Devadatta the monks to live a rigorous lifestyle. This has led Ray to regard the story of Devadatta as a legend produced by the Sthavira group. Faxian and other Chinese pilgrims who travelled to India in the early centuries of the current era recorded the continued existence of "Gotamaka" buddhists, followers of Devadatta. Gotamaka are also referred to in Pali texts of the second and fifth centuries of the current era. The followers of Devadatta are recorded to have honored all the Buddhas previous to Śākyamuni (Gautama Buddha), but not Śākyamuni himself. According to Faxian, Xuanzang and Yijing's writings, some people
Peter Spencer (religious leader) Quaker in Wilmington who was an abolitionist and active in the Underground Railroad as a “conductor” of refugee slaves, helped Spencer buy land to build the Mother Church on French Street in Wilmington. Over the course of his lifetime, Spencer began 31 churches, nearly all of them with schools. He became known as the “father of the independent black church movement.” Peter Spencer (religious leader) Peter Spencer (1782–1843) was an American freedman who in 1813 founded the Union Church of Africans in Wilmington, Delaware. The denomination is now known as the African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection,