Reviewed by:

• The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen. To Which is Annexed the Rise and Progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Containing a Narrative of the Yellow Fever in the Year of our Lord 1793: With an Address to the People of Colour in the United States by Richard Allen
• Charlette Caldwell (bio)

Stained-glass window at the entrance of the Richard Allen Museum and Archive at Mother Bethel AME Church, featuring Allen’s likeness and images of the past and present buildings of Mother Bethel, Philadelphia, PA. Photo by Charlette Caldwell.

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As both an autobiography of one of the first founders of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and a religious address to Black Americans, Richard Allen’s autobiography is a reflection of nineteenth-century Black life that reframes assumptions about Black religiosity and self-reliance. Grounded in this reframing, Allen’s autobiography functions as a narrative of personal and institutional history that is punctuated by religious hymns, amendments, and prayers. This work provides an intimate portrayal of the early decades of the AME Church, whose founders based church doctrinal principles on concepts of Black liberation and determination through religious piety. As the first independent Christian denomination established by Black people in the United States in 1816, the AMEs strove for Black self-reliance and land ownership through emancipation and manumission before the American Civil War and through American imperialism abroad, especially in Africa and the Caribbean, where AME missionaries spread doctrine through school and church building.

Richard Allen (1760–1831) begins his autobiography with a brief account of his early life, centering this personal historical episode on his religious conversion and training. Born on Benjamin Chew’s plantation in 1760, Allen recounts that his family was sold to a man named Stokley Sturgis who owned property in Delaware. Allen notes that Stokley allowed him and his brother to attend Methodist meetings. Allen eventually bought his freedom and soon after, he became an itinerant preacher in the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church, while also supporting himself as a laborer. Allen served as a traveling preacher for several years before he was stationed with a small congregation in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, Allen, along [End Page 29] with other Black leaders, established separate churches for Black Methodists as a response to discrimination in White Methodist societies. Allen also includes in his autobiography his recollection of the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793. Although Dr. Benjamin Rush, a notable Philadelphian physician who was instrumental during the epidemic, assisted the Black community with acquiring funds for separate places of worship, he unfortunately perpetuated the myth that Black Americans were immune to the effects of yellow fever. This assumption resulted in Rush calling on Black leaders such as Allen and Absalom Jones to assist treating the ill during the epidemic, garnering more sympathy with those opposed to slavery. Allen concludes his autobiography with addresses to proponents of slavery, enslaved Black laborers, and others in lower socio-economic positions due to their race, ethnicity, and/or class. Allen uses both religious and literary imagery to offer arguments and views on his idea of African unity and Christian harmony. Allen reinforces the prospect of eternal life for the AMEs, fortifying a foundational theme of collectivity and respectability amongst a historically marginalized community in the wake of contraindications in American identity.

The following excerpt focuses on the battle over rightful property ownership, recounting the day Black parishioners walked out of a service held at St. George’s Methodist Church when fellow Black congregants were forced to sit in the galleries separate from the White congregants. Allen writes in his autobiography that along with his close friend, Absalom Jones, and...

审核人：

• Rt. 的生活、经验和福音工作。理查德艾伦牧师。附有美利坚合众国非洲卫理公会圣公会的兴起和进步，其中包含对我们主 1793 年黄热病的叙述：理查德对美国有色人种的讲话艾伦
• 夏莱特·考德威尔（生平）

位于宾夕法尼亚州费城伯特利母亲教堂的理查德艾伦博物馆和档案馆入口处的彩色玻璃窗，展示了艾伦的肖像和过去和现在的伯特利母亲建筑图像。查莱特·考德威尔摄。

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作为非洲卫理公会圣公会 (AME) 首批创始人之一的自传和对美国黑人的宗教演说，理查德·艾伦的自传反映了 19 世纪的黑人生活，重新构建了关于黑人虔诚和自力更生的假设。以这种重构为基础，艾伦的自传作为个人和机构历史的叙述，不时被宗教赞美诗、修正案和祈祷所打断。这项工作提供了 AME 教会早期几十年的亲密写照，其创始人将教会的教义原则建立在黑人解放和通过宗教虔诚的决心的概念上。作为美国黑人于1816年建立的第一个独立的基督教教派，.

理查德·艾伦（Richard Allen，1760–1831 年）在自传的开头简要介绍了他的早年生活，将这一个人历史事件集中在他的宗教皈依和训练上。艾伦于 1760 年出生在本杰明·周 (Benjamin Chew) 的种植园，他回忆说，他的家人被卖给了一个名叫斯托克利·斯特吉斯 (Stokley Sturgis) 的人，他在特拉华州拥有房产。艾伦指出，斯托克利允许他和他的兄弟参加卫理公会会议。艾伦最终买回了自由，不久之后，他成为卫理公会圣公会 (ME) 教堂的巡回传教士，同时还以劳动者的身份养活自己。在驻扎在费城的一个小会众之前，艾伦担任了几年的巡回传教士。在费城，艾伦，沿着[End Page 29]与其他黑人领袖一起，为黑人卫理公会建立了独立的教堂，作为对白人卫理公会社会歧视的回应。艾伦在他的自传中还包括了他对 1793 年黄热病流行的回忆。尽管费城著名医生本杰明·拉什 (Benjamin Rush) 博士在这次流行病期间发挥了重要作用，他帮助黑人社区为独立的礼拜场所筹集资金，但不幸的是，他使黄热病长期存在美国黑人对黄热病的影响免疫的神话。这种假设导致拉什呼吁艾伦和阿布萨洛姆琼斯等黑人领袖在流行病期间协助治疗病人，从而赢得了反对奴隶制的人的更多同情。艾伦以对奴隶制支持者、被奴役的黑人劳工的讲话结束了他的自传，以及其他由于种族、民族和/或阶级而处于较低社会经济地位的人。艾伦同时使用宗教和文学意象来为他的非洲统一和基督教和谐理念提供论据和观点。艾伦强化了 AMEs 永生的前景，在美国身份的禁忌症之后，在历史上被边缘化的社区中强化了集体和尊重的基本主题.

以下摘录重点关注关于合法财产所有权的斗争，讲述了黑人教区居民走出圣乔治卫理公会教堂举行的服务的那一天，当时黑人教友们被迫坐在与白人教友分开的画廊里。艾伦在他的自传中写道，他和他的好朋友阿布萨隆·琼斯，以及……