It
was a terrific social revolution, and yet some traces were
retained of the former group life, and the chief remaining
institution was the Priest or Medicine-man. He early appeared
on the plantation and found his function as the healer of the
sick, the interpreter of the Unknown, the comforter of the
sorrowing, the supernatural avenger of wrong, and the one
who rudely but picturesquely expressed the longing, disappoint-
ment, and resentment of a stolen and oppressed people. Thus,
as bard, physician, judge, and priest, within the narrow limits
allowed by the slave system, rose the Negro preacher, and under
him the first church was not at first by any means Christian
nor definitely organized; rather it was an adaptation and
mingling of heathen rites among the members of each planta-
tion, and roughly designated as Voodooism. Association with
the masters, missionary effort and motives of expediency
gave these rites an early veneer of Christianity, and after the
lapse of many generations the Negro church became Christian.
Two characteristic things must be noticed in regard to the
church. First, it became almost entirely Baptist and Methodist
in faith; secondly, as a social institution it antedated by many
decades the monogamic Negro home.
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