Viewing page 252 of 274

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Office Superintendent, 
District of Selma.
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and abandoned Lands
Selma Oct 3, 1866 

To Bishop Campbell,
and Deacon Reed,
African M. E. Church,

Dear Sirs.
We have information that one Godfrey B. Taylor, professing to be a licensed preacher under your jurisdiction, is using his influence among the ignorant and unwary, to mislead them, and prejudice them against the U.S. Government. He has been heard to say that the U. States Government instead of being a friend to the Colored people, was robbing them of all it could get, and that their former masters were their best and only friends.

He has tried to discourage the hopes of the colored race, telling them it was no use for them to try to become a nation, unless they should return to Africa, and other speech of like import. He seems to be an unscrupulous man who has sold himself to become the tool of those who have been life-long oppressors of your people, and who are now trying to resist to the utmost every effort of your friends, to secure their rights of man