In the slaveholding South, even words could be treated as weapons. Preaching against slavery or distributing antislavery literature was not just unpopular, it was a crime. Few men knew this better than Rev. Daniel Worth, a Wesleyan Methodist pastor who was sentenced to jail in North Carolina for daring to speak against the enslavement of Africans.
Daniel Worth was born in 1795 in the Quaker community of Guilford County, North Carolina. Raised in an environment where many Friends openly questioned slavery, he was shaped by those early convictions.
Dissatisfied with slavery’s grip on North Carolina, his family eventually joined the great Quaker migration to Indiana in 1823, where Worth entered politics, serving in both the state legislature and the senate. But politics was only one part of his journey. By the 1840s, Worth had thrown himself fully into the cause of abolition, becoming the first president of Indiana’s State Anti-Slavery Society in 1840.
His faith deepened his commitment. In 1842, Worth joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church, a denomination that had split from the Methodists partly over slavery. Within a year he was licensed to preach, and in 1848 he was elected president of the denomination’s General Conference in New York. For Worth, preaching the gospel meant confronting sin head-on, and slavery was the greatest sin of all.
Over the years, he traveled widely, through Indiana, Ohio, and even Kentucky, preaching, organizing, and pastoring congregations, some made up of formerly enslaved africans who had escaped through the Underground Railroad. But by 1857, Worth returned to his native North Carolina as a missionary. He did not come quietly. Armed with abolitionist materials and many copies of Hinton Rowan Helper’s fiery book, The Impending Crisis of the South, he began preaching in Randolph County.
Worth’s message struck a nerve. For two years, he spoke openly in an area with relatively few enslaved Africans, distributing literature that condemned slavery and slaveholders in the harshest of terms. Southern newspapers denounced him as an agitator, and by December 1859, his enemies moved to silence him.
On December 22, the sheriff of Guilford County arrested Worth for circulating “incendiary” materials against slavery. He was jailed in a cell with no heat for the winter and his health suffered immensely. His feet froze, which disabled him the rest of his life.
His trial came swiftly. On March 30, 1860, in Asheboro, he was convicted and sentenced to twelve months in jail. He appealed, but his second trial in Greensboro the following month ended the same way, the jury took only fifteen minutes to find him guilty, again sentencing him to a year in prison.
Worth was granted bail while awaiting appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court, but instead of waiting for judgment, he fled. Escaping in a closed carriage, he crossed into Virginia and boarded a train north. By May 5, 1860, he had arrived in New York, declaring he had escaped from “the den of slavery.”
Though the North Carolina Supreme Court later upheld his conviction, Worth managed to raise enough money to repay his bondsmen. He returned to Indiana, where he resumed his ministry and was elected president of the Indiana Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, a post he held until his death later that same year in Fountain City, Wayne County, Indiana.
Sources:
https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/worth-daniel
https://www.wesleyan.org/daniel-worth-a-man-of-lasting-legacy
