11

report to the General Convention of 1841 he proposed immediate pur-
chase of five or six key sites in Texas for parishes, prominently
located in communities of greatest potential, and also a tract for
a school and college. Texas, he correctly predicted, held a future
of enormous promise for the first protestant communion to enter it
in strength. Alas, the Episcopal Church would not grasp the oppor-
tunity.

The charge has been made that Polk might have bought sites him-
self. He was a multimillionaire by today's standards. However, the
liquid portion of the family fortune was in slaves. Polk never
regarded them as mere property. To many the sale of a slave was only
a business transaction but to a slave it was cataclysmic. Out of
superstition or terror for the unknown, slaves would plead, get sick,
or run away, and sometimes attempt suicide rather than be "sold down
the river" or have their families split. Furthermore Polk saw in
himself as slaveholder an opportunity for Christian witness, a chance
to prove how happy and fruitful their dependent lives could be made
by wise oversight. He would have had every slave a Christian, and
if possible an Episcopalian.

The bishop did buy some church property, in Texas and elsewhere,
and in the first fifteen years of his episcopate he received no
stipend. But he did not attempt to liquidate his property holdings
for the sake of the church. How unfortunate that he did not. In
1849, at his model plantation "Leighton" in Louisiana, cholera took
the lives of a hundred slaves. By 1854, a tornado and an epidemic

report to the General Convention of 1841 he proposed immediate pur-
chase of five or six key sites in Texas for parishes, prominently
located in communities of greatest potential, and also a tract for
a school and college. Texas, he correctly predicted, held a future
of enormous promise for the first protestant communion to enter it
in strength. Alas, the Episcopal Church would not grasp the oppor-
tunity.

The charge has been made that Polk might have bought sites him-
self. He was a multimillionaire by today's standards. However, the
liquid portion of the family fortune was in slaves. Polk never
regarded them as mere property. To many the sale of a slave was only
a business transaction but to a slave it was cataclysmic. Out of
superstition or terror for the unknown, slaves would plead, get sick,
or run away, and sometimes attempt suicide rather than be "sold down
the river" or have their families split. Furthermore Polk saw in
himself as slaveholder an opportunity for Christian witness, a chance
to prove how happy and fruitful their dependent lives could be made
by wise oversight. He would have had every slave a Christian, and
if possible an Episcopalian.

The bishop did buy some church property, in Texas and elsewhere,
and in the first fifteen years of his episcopate he received no
stipend. But he did not attempt to liquidate his property holdings
for the sake of the church. How unfortunate that he did not. In
1849, at his model plantation "Leighton" in Louisiana, cholera took
the lives of a hundred slaves. By 1854, a tornado and an epidemic