a where he founded the first Baptist church of that
colony. The competent and indefatigable Andrew Bryan[2] proved to be a
worthy successor of George Leile in Georgia. From 1770 to 1790 Negro
preachers were in charge of congregations in Charles City, Petersburg,
and Allen's Creek in Lunenburg County, Virginia.[3] In 1801 Gowan
Pamphlet of that State was the pastor of a progressive Baptist church,
some members of which could read, write, and keep accounts.[4] Lemuel
Haynes was then widely known as a well-educated minister of the
Protestant Episcopal Church. John Gloucester, who had been trained
under Gideon Blackburn of Tennessee, distinguished himself in
Philadelphia where he founded the African Presbyterian Church.[5] One
of the most interesting of these preachers was Josiah Bishop. By 1791
he had made such a record in his profession that he was called to
the pastorate of the First Baptist Church (white) of Portsmouth,
Virginia.[6] After serving his white brethren a number of years he
preached some time in Baltimore and then went to New York to take
charge of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.[7] This favorable condition
of affairs could not long exist after the aristocratic element in the
country began to recover some of the ground it had lost during the
social upheaval of the revolutionary era. It was the objection to
treating Negroes as members on a plane of equality with all, that led
to the establishment of colored Baptist churches and to the secession
of the Negro Methodists under the leadership of Richard Allen in 1794.
The importance of this movement to the student of education lies in
the fact that a larger number of Negroes had to be educated to carry
on the work of the new churches.

[Footnote 1: He was sometimes called George Sharp. See Benedict,
_History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 189.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 189.]

[Footnote 3: Semple, _History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 112.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 114.]

[Footnote 5: Baird, _A Collection_, etc., p. 817.]

[Footnote 6: Semple, _History of the Baptists_, etc., p. 355.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid._, p. 356.]

The intellectual progress of the colored people of that day, however,
was not restricted to their clergymen. Other Negroes were learning to
excel in various walks of life. Two such persons were found in North
Carolina. One of these was known as Caesar, the author of a collection
of poems, which, when published in that State, attained a popularity