For The Oral Teaching of Colored Persons: A Slaveholder's Catechism -
FOR THE ORAL TEACHING OF COLORED PERSONS: A SLAVEHOLDER’S CATECHISM
REVEREND JOHN F. HOFF – MILLWOOD, VIRGINIA
[Slavery--Religion]. Hoff, John F. A MANUAL OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION, SPECIALLY INTENDED FOR THE ORAL TEACHING OF COLORED PERSONS, BUT ADAPTED TO GENERAL USE IN FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS. King & Baird, Printers, No. 9 Sansom Street, Philadelphia. 1852. 12mo (15 cm). 144 pp. Original green cloth, stamped in gilt and blind, old damp-staining to front cover and gutter of preliminaries, light foxing. About very good.
Slavery was a contradictory institution, one that thrived in daily and abject defiance of most ideals Americans claimed to value. Among the most egregious of its incongruities was the concern that many slaveholders professed for the souls of their slaves, even while continuing to reap profit from the violation of those same slaves’ bodies. A small but significant genre of texts on religious instruction for enslaved peoples, sometimes referred to as slave catechisms, served both to alleviate whatever responsibility slaveholders claimed for the spiritual well being of their slaves and--no less importantly--to indoctrinate slaves in those tenets of Christianity that upheld and even extolled the bond between servant and master. This rare volume, A Manual of Religious Instruction, Specially Intended for the Oral Teaching of Colored Persons, was compiled by the Reverend John F. Hoff of Millwood, Virginia, in 1852; a second edition appeared in 1857. Only five other copies of the first edition are recorded in institutional holdings. This example is particularly noteworthy, as it was owned by Margaretta (Margaret) Sophia Howard Ridgely, mistress of Hampton, one of the largest slaveholding plantations in Maryland.
Across the Antebellum South, most all of the major Protestant denominations--including Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians--produced works specifically intended for the religious education of slaves. Prior to Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831, however, such works were quite rare. Indeed, the earliest slave catechism identified by Tammy K. Byron in her dissertation on the subject is Benjamin Morgan Palmer’s A Plain and Easy Catechism, Designed Chiefly for the Benefit of Coloured Persons, published at Charleston in 1828. Turner’s insurrection convinced white southerners that a correct religious education was essential to prevent slaves from following such “false prophets” (Raboteau 1978:164). As Byron cogently observes: “To ensure that slaves received a proper religious education--that is, one that imparted Christian principles and stressed slave subordination and obedience--white Southerners began to write and employ catechisms, a traditional mode of transmitting religion to the unlearned” (2008:19). For the years between Nat Turner and Appomattox, Byron locates nearly a dozen extent slave catechisms and finds notice of several more that seem not to exist in any surviving copies.
Many white southerners blamed Nat Turner’s insurrection on its leader’s well-documented literacy, and in its aftermath most southern states enacted laws against teaching enslaved peoples to read and write. As a result, many slave catechisms, including John Hoff’s Manual of Religious Instruction, specifically state their intended use “for oral instruction” or “for the use of those who cannot read.” Hoff’s work is one of three known Episcopalian examples, and he writes in his brief introduction that he hoped it would make an improvement upon existing catechisms for enslaved learners. At the time of its publication, Hoff was the rector of Christ Church in Millwood, Clarke County, Virginia. Just a few years later, though, beginning in 1858, he served as minister at Trinity Church in Towson, Maryland, where in 1860 a new chapel was constructed of limestone donated by John Ridgley of nearby Hampton Plantation. Ridgely was the third master of Hampton, though his son, Charles had assumed management of the estate in 1851 after completing his education at Harvard University. That same year, he had married his first cousin, Margaretta (Margaret) Sophia Howard, who signed and dated this copy of Hoff’s Manual on August 1, 1852.
Hampstead’s wealth derived both from agriculture--the estate included more than 25,000 acres by 1781--and one of the most profitable iron works in the early republic. Captain Charles Ridgely oversaw construction of Hampton Mansion from 1783 to 1790, commissioning what was then the largest private home in the United States; at 24,000 square feet, it could hold Monticello and Mount Vernon and still have room to spare. When the childless Ridgley died suddenly just months after its completion, the estate passed to his nephew Charles Ridgely Carnan, who switched his last and middle names as a condition of receiving his inheritance. Carnan Ridgley would serve as Maryland’s governor from 1815 to 1818, and at the time of his death in 1829 he held nearly 350 enslaved peoples, the second highest total of any plantation in the state. His will, though, stipulated the release of all enslaved men between the ages of 28 and 45 and all enslaved women between the ages of 25 and 45. His heir, John Carnan Ridgely, thus inherited an iron works and farm with no enslaved labor, but he quickly purchased several dozen slaves, renewing his commitment to slavery and resuming the plantation life to which he and his wife, Eliza, were accustomed. He was sixty when his eldest son, Charles, took over agricultural operations in 1851.
As Charles Ridgely managed much of Hampton’s enslaved labor, so was Margaret likely involved in the religious instruction of its slaves. Margaret Sophia Ridgely, granddaughter of two Maryland governors (including Charles Carnan Ridgely, also grandfather of her husband and first cousin, Charles), grew up next door to Hampton on Cowpens Plantation, itself a large slaveholding estate. Across the Antebellum South, white aristocratic women frequently took responsibility for teaching scripture to the enslaved, often in the context of Sunday schools. As McCord notes, the Sunday school movement spread through southern states “as slaveholding women were convinced of their obligation to evangelize slaves” (2015:1227). Indeed, the Ridgelys promoted Christianity in similar ways at Hampton. Eliza Eichelberger Ridgely, John’s wife, provided church services for Hampton’s enslaved community in the carriage house attic, supervised by a white minister; her daughter (and Margaret’s sister-in-law), Eliza, known as “Didy,” recorded in her 1853 journal that she taught Sunday school classes to enslaved children, which included learning the Lord’s Prayer and memorizing Bible verses. Margaret--a close friend of Didy’s since childhood--signed her copy of Hoff’s Manual just one year earlier, and it seems reasonable to suggest that this very catechism was put to use in Sunday school services taught by the women of Hampton.
All slave catechisms are scarce today, especially on the rare book market. Many--such as this first edition of Hoff’s Manual--are known in but a handful of copies, most in institutions. We locate five institutional holdings: at Yale, the Newberry, the University of Texas, Duke (listed as lost or missing), and the Wesley Theological Seminary. A sixth example, possibly the same one that we offer here, was sold at Swann Galleries in 2009 for $2280; although a previous owner’s signature was noted on the front free end paper, the provenance was not further specified. This is the only slave catechism currently available on the market, and we trace just two examples of any such catechism offered at auction during the past decade (per RBH).
On November 1, 1864--nearly a full year after the Emancipation Proclamation freed all persons held as slaves in states that seceded from the Union--Maryland finally declared all of its own citizens free. Charles and Margaret Ridgely did not inherit Hampton until John’s death in 1867, and so were the first Ridgelys to assume ownership of the estate without slaves and without slavery. They left Maryland with their seven children and traveled in Europe, managing Hampton through correspondence. When Charles died without warning of typhoid fever in 1872, Margaret returned with the children and took over the estate, establishing the Ridgelys’ prize-winning Jersey cattle herd and controlling family finances until her own death at the age of 80 in 1904. In 1948 Hampton became the first site selected on the basis of its architectural significance as a National Historic Site by the U. S. National Park Service. (Robin Beck)
Relevant sources:
Byron, Tammy K. 2008 "A Catechism for Their Special Use:" Slave Catechisms in the Antebellum South. PhD dissertation, Department of History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Lancaster, Kent 2000 Chattel Slavery at Hampton/Northampton, Baltimore County. The Maryland Historical Magazine 95(4):409-428.
McCord, Stephen K. 2015 Sunday School Among Slaves. In Encyclopedia of Christian Education: Volume 3, edited by George Thomas Kurian and Mark A. Lamport, pp. 1226-1228. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD.
Raboteau, Albert J. 1978 Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South. Oxford University Press, New York.
Smith, Mitzi J. 2014 US Colonial Missions to African Slaves: Catechizing Black Souls, Traumatizing the Black Psychē. In Teaching All Nations Interrogating the Matthean Great Commission, edited by Jayachitra Lalitha and Mitzi J. Smith, pp. 57-88. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN.