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https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/bcefd587b60b4f5edc93d980b595a318.jpg
eaafb6ba24b0e3a6eb837efc99ed325b
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Title
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People
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Reverend Moses Broyles,
Eleutherian College
Description
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Moses Broyles was born in 1826 in Maryland [1]. At the age of four, he was separated from his parents and purchased by a Kentucky planter named John Broyles. John Broyles often entrusted Moses with the care of the Broyles children and eventually, he was entrusted with management of farm affairs. Moses learned to read and discovered a love of history through the books he read, including the Old and New Testament, books about United States History, the lives of George Washington and Francis Marion, and history of the Baptists, among others. While still enslaved, he traveled to Paducah, Kentucky, where he preached and helped establish the first colored Baptist meetinghouse [2].
When he was fourteen (1840), John Broyles told Moses that he would be freed in 1854. However, Moses could not wait, and in 1851 he began working to purchase himself. He had bought a horse and dray to earn money more rapidly and was eventually able to purchase his freedom. After extricating himself from slavery, Moses moved to Lancaster, Indiana, and attended Eleutherian College. Allegedly prone to coughing and choking spells during debates and public speeches, he was very bashful when he first attended the college. In spite of Broyles reserved personality, Dr. William T. Stott, the former president of Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, said “Eleutherian Institute would have amply justified its existence and cost, if it had educated no other pupil than Moses Broyles" [3]. A second individual made a similar remark, stating “that school, even if it had done nothing more, justified its claim to recognition by the successful education of Rev. Moses Broyles, the leader of the colored Baptists of Indiana" [4]. Clearly, Moses Broyles was an exceptionally intelligent and high achieving student who was able to succeed in the face of challenging circumstances.
Broyles moved to Indianapolis in the spring of 1857 where he entered the ministry. He became a member of the Second Baptist Church, and hoped to become its pastor. By November of 1857, he was ordained as the pastor of the Second Baptist. Because the church could only pay for three years of lodging, Broyles worked as a schoolteacher for twelve years at one of the first African Americans schools in the city [5].
By the time Moses Broyles became a pastor, the Underground Railroad had been in use for nearly two decades, reaching its peak in the 1850s. The anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was published in 1852 and sold half a million copies within its first six months. The Civil War shook the young nation, and in the war’s last year, President Lincoln was assassinated, the Ku Klux Klan formed, and the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments soon followed, which changed the lives of African Americans in many ways but did not lead to complete equality. In 1871, Congress gave President Grant authority to use military force against the KKK and similar groups, but African Americans would continue to live in fear for decades.
Under Broyles’ leadership, the church’s membership grew, and by 1877 it had sent twenty-one men into the ministry. In 1864, the church outgrew its space as its membership doubled in size, and in 1867 it grew again, resulting in the purchase of a larger building for $25,000. Broyles was a major factor in the organization of a State Association of Colored Baptists in Indiana, as well as the establishment of six colored churches in the state since 1866 [6]. In 1876, Broyles wrote The History of Second Baptist Church. He was a known Republican and encouraged other African Americans to join the party of Lincoln and Grant. Broyles and his wife Francis had seven children by 1880. He remained the pastor of Second Baptist until his death on August 31, 1882 [7]. Rev. Broyles created many opportunities for African Americans in Indiana, especially in education and religion. It would be nearly another century before African Americans would be able to attend schools with whites, but like other civil rights leaders, Rev. Broyles was a single spark that fueled an inferno of social change which is still burning.
Source
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[1] Cathcart, William, "The Baptist encyclopedia: a dictionary of the doctrines, ordinances...of the general history of the Baptist denomination in all lands, with numerous biographical sketches...& a supplement" Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1883.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Carrol, J. C. "The Beginnings of Public Education for Negroes in Indiana." The Journal of Negro Education 8 no. 4 (October, 1939).
[4] Ibid.
[5] “History of Greater Indianapolis”, New York Public Library.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Brown, Ignatius, “Indianapolis Directory…History of Indianapolis”, Logan & Co., 1868.
Contributor
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Student Author: Melody Seberger <br />Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson<br />Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://www.in.gov/history/markers/5.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indiana Historical Bureau: Historical Marker for Eleutherian College</a>
Rights
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Eleutherian College from northwest in evening, attributed to Nyttend, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eleutherian_College_from_northwest_in_evening.jpg
1800s
community
education
Indianapolis
Jefferson County
Marion County
religion
Slavery