Baptists of Kansas City were involved in the abolition movement before and during the Civil War. In the first two years of the war, runaway slaves (or contraband) found refuge in Union Army camps and towns and cities of the North. Of the latter, Leavenworth, Kansas served as a refuge for runaway slaves in the…
St. Augustine, Florida has been under Union control since March 1862. Along with Beaufort, South Carolina and environs, St. Augustine serves as a Northern-controlled freemen’s colony, providing opportunities for former slaves — or contrabands (the wartime term for slaves freed by the Union Army) — to receive basic education, learn trades and acquire farming skills. Leading…
In the midst of secession fever in January 1861, the (white) First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee established a “Second Colored Baptist Mission” in Edgefield, east of Nashville’s downtown, on Fatherland Street. The mission church was supervised by a white committee and pastored by George Dardis, a free black preacher. Nelson G. Merry, free black…