From Slavery to Salvation: The Autobiography of Rev. Thomas W. Henry of the A.M.E. Church

American Visions, Feb-March, 1995 by T. Andreas Spelman

Edited by Jean Libby (University of Mississippi Press. 1994. $25)--Thomas W. Henry was born a slave on a Maryland tobacco plantation in 1794. Until he was 27, when he was made free according to his master's will, he was an apprentice. blacksmith. This volume is a reprinting of Henry's memoirs, first published in 1872 by the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

It provides a rare glimpse into the intentionally veiled history of African Americans who attempted to live free in a slave state. It also provides insight into the early years of the Methodist Episcopal and the A.M.E. churches at a time when they not only provided the vehicle for religious expression and social organization among both free and slave, but also supported a well-developed network of resistance to slavery that encompassed escape routes to the North and the potential for armed rebellion in the South.