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Christian Slavery: Protestant Missions and Slave Conversion in the Atlantic World, 1660-1760

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Christian Slavery: Protestant Missions and Slave Conversion in the Atlantic World, 1660-1760 Christian Slavery: Protestant Missions and Slave Conversion in the Atlantic World, 1660-1760 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Gerbner, Katharine Reid. 2013. Christian Slavery: Protestant Missions and Slave Conversion in the Atlantic World, 1660-1760. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11095959 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Christian Slavery: Protestant Missions and Slave Conversion in the Atlantic World, 1660-1760 A dissertation presented by Katharine Reid Gerbner to The Program in the History of American Civilization in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History of American Civilization Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2013 © 2013 Katharine Reid Gerbner All rights reserved David D. Hall and Vincent Brown Katharine Gerbner ABSTRACT Christian Slavery: Protestant Missions and Slave Conversion in the Atlantic World, 1660-1760 “Christian Slavery” shows how Protestant missionaries in the early modern Atlantic World developed a new vision for slavery that integrated Christianity with human bondage. Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries arrived in the Caribbean intending to “convert” enslaved Africans to Christianity, but their actions formed only one part of a dialogue that engaged ideas about family, kinship, sex, and language. Enslaved people perceived these newcomers alternately as advocates, enemies, interlopers, and powerful spiritual practitioners, and they sought to utilize their presence for pragmatic, political, and religious reasons. Protestant slave owners fiercely guarded their Christian rituals from non-white outsiders and rebuffed the efforts of Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries to convert the enslaved population. For planters, Protestantism was a sign of mastery and freedom, and most believed that slaves should not be eligible for conversion. The planters’ exclusive vision of Protestantism was challenged on two fronts: by missionaries, who articulated a new ideology of “Christian slavery,” and by enslaved men and women who sought baptism for themselves and their children. In spite of planter intransigence, a small number of enslaved and free Africans advocated and won access to Protestant rites. As they did so, “whiteness” emerged as a new way to separate enslaved and free black converts from Christian masters. Enslaved and free blacks who joined Protestant churches also forced Europeans to reinterpret key points of Scripture and reconsider their ideas about “true” Christian practice. As missionaries and slaves came to new agreements and interpretations, they remade Protestantism as an Atlantic institution. Missionaries argued that slave conversion would solidify planter power, make slaves more obedient and hardworking, and make slavery into a viable Protestant institution. They also iii encouraged the development of a race-based justification for slavery and sought to pass legislation that confirmed the legality of enslaving black Christians. In so doing, they redefined the practice of religion, the meaning of freedom, and the construction of race in the early modern Atlantic World. Their arguments helped to form the foundation of the proslavery ideology that would emerge in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. iv CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Intimate Encounters: Christian Slaves, Free Negros, and the Emergence of Whiteness in 17th Century Barbados 37 2. ‘Gospel Family Order’: Quaker Slavery and the Transatlantic Debate on Slave Conversion, 1670- 1700 71 3. Institutionalizing Slave Conversion: Christopher Codrington, Franco-English Exchange, and the Founding of the SPG 105 4. Inner Slavery and Spiritual Freedom: German Pietism and the Critique of Black Christianity on St. Thomas, 1730-1735 146 5. ‘They Call Me Obea’: Literacy, Marriage, and Death in the Moravian Missions of St. Thomas & Jamaica, 1735-1760 178 Conclusion 217 Bibliography 226 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to begin by acknowledging the invaluable encouragement and advice of the two co-directors of my dissertation, David D. Hall and Vincent Brown. David Hall has encouraged me to study what I love and taught me how to parse the religious dimensions of social life with careful analysis. Vincent Brown has an astonishing ability to help me coalesce my scattered thoughts into cohesive, far-reaching, and incisive arguments, and he has been a terrific advisor from both near and far. He also introduced me to the Moravian records that have become so central to my research. David Hempton has been a steadfast supporter of my project, and I thank him for his close and careful reading of my drafts. I am grateful to Joyce Chaplin for her excellent suggestions and astute questions throughout my years in graduate school, and I am delighted that she agreed to serve as the fourth reader on my dissertation. Outside of my dissertation committee, James Kloppenberg has been a de facto advisor who has helped to make me a better scholar and teacher. John Stauffer was a fantastic director of the Am Civ program for most of my years at Harvard, and he has offered much-appreciated encouragement along the way. Laurel Ulrich, Jill Lepore, and Joanne van der Woude have all provided helpful comments at various stages of the writing process, and I thank them for their suggestions and advice. This dissertation has its roots in my undergraduate thesis research at Columbia University. I am indebted to Courtney Bender, my thesis advisor, under whose guidance I first discovered the excitement of historical research and considered the prospect of graduate school. Bob and Amy Pollack acted as mentors throughout my undergraduate career and remain great friends. I give belated thanks to Pat O’Donnell and Chris Densmore at the Swarthmore Friends Historical Library for pointing me to the 1688 Germantown Protest that started me down this path. Finally, I am vi grateful to Stephanie Grauman Wolf for her invaluable help in revising and publishing my thesis research. At Harvard, I have found many academic homes. The History of American Civilization Program has been my primary home, and I would like to thank Christine McFadden and Arthur Patton-Hock for being the beating heart of this wonderful and quirky interdisciplinary program. I was beyond lucky to find myself in a fabulous cohort with Caitlin Rosenthal, Tom Wickman, Caitlin Hopkins, Stephen Vider, Maggie Gates, and Altin Gavranovich, who have all, in their own ways, improved both my research and my life. I have found a second home at the North American Religions Colloquium at Harvard Divinity School, and I would like to thank all of the members of NARC for reading multiple chapters of my dissertation. I am particularly grateful to long-term members (both present and past) including David Hall, David Hempton, Ann Braude, Healan Gaston, Dan McKanan, Jon Roberts, Elizabeth Jemison, Kip Richardson, Brett Grainger, Hillary Kaell, Eva Payne, Max Mueller, Deirdre DeBruyn Rubio, Sara Georgini, Chris Allison, John Bell, Colin Bossen, Darra Mulderry, Linford Fisher, Charrise Baron, Sonia Hazard, David Mislin, and Winfried Herget. The Early Americanist Workshop has been another wonderful scholarly community, and I am grateful to Laurel Ulrich, Jill Lepore, Joyce Chaplin, Joanne van der Woude, Caitlin G-D Hopkins, Glenda Goodman, Gloria Whiting, John Dixon, Tom Wickman, Liz Covart, John Bell, Carla Cevasco, Eli Cook, Sarah Carter, and the other members of the workshop for their comments on my prospectus and several dissertation chapters. I have been the fortunate recipient of a number of grants that allowed me to conduct research on both sides of the Atlantic. A Harvard Graduate Society Predissertation Fellowship gave me the opportunity to learn German Script at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, PA under the expert tutelage of Paul Peucker and Lanie Graf. With a Deutsche Akademischer Austauch Dienst short-term fellowship, I explored the archives at the Unitätsarchiv der Evangelischen Brüder-Unität vii in Herrnhut, Germany. While there, Miriam Pietsch, Uwe Jentsch, Lydia Pietsch, and Lion Pietsch welcomed me into their home and made me feel like a true “Berthelsdorferin.” A Harvard Kennedy Travelling Fellowship provided me with nine months of funding to travel to England and Germany for extensive archival research. A Harvard Merit Fellowship and a Charles Warren Center Fellowship both granted me one semester of funding to complete my archival research and begin writing. I am very grateful to the Library Company of Philadelphia, the John Carter Brown Library, the American Philosophical Society, and the Quaker & Special Collections at Haverford College for granting me short-term fellowships to explore their extraordinary collections. I am indebted to a number of archivists and librarians who helped me with this project. In particular, I would like to thank Paul Peucker and Lanie Graf at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, PA; Jim Green and Connie King at the Library Company of Philadelphia; Lorraine Parsons at the Moravian Church House Library in London, England; Kim Nusco, Ken Ward, and Margot Nishimura at the John Carter Brown Library; Rüdiger Kröger and Olaf
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