Devadatta Devadatta Devadatta was by tradition a Buddhist monk, cousin and brother-in-law of Gautama Siddhārtha, the Sākyamuni Buddha, and brother of Ānanda, a principal student of the Buddha. Devadatta was a koliyan and sakyan and is said to have parted from the Buddha's following with 500 other monks to form their own Sangha, most of whom are said to have been Shakya clan relatives of both Devadatta and Siddhartha. The name "Devadatta" has the meaning "god-given" in Palī (cf. Latin "Deodatus", "Deusdedit"; both also meaning "god-given"). It is composed from the stem form of "deva" and the past participle "datta" of
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,