al conditions upon
the process by which cultural materials from one racial group are
transmitted to another; for, in spite of the fact that the Negro
brought so little intellectual baggage with him, he has exhibited a
rather marked ethnical individuality in the use and interpretation of
the cultural materials to which he has had access.

The first, and perhaps the only distinctive institution which the
Negro has developed in this country is the Negro church, and it is in
connection with his religion that we may expect to find, if anywhere,
the indications of a distinctive Afro-American culture. The actual
conditions under which the African slaves were converted to
Christianity have never been adequately investigated. We know, in a
general way, that there was at first considerable opposition to
admitting the Negro into the church because it was feared that it
would impair the master's title to his slaves. History records too
that the house servants were very early admitted to churches and that
in many cases masters went to considerable pains to instruct those
servants who shared with them the intimacy of the household.[7] It was
not, however, until the coming of the new, free and evangelistic types
of Christianity, the Baptists and the Methodists, that the masses of
the black people, that is, the plantation Negroes, found a form of
Christianity that they could make their own.

How eagerly and completely the Negro did take over the religion of
these liberal denominations may be gathered from some of the
contemporary writings, which record the founding of the first Negro
churches in America. The first Negro church in Jamaica was founded by
George Liele, shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War. George
Liele had been a slave in Savannah, but his master, who was a Tory,
emigrated to Jamaica upon the evacuation of that city. Andrew Bryan in
Savannah was one of Liele's congregation. He was converted, according
to the contemporary record, by Liele's exposition of the text "You
must be born again!" About eight months after Liele's departure,
Andrew began to preach to a Negro congregation, "with a few white."
The colored people had been permitted to erect a building at Yamacraw,
but white people in the vicinity objected to the meetings and Bryan
and some of his associates were arrested and whipped. But he "rejoiced
in his whippings" and holding up his hand declared "he would freely
suffer death for the cause of Jesus Ch