Methodist Episcopal Church was organized. While itinerating in Liberia, Bishop Levi Scott ordained the first African deacons and elders in 1853. In 1856, the General Conference created a new position, the missionary bishop, to oversee the foreign mission fields. The Liberian Conference elected Francis Burns to be its missionary bishop, and he was consecrated in 1858, becoming the Methodist Episcopal Church's first African American bishop. As a missionary bishop, Burns was not considered a general superintendent of the church, and his episcopal authority was limited to his assigned field. Domestically, there were efforts among Native American tribes, such as the Wyandotte of Ohio;
Cognitive authority historiography for White [1973] generates no more objective knowledge of the past than does speculative philosophy of history or the historical novel." What is considered "cognitive authority" in a given field of knowledge is thus relative and depending on the "paradigm" of the information seeker. An argument about what should be regarded "cognitive authority" is in the end an epistemological argument. The concept of cognitive authority was developed in library and information science and has attracted a lot of attention in this field. Its importance for this field is related to questions such as: What criteria should be used for