Amanda Smith: A Pioneer Black Missionary in Africa

Early Life and the Path to Freedom

Amanda Smith was the youngest of thirteen children. She was born in Long Green, Maryland, to enslaved parents Samuel Berry and Mariam Matthews. Her father worked making brooms and husk mats to earn money so he could purchase freedom for his family. He did it, and the family relocated to Pennsylvania.

Smith was blessed because she was able to learn to read and write as a child. Her father read to the family, and her mother taught her to read before she was eight years old. Amanda went to school for just three and a half months. Then, she got a job as a domestic servant for a widow.

Spiritual Awakening and Early Ministry

Amanda attended a revival service at the Methodist Episcopal Church and came to faith in Christ. In 1867 she started preaching. Evangelist and missionary Amanda Berry Smith (1837-1915) became well known for her beautiful voice. Her inspired teaching also made her famous. As a result, opportunities to evangelize in the South and West opened up for her.

A Voice Across the Atlantic: England and Scotland

In 1876, she was invited to speak and sing in England. She was offered a first-class cabin for travel by her friends. The captain invited her to conduct a religious service on board. She was so modest that the other passengers spread the word of her. This resulted in her staying in England and Scotland for a year and a half.

Global Missionary Labors: India and Africa

She traveled to and ministered in India. Then she spent eight years in Africa (Egypt, Sierra Leone, Liberia). She worked with churches and evangelized. While in Africa, she suffered from repeated attacks of “African Fever” but persisted in her work. In her journal entry for February 5, 1884, she writes:

“Second Gospel Temperance meeting. Surely the Spirit of the Lord is with us, and He is blessing us greatly. Not so much liberty in speaking, but God is with us, and we are expecting great things. Oh, Lord, for Jesus’ sake, answer prayer, and send us the Holy Ghost to quicken and revive us.”

Legacy of Care: The Amanda Smith Orphans’ Home

She founded the Amanda Smith Orphans’ Home for African-American children in a suburb of Chicago. She was called “God’s image carved in ebony.” Amanda Smith retired to Sebring, Florida in 1912 due to failing health. She died in 1915 at the age of 78.

Amanda has one of the very few written autobiographies by Black Americans of that time period.  You can read her an electronic copy of her autobiography, “An Autobiography. The Story of the Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Colored Evangelist; Containing an Account of Her Life Work of Faith, and Her Travels in America, England, Ireland, Scotland, India, and Africa, as an Independent Missionary” at this link –  Autobiography of Amanda Smith

CITATIONS

Smith, Amanda. An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Colored Evangelist; Containing an Account of Her Life Work of Faith, and Her Travels in America, England, Ireland, Scotland, India, and Africa, as an Independent Missionary. Chicago: Meyer & Brother, 1893.

Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations: Race, Training, and American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993

“Amanda Smith, 1837-1915. An Autobiography.” Documenting the American South. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.