[102] _Congressional Record_, 44th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 118, 119. [103] _Ibid._, 47th Congress, 1st Session, p. 6898. [104] _Ibid._, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 1646. [105] _Ibid._, 44th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 3457, 3467, 3468; 48th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 316, 2057; 49th Congress, 1st Session, p. 1919. [106] _Ibid._, 45th Congress, 3rd Session, p. 1914. [107] _Ibid._, 46th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 2195-2196. [108] _Congressional Record_, 44th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 1444, 1445. [109] _Congressional Record_, 45th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 245, 1750; 3rd Session, 1314, 1316, 2309. [110] _Ibid._, 53rd Congress, 2nd Session, p. 2399; 1st Session, pp. 1392, 1396. [111] _Ibid._, 56th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 3814. [112] _Ibid._, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 541. [113] Munro, _The Government of the United States_, p. 297. [114] A Letter from John E. Bruce, Brooklyn, N. N., a man active during the Reconstruction. June 6, 1921. [115] James G. Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, 1861-1881, Vol. II, p. 515. THE PRIORITY OF THE SILVER BLUFF CHURCH AND ITS PROMOTERS In speaking of the beginning of Negro churches in the United States, those of the Baptist faith must not be forgotten. Nor must we err in thinking that the first churches of this faith were planted in the North. It is true that there were Negro Baptists in Providence, Rhode Island, as early as 1774,[1] and doubtless much earlier, but they had no church of their own. Indeed, there is absolutely no trace of Negro Baptist churches in the North prior to the nineteenth century. The oldest Negro Baptist churches, north of Mason and Dixon's Line, are the Independent or First African Baptist Church, of Boston, Massachusetts, planted in 1805; the Abysinnian, of New York City, established in 1808; and the First African, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, organized in 1809.[2] Negro Baptist churches, unlike other Negro churches, had their beginning in the South, and at a somewhat earlier date. The first church of Negro Baptists, so far as authentic and trustworthy writings of the eighteenth century establish, was constituted at Silver Bluff,[3] on Mr. Galphin's[4] estate, a year or two before the Revolutionary War. It continued to worship there, in comparative peace, until the latter part of 1778, when the vicissitudes of war drove the church into exile[5]--but only to multiply itself elsewhere.[6] The work at Silver Bluff began anew with the cessation of hostilities, moreover, and was more prosperous than ever in 1791.[7]