Biography of Rev. David Smith, of the A.M.E. Church (1881): Being A Complete History, Embracing Over Sixty Years’ Labor in the Advancement of the Rede

David Smith was born a slave near Baltimore, Maryland in 1784. Although he belonged to a devout Catholic family, he became a Protestant Christian while still a child. His conversion caused tension in the household, and his master attempted to sell him to a Georgia plantation. Through the benevolence of the housekeeper, who secretly arranged to buy him from the slave trader, Smith was freed when he approximately twelve years old. Although still a young man, Smith began to hold prayer meetings in his home, and became a licensed exhorter. As an adult, Smith became a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church. However, he became frustrated by its lack of support for black preachers and believers and left to help establish a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Smith traveled in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Kentucky, and Ohio attending conferences and camp meetings to promote the Church’s doctrines and establish places of worship for fledgling groups of believers. Smith’s narrative focuses on his public service, rather than his personal life, and explains significant events and contributors involved in the expansion of the African Methodist Episcopal movement.