, probably in 1867. (Administrative and doctrinal matters for the church as a whole are attended to in general conferences held every four years. Annual conferences handle church affairs within states.) On October 22, 1868, the first Texas conference met in Galveston, presided over by Bishop James A. Shorter. Among those present were the early leaders of African Methodism in Texas, Houston Reedy (see REEDY CHAPEL AME CHURCH), Steven Patton, Emmanuel Hammitt, and Johnson Reed.qv The conference claimed 3,000 members and probationers that year, and membership grew steadily though not spectacularly afterward. By 1890 membership in Texas had reached 23,000, and by 1926 it had reached 34,000, ranking second to Baptists among black churchgoers. In the early years of the Texas Conference most member churches were located within a triangle formed by Galveston, Bryan, and San Antonio. Eventually, however, the number of AME members in Texas increased and spread across the state. The West Texas Conference was organized in 1875 and the Central Texas Conference in 1883. The church had four conferences by 1890 and nine by 1926. The Texas Conference founded Paul Quinn College in the Metropolitan AME Church in Austin in 1872. The school was later moved to Waco. In addition to its religious functions, the African Methodist Church has helped blacks maintain a sense of community and provided them with a place to express their demands for civil rights. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hightower T. Kealing, History of African Methodism in Texas (Waco, 1885). Daniel Alexander Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Nashville: A.M.E. Sunday School Union, 1891; rpt., New York: Arno, 1969). Charles Spencer Smith, A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Philadelphia: A.M.E. Church Book Concern, 1922; rpt., New York: Johnson Reprint, 1968). Richard R. Wright, Jr., ed., Centennial Encyclopaedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Philadelphia: Book Concern of the A.M.E. Church, 1916). William E. Montgomery |