The American Missionary Association (AMA) was founded in 1846 to abolish slavery, educate African Americans, and assist formerly enslaved people. Members were primarily those in the Congregational Church who were disappointed in the failure by other Protestant organizations to take a strong stand against slavery. The AMA maintained that denying citizenship to African Americans, including the enslaved, was a contradiction of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and of the teachings of Christianity. It operated hundreds of anti-slavery churches in border states, especially in Illinois, and sent many men and women to the southern states after the Civil War (1861-1865) to build churches and set up schools for the newly emancipated. Nathaniel Hitchcock of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was accepted as a life member of the AMA in August, 1865, just after the end of the Civil War. Nathaniel Hitchcock’s only son, James Childs Hitchcock, served in the Union Army. James was captured in 1864 and died several months later at the infamous Andersonville prison in Georgia.
American Missionary Association. American Missionary Association membership of Nathaniel Hitchcock. August 17, 1865. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://staging.americancenturies.org/collection/l01-089/. Accessed on August 24, 2025.
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