“I Thought They Were Worthy”: A Dutch Reformed Church Minister and His Congregation Debate African American Membership in the Church

In 1788, Peter Lowe, a Dutch Reformed Church minister in Kings County (present-day Brooklyn), NY, faced strong opposition from his congregation when a group of African American men requested membership in the church. Lowe thought the men were worthy and wanted to admit them, but church members strongly disagreed. These congregants presented a wide-array of objections to admitting the African American men, which ranged from black people “have no souls” to “they are a species very different from us.” In a letter to a friend, Lowe discussed the congregants’ ten primary reasons for their opposition as well as his rebuttal to each of them. Because the letter, located at the Brooklyn Historical Society, described racial attitudes, religion, and slavery with significant detail, it provides an unusual insight into racial attitudes in this late eighteenth-century New York community.