John Jea

John Jea (b 1773, Old Calabar, Nigeria | d after 1817), son of Margaret and Hambleton Robert Jea, was captured into slavery at age 2 and sold to the family of Oliver and Angelika Tiehuen near New York City, members of the Dutch Reformed Church. He was emancipated in 1789 owing to the fear of his self-described miraculous literacy spreading to other slaves. He married Elizabeth, a former Native American slave, who was mentally unstable and killed their only child. He developed an itinerant preaching ministry under the banner of Methodism in the U.S. and Europe. His second wife died while he was away on a tour, and his third marriage was similarly short-lived. He then married Jemima Davis (1816), and their daughter Hephzabah was baptized at an Anglican chapel in Portsmouth (1817); afterward he likely died at sea or overseas. He wrote The Life, History, and Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher (1815).

—Chris Fenner, Hymns & Devotions for Daily Worship: African American Edition (2025)