Sarah Allen (also known as Sara Allen and Mother Allen; née Bass; 1764 – July 16, 1849) was an American abolitionist and

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

for the

African Methodist Episcopal Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal ...

. She is known within the AME Church as The Founding Mother.

Early life

Sarah Bass was born in 1764 in

Isle of Wight County, Virginia Isle of Wight County is a county located in the Hampton Roads region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It was named after the Isle of Wight, England, south of the Solent, from where many of its early colonists had come. As of the 2020 census, t ...

, as a

slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. When she was eight she was sent to

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

. She was no longer enslaved as of 1800. That year she met Richard Allen. They married by 1802. They had six children: Richard Jr., James, John, Peter, Sara, and Ann. Allen maintained the family finances and general

homemaking Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a house ...

tasks.

Life in Philadelphia and founding of the AME Church

The family purchased property for $35 in Philadelphia. The property housed a

blacksmith shop A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

. The shop was planning to relocate and the Allens used their team of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

s to transport the shop to its new location. The property was eventually renovated and made into a church, which would become the founding African Methodist Episcopal Church. Allen was highly involved in the AME Church, which Richard Allen founded. The family hid and cared for

runaway slave In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th century to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called fre ...

s and their home was a part of the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. ...

. The couple used their home and the church to house enslaved people. By 1827, she had founded the Daughters of the Conference. The Daughters supported the male ministers of the AME Church. The women fed and cared for the generally poor and untidy ministers. The women also had a sewing circle to help mend and make clothes for the ministers.

Later life

Allen died on July 16, 1849, at the house of her younger sister in Philadelphia. She is buried alongside Richard Allen at

Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestati ...

. The Daughters of the Conference was renamed Sarah Allen Women's Missionary Society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Sarah 1764 births 1849 deaths African-American abolitionists American Methodist missionaries Methodist missionaries in the United States Female Christian missionaries Free Negroes People from Isle of Wight County, Virginia Activists from Philadelphia People of the African Methodist Episcopal church African-American Methodists Underground Railroad people African-American missionaries 18th-century African-American women 19th-century African-American women Methodist abolitionists

Early life

Life in Philadelphia and founding of the AME Church

Later life

Further reading

References