"Crimes against God and Our Discipline": Unruly Women, Gender, and the AME Church during the late Nineteenth-Century

During the 1830s, a pair of female congregants at Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel Church met before the church’s disciplinary committee. Matilda Black charged Hannah Harris with “being pregnant” and then “murdering the child” to cover it up. The heinousness of this crime caused one member of the male disciplinary committee to note that this was a “crimes against God and our discipline.” However, the case would become more complicated. It was revealed through the testimony of other churchwomen that Black made up the charges as a form of revenge against Harris. Harris was found not guilty by the disciplinary committee.

 While this case could be dismissed as an interesting anecdote, this paper suggests that incidents such as this provide historians another lens through which we can study AME churchwomen. Although “unruly” women are often marginalized within the dominant narrative because their behavior does not conform to late nineteenth century gender expectations for free black women, their actions are often at the center of AME history. From the discharged female congregant that pushed the final break between Mother Bethel Church and the MEC, to church women in Baltimore that used intimidation to prevent Daniel Payne from taking the position of pastor of in their church, to women like Matilda Black and Hannah Harris, these women challenged gender expectations as defined by male leadership. My goal is to highlight the ways that these women, who did not participate in print culture debates about gender, redefined gender expectations through their actions.