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The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen

Name: The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen
Author: Richard Allen

Richard Allen

Also known as: Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours · Autobiography of Richard Allen

1833 · 19th Century · Memoir · English

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Abstract

Written: Published 1833 (written before 1831)
Setting: Early American republic; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Author: Richard Allen
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre: Spiritual autobiography
Form: Memoir with appended writings
Recommended: Grades 9–12 (Plain early-American prose; short and readable.)

Author. A man born in bondage who bought his liberty became a travelling preacher and then the first bishop of a church organized and led by Black Americans.

Conversion. As a youth in Delaware he experienced a dramatic awakening; his owner, moved by the same preaching, let him purchase himself.

Philadelphia. Arriving in 1786, he preached at dawn to African American Methodists. When officials tried to drag kneeling Black worshippers from prayer in a new gallery, the group left together.

Bethel. He moved an old blacksmith shop to his own land for a meeting house, then spent years resisting white elders who claimed control of its pulpit and property, until delegates from several cities formed a new denomination in 1816.

Other writings. Appended pieces include a defence, written with Jones, of Black nurses and carters during the 1793 epidemic, and an appeal to slaveholders.

Edition. The text follows the 1833 printing as transcribed by the University of North Carolina, keeping its spelling and grammar. The whole volume is short enough to read in an afternoon, and the account of the gallery and the fight for Bethel is a natural place to begin for readers interested in early American history.

Key figures

Richard Allen: Author, founder of the AME Church
Absalom Jones: Co-founder of the Free African Society
Stokley Sturgis: Allen's former owner
Francis Asbury: Methodist bishop who ordained Allen

Summary

The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen is the autobiography of the founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, published in Philadelphia in 1833, two years after his death, together with several shorter writings. It is one of the earliest autobiographies by an African American and a key source for the history of independent Black churches in the United States. Allen recounts his birth into slavery, his conversion as a young man in Delaware, and his master's own conversion under Methodist preaching, after which Allen was permitted to buy his freedom. He describes years of manual work and travelling as a preacher through Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania, his acquaintance with early American Methodist leaders, and his arrival in Philadelphia in 1786, where he preached to Black worshippers at St. George's Methodist Church. The narrative's central episode is the day when trustees at St. George's tried to pull Black members, including Absalom Jones, from their knees during prayer because they were sitting in the wrong part of a new gallery. The Black members walked out together. Allen then tells how he bought a former blacksmith shop and moved it to a lot he owned to create Bethel Church, and how the congregation fought for years, including in the courts, to control its own property and pulpit against white Methodist elders. In 1816 delegates from several cities formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church and chose Allen as bishop. The volume also includes Acts of Faith, Hope and Love; the Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793, written with Absalom Jones in reply to charges made by the publisher Mathew Carey; and An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves, and Approve the Practice, with a message to people of colour. Throughout, Allen writes plainly and with steady faith, recording injustice without bitterness and attributing his success to God's help.

Plot or Argument

Early life and conversion
Born enslaved, converted, and permitted to purchase his freedom.
Itinerant preaching
Years of work and preaching across the Middle Atlantic states.
Philadelphia and St. George's
Preaching to Black Methodists and the walkout after the gallery incident.
Bethel and the AME Church
Building Bethel, the long struggle for independence, and the 1816 founding of the AME Church.
Additional writings
The yellow fever narrative, the address to slaveholders and the message to people of colour.

Lessons

Dignity and self-determination
Allen's community chose to build its own church rather than accept segregation in worship.
- Why did the Black members leave St. George's together?
- Why was legal control of Bethel's property so important?
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Service in a crisis
During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic Black Philadelphians nursed the sick and buried the dead, then defended themselves against accusations.
- How do Allen and Jones answer the charges against them?
- What does the narrative show about the risks they took?
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  Identity. The narrator's sense of himself changes when others name his race.
Building institutions
Allen and his colleagues created churches, a mutual aid society and a denomination.
- Why did Allen think an independent church was necessary?
- What did the Free African Society and Bethel provide beyond worship?
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For the Christian reader
Richard Allen was born enslaved, came to faith through Methodist preaching, bought his freedom, and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest Black denominations in America. His life shows the gospel's power to raise up leaders whom the world despised and his determination to worship God in dignity. During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic he and Absalom Jones led Black Philadelphians in caring for the sick and dying (Matthew 25:36).
- How did Allen's faith shape his response to the epidemic of 1793?
- What does Allen's story teach about the church's calling to welcome all believers as equals?
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Context

Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition act in 1780, and Philadelphia had a growing free Black community. Methodism, which early on condemned slavery, attracted many Black converts.

Composition

Allen likely dictated or wrote his life late in his career; it was published by his family in 1833. The walkout from St. George's is traditionally dated 1787, though some historians place it in 1792.

Reception

The AME Church grew into one of the largest Black denominations, with congregations across the United States, Africa and the Caribbean. Allen's autobiography is a foundational text of African American religious history and of early Black self-organization.

Faith / Religion Race Slavery Justice Law Identity Self

Comparisons

Narrative of the Life and What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Douglass's narrative also tells a story of conversion to freedom and attacks slaveholding religion.
Up from Slavery
Booker T. Washington's later autobiography records another path from slavery to institution-building.
The Journal of John Woolman
Woolman, a Quaker, appealed to slaveholders' consciences a generation before Allen's address.
A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia
The 1794 narrative by Allen and Absalom Jones, also appended to this volume, is available separately in the library.
The Souls of Black Folk
Du Bois analyses the role of the Black church that Allen helped found.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jacobs's narrative shows slavery from a woman's experience.
Sermons on Several Occasions and Primitive Physick
The Methodist movement whose preaching converted Allen.

Quotes

Frequently cited

“all of a sudden my dungeon shook, my chains flew off, and glory to God, I cried.”

— Richard Allen, The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours (Richard Allen, The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours (Philadelphia: Martin & Boden, 1833), Documenting the American South electronic edition).Quote card

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For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

Allen's conversion and the language of freedom.
The relationship with his master, Stokley Sturgis.
The gallery incident at St. George's.
The struggle over Bethel's property.

Key terms and names

AME Church: The African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded 1816.
Itinerant: Travelling from place to place to preach.
Trustee: A person legally responsible for church property.
Gradual abolition: Laws freeing enslaved people over time, such as Pennsylvania's 1780 act.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension How did Allen obtain his freedom?
Comprehension What happened in the gallery at St. George's?
Interpretation Why does Allen stress the plainness of Methodist preaching?
Interpretation How does Allen describe injustice without expressing bitterness?
Interpretation How does Allen describe his former master, and why might he do so?
Big Question When should a group separate from an institution that mistreats it, and when should it stay and work for change?

Faith Connections

Acts 16:25-26 (Scripture)
Paul and Silas in prison, when the foundations shook and bands were loosed; echoed in Allen's conversion.
Galatians 3:28 (Scripture)
'There is neither bond nor free... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus'.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) (Great Conversation)
Another account of faith and freedom.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Faith gave an enslaved man the strength to win his freedom and to lead Black Christians in founding a church where they could worship with dignity.

Rhetorical device: plain testimony. Allen's unadorned style presents events and leaves readers to draw moral conclusions.

Debate: Resolved: that Allen was right to found a separate church rather than remain within St. George's.

Memory Work

all of a sudden my dungeon shook, my chains flew off, and glory to God, I cried.
Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours. Allen's image of conversion as liberation.

the plain and simple gospel suits best for any people, for the unlearned can understand, and the learned are sure to understand
Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours. Allen's reason for choosing Methodism.

Writing Prompts

Essay: How does Richard Allen connect religious faith and freedom in his autobiography?

Comparison with Narrative of the Life and What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?: Compare how Allen and Douglass portray Christianity's relation to slavery.

Creative Prompts

Classroom
Create a timeline of Allen's life alongside major events in early American history from 1760 to 1831.
Fiction
Write the speech Absalom Jones or Allen might have given to the walkout group the day they left St. George's.
Essay
Write an essay on how Allen's community responded to exclusion at St. George's, using evidence from the text.