Rev. Sela Wright

[Linda Bryan]

While all of you pros are scouring documents and such, if you encounter Rev. Sela Wright at Vicksburg during the war I'd love to learn more.
He was a chaplain--I believe to the Contraband--who had formerly been a missionary to the Ojibwe in northern Minnesota. He had worked within the Am. Missionary Assoc. (AMA) since 1843, mostly at Leech Lake.

A cadre of AMA people from the Minnesota missions volunteered through the AMA to work with Freedmen: Sela Wright, J.P Bardwell, and in time, Frederic and Elisabeth Ayer joined the AMA outreach to Freedmen also. Bardwell was sent elsewhere in Mississippi during the war and was attacked and nearly killed by angry whites. The Ayers went to Atlanta in fall 1865 on behalf of the AMA through the Freedmen's Bureau. I believe Wright returned to the Ojibwe.
Linda Louise Bryan [email protected]

 

[RedRover]

Sela Goodrich Wright.

Some notice of his missionary work among the Indians, with a photograph.

Sela Wright Digital Collection

Sela G. Wright Digital Collection at Oberlin College

According to Owen Muelder's "The Underground Railroad" (2008), p. 135, he was indicted in 1843 for harboring runaway slaves as a party to the underground railroad.

Some history of the Congregational Church at Toulon, Illinois he aided in the founding...

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

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From 1863 minutes of the General Association of Illinois, a Resolution by Wright...

Victor B. Howard's "Black Liberation In Kentucky" notes that S.G. Wright with the AMA was in Columbus, Kentucky in late 1862 working with freedmen and contrabands, housing some 500 in a large barn, and persuading the Army to issue them rations. He started a school and a church at the refugee camp.

A letter from Wright about taking up at the Van Buren camp in Mississippi in 1863;

The American Missionary

Vols. 13-62 include abridged annual reports and proceedings of the annual meetings of the American Missionary Association, 1869-1908; v. 38-62 include abridged annual reports of the Society's Executive Committee, 1883/1884-1907/1908.

www.google.com

The AMA's annual report of 1864 gives notice of his work in the South. From p. 21:

Pg. 19-20:

Annual Report of the American Missionary Association

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Joe M. Richardson's "Christian Reconstruction" notes that Wright's efforts were confounded in a manner by the US officers at Natchez, who carried off many of the school children and congregants to contraband camps... (p. 30, he errs and gives him as "Selig"):

Here's an 1865 Freedmen's Bureau interview with Wright and a few compatriots in the South:

Report of the General Superintendent of Freedmen, Department of the Tennessee and State of Arkansas, for 1864

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Wright was not universally popular in the South according to some historians...
John Hopper Franklin "From Slavery to Freedom," p. 210 observed he upset some of the freedmen, etc.

Justin Behrend's "Reconstructing Democracy" (2015) pgs. 63-65 gives detail on such criticisms and effect on his efforts in Natchez. Richard Sears' "A Utopian Experiment in Kentucky" (1996) p. 32 notes similar issues in Kentucky.


There's a postwar letter from S.G. Wright, titled "From Mississippi," in the "Lorain County News, Oberlin, OH, of April 18, 1866 I see referenced.