A Save Named Sam

• In the 1760's the Moravians rented a slave named Sam. He was competent and hardworking. 
• Sam saw that the Moravians could offer him the opportunity to better himself. On the basis of that belief he asked to be purchased by the church. The bishop opined: "It is certainly not our way to buy men."  But, the bishop eventually justified the purchase of Sam in the hope that Sam would become the property of the Savior as well as the Moravians. Thus he was acquired by the church. 
• Sam supervised several young Moravian helpers - he was a cattle herder, and the teamster.
• In due course, repenting of his sins, Sam was baptized in 1771. The first baptism in the nascent town of Salem. 

In the Church's diary it is written: (during the liturgy) "... The presence of the Savior was deeply felt by the congregation, including many friends and a few Negroes; many said that the impression would never be forgotten."

• Sam was renamed Johannes Samuel. 
• Samuel eventually married - Maria, also enslaved.
• He purchased freedom for himself and his wife.
• Samuel faced the terrible problem so many freed slaves faced - poverty. 
• Fifty years after his baptism Samuel died an indigent - the year was 1821.
• Samuel was, as they called him, the first fruit of Moravian evangelism. Yet in the congregational diary there is only this terse statement: "the Negro Johann Samuel died in our neighborhood." 
• Between Samuel's baptism (1771) and death (1821) - those fifty years - the attitude of the Moravians toward slaves had changed, sad to say.