Free African Society - Later Years

Later Years

Many members who wanted more religious affiliation followed Absalom Jones when he founded the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. It opened its doors in 1794 as the first Episcopal church for blacks. Numerous members had come from the South where they had belonged to the Anglican Church before the war. In 1804, Jones was the first black to be ordained as an Episcopal priest in the United States.

Richard Allen and others who wanted to continue as Methodists founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), which also opened the doors of its first church building in 1794. While an independent congregation, it was still affiliated with the regional and national Methodist Church. Allen was ordained as a Methodist minister. To achieve full independence from white supervision, in 1816 Allen brought several regional AME congregations together and founded the first fully independent black denomination, the AME church. They elected him as the first bishop of the AME Church.