ORIGINAL ARTICLES Race, Religion, and the Scottish Empire: St. Andrew’s Kirk, Nassau, ca. 1810-1852

Andrew Jones https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1286-4255 Department of History and Philosophy Kennesaw State University https://doi.org/10.15362/ijbs.v26i0.351 Abstract This article examines the relationships between the Scottish diaspora community and the Afro- Caribbean and Anglican populations of New Providence Island during the first half of the 19th century. St. Andrew’s Kirk in Nassau was founded by Scottish emigrants in 1809 to provide them with a Presbyterian place of worship. The original members were, in part, British Loyalists – formerly based in North America – who had accepted Royal land grants on the archipelago in 1783. Many brought enslaved people with them, expecting their fortunes to recover in a new plantation economy. In 1837 William Maclure, a native of Ayrshire in southwest Scotland, became the fifth minister appointed to the Kirk. Unlike the previous ministers, Maclure remained in his Bahamian pulpit for over 25 years. Sources from his tenure at the church provide a window into the social, racial, and theological dynamics of Victorian New Providence. For example, in a letter published in a Scottish newspaper in the late autumn of 1852, Maclure stated somewhat cryptically that “the remains of the curse of slavery are upon us.” This article will offer an answer to the following three questions: First, to what degree have recent studies of the Scottish diaspora communities in the British West Indies underappreciated the Bahamian situation? Second, how did the members and ministers of St. Andrew’s Kirk, Nassau interact with issues of race and slavery from the founding of the church to the era in which Maclure’s letter was published? Lastly, what exactly was William Maclure referring to regarding the “curse of slavery”?

Introduction: The Bahamas Amongst Lowland clanship. Yet such clan-like British West Indian Scottish Diaspora networks of and between Scots in the Communities Caribbean and Scotland exceeded family ties. The presence of Scots in the early modern According to Hamilton (2005), “fluidity and modern Atlantic world and their roles in within social relationships enabled Scottish the various inner-workings of the British networks in the Caribbean to encompass Empire have gained increased scholarly within them notions of blood-kinship and attention over the past two decades. local identification, alongside more practical Particular emphasis has been placed on the considerations of fictive or imagined role of national networks abroad and the kinship” (p. 26). consideration of Scotland’s complicity in This more flexible notion of clanship transatlantic slavery. Regarding networks, amongst Scots in the British West Indies has Douglas Hamilton (2005) and Tom Devine also been described as “fratriotism” – the (2015) have both argued that Scottish men mixture of fraternal and patriotic connections and women tended to form tight-knit social that naturally developed between Scots groupings in the Caribbean similar to those abroad. According to Murray Pittock (as historically associated with Highland and

A. Jones, 2020. Journal compilation International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 2020 2 A. Jones. Race, Religion, and the Scottish Empire. cited in Morris, 2018), fratriotic relationships less central role in the British West Indian resulted in “the preservation of one’s economy than larger sugar islands like submerged national identity in the public Jamaica, the Scottish diaspora community in realm in foreign countries” (p. 20). As noted The Bahamas played a pivotal role in the below, these bonds of fratriotism found government, trade, and society of that colony institutional expression in the Caribbean – and did so in ways that both conformed to through social and religious organizations and diverged from similar communities in like St. Andrew’s Societies and the other parts of the British Caribbean. This is Presbyterian Church of Scotland. particularly the case with regard to national As to the nation’s role in the wider networks and religious practice. phenomenon of transatlantic slavery, Devine In his discussion of networks, Hamilton (2015), Morris (2018), and others have lately (2005) observed that Scots in other parts of dispelled long-held presumptions of the Atlantic world tended to form fratriotic innocence by analysing and describing the connections through Scottish societies such various ways that 18th and early 19th century as the Philadelphia St. Andrew’s Society, Scotland gained massive amounts of wealth established in 1749. Yet, based on his data from the slave economies of the Atlantic collected on the aforementioned islands, he world. While a comparatively small number concluded: “There were none in the British of slave ships sailed from Scottish ports, Caribbean” (p. 48). While likely true for Scottish merchants, traders, planters, and Jamaica, Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada, government officials benefited directly – and and Tobago, this was not at all the situation often handsomely – from the production and in The Bahamas. A St. Andrew’s Society was sale of sugar, tobacco, and cotton. As a result established at Nassau in 1798 by a group of of increased scholarly attention, the people of Scottish colonists and Scottish-American Scotland have become more conscious of Loyalists who had settled in the British their nation’s darker past, leading most domain after the American Revolution (Rules recently to a report from the University of of the Saint Andrew Society, 1941). Glasgow detailing the ways in which it participated institutionally in perpetuating Regarding religion, Hamilton (2005) claimed slavery by accepting funds from wealthy that “the Church of Scotland showed very Scottish slaveholders in the form of little interest in the Caribbean…Not until scholarship endowments and donations. As a 1819 was a kirk built in Jamaica” (p. 49). result, The Guardian reported on September Both Michael Morris (2018) and Stephen 17, 2018 that the university had committed Mullen (2016) have repeated this claim that itself to “reparative justice” and further study the Scots Kirk in Kingston was the first of its (Belam, 2018). kind in the British Caribbean. Yet again, while this was the case with regards to the While the insights and groundwork of these data sample collected by Hamilton (2005), and other scholars have proven invaluable in such claims must be reconsidered in light of contextualizing the present study, they The Bahamas. St. Andrew’s Kirk in Nassau almost completely ignore The Bahamas. was established in 1810, nearly a full decade Hamilton’s (2005) pioneering work, for prior to its sister congregation in Jamaica. It example, focuses primarily on Jamaica, is to that island, that community, and that Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada, and church that this article now turns. Tobago. In the indices of many other recent works, “Bahamas” is simply not to be found. While the Bahamian archipelago played a

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Colony, Community, and Kirk: Scots and humane a treatment of British slaves as in The Bahamas and St. Andrew’s, possible. Such concerns for amelioration Nassau (1783-1837) later evolved into calls for outright Apart from small enclaves on New emancipation in the 1820s. The plantocracy Providence and Eleuthera dating to the mid- and colonial Assembly of The Bahamas 17th century, British influence in The fought hard to resist such measures. Basing Bahamas was limited until it became an their appeals on the twin pillars of “rights to official colony of the United Kingdom in self-legislation and…property rights in their 1717. Much of the 18th century was fraught slaves,” the White elite resisted changes to with colonial mismanagement and piracy and the existing system of bondage and the islands were occupied by both the campaigned at Westminster for favourable Americans and the Spanish during the 1770s terms when it became clear that emancipation and 1780s. Yet following the end of the was only a matter of time and negotiation American Revolution, Britain regained (Craton & Saunders, 1992, p. 221). Indeed, control. Between 1783 and 1785, the White when slavery was officially abolished in and enslaved population of the colony 1834, former slaveowners were handsomely expanded greatly due to an influx of around compensated and a period of apprenticeship 1,600 North American Loyalists and 5,700 of was imposed upon the Black population of their slaves (Craton & Saunders, 1992). the British West Indies for a variable number Many of the Loyalists emigrated from of years (Saunders, 2019). In The Bahamas, Southern plantation economies and hoped the that number was four. The former African Caribbean island chain would provide new and Afro-Caribbean slaves finally gained full opportunities for the cultivation and export of freedom with the end of apprenticeship in cash crops. In the short term, they were 1838. successful. In the five years between 1785 Christian religious practice was a central part and 1790, Bahamian cotton production of Bahamian social and cultural life for all increased from 124 to 442 tons. Yet the races and classes. The established church of boom was short-lived. Production from 1790 the colony was the Church of England, which to 1810 was “slow and intermittent,” and soil catered largely to the White ruling minority exhaustion, insect infestation, and market (Johnson, 2000). Yet, like other British competition soon drove the cotton industry of colonies, “the religious diversity of the The Bahamas into decline. However, by that settlers migrating to the Caribbean short- point, many of the erstwhile Loyalists had circuited any kind of orthodoxy that the entrenched themselves within the White Anglicans wished to impose” (Edmonds & oligarchy of Nassau and found continued Gonzalez, 2010, p. 71). Methodist success in non-agricultural fields facilitated missionaries arrived in the 1790s and by a surge in trade around the turn of the 19th appealed to both free and enslaved portions century (Craton & Saunders, 1992). of the Bahamian population. For the most Despite the waning of the cotton industry, part, however, the free and enslaved Afro- agriculture remained a lucrative business. Caribbeans tended to worship in Black The White oligarchy thus had a vested Baptist congregations with both indigenous interest in maintaining the system of chattel and White missionary leadership. The slavery for as long as possible. Following the increasing popularity of such nonconforming abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, Christian groups alarmed the Anglican however, more and more pressure was placed establishment whose primary constituents on the government in London to ensure as fair feared that the Christianization of the Black

International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 26 (2020) 4 A. Jones. Race, Religion, and the Scottish Empire. and enslaved population might harbinger a led worship from the courthouse until the loss of social control. Although the Anglicans completion of the new building. Malcolm had previously done “little or nothing to himself donated £200 towards the proselytize the Blacks,” the threat of religious construction of the Kirk, and the foundation pluralism catalysed new evangelistic efforts stone was laid in August of 1810 on a plot of amongst the islands’ non-White majority land purchased from yet another member of (Craton & Saunders, 1992). Indeed, by the St. Andrew’s Society, Alexander Begbie. Curry’s estimation, Bahamian “Christianity The five original trustees of the Kirk were operated as a conservative force that allowed Malcolm, William Kerr, James Wood, Neil the ruling class to maintain a set social McQueen, and Walter Finlay – all five hierarchy” (2005, p. 4). members of the society (Rae, 1910). Such was the social and religious context in From 1809 to 1830, the Kirk had minimal which the Church of Scotland’s first success retaining the services of a Church of permanent Caribbean congregation was Scotland clergyman for longer than a few founded. The origins of St. Andrew’s Kirk, years. The first minister, John Rae, left the Nassau lie squarely within the realm of colony around 1815 and retired to Stirling. Scottish and Scottish-American emigrant His successor, Rev. Hugh MacFarlane, networks. While Scots were amongst those arrived with his wife on June 4, 1817, but resident in the islands from the earlier period, died within three months. A third minister, the arrival of a significant number of Scottish Rev. Simon Fraser, arrived in 1821 and died Loyalists from North America between 1783 in 1823. In 1824, the church gained funding and 1785 increased their representation from the House of Assembly, raising it to a within the colony and its chief port. similar, though subordinate, level with the The first fratriotic institution created by this Church of England. Following a gap of four years, Rev. Thomas Dewar was ordained to diaspora community was the St. Andrew’s Society, chartered by 55 Bahamian Scots in St. Andrew’s Kirk in 1827, arrived in 1828, 1798 (Rules of the Saint Andrew Society, but also died in 1830. For the next seven 1941). Michael Malcolm, a member of the St. years, the congregation was without a pastor, Andrew’s Society and a native of Kinross- although one of the Church of England shire, initiated the subscription calling for a rectors sometimes led services at the Kirk Scottish minister and building a Presbyterian (Rae, 1910). place of worship in December of 1808 (Rae, The Church of Scotland congregation of St. 1910). In a letter published in Nassau’s Royal Andrew’s interacted with and participated in Gazette, Malcolm wrote: issues of race and slavery during its first three As we are attached to the religion and decades in a number of ways. For the most morals of our fore-fathers, we naturally part, the ministers and members of St. Andrew’s buttressed the power of the White wish to instil [sic] the same attachments into the minds of our children…I venture slaveholding elite, a trait that they shared to lay herewith before you a list for with other Presbyterians in the pre- subscribing towards the expense of emancipation British West Indies (Edmonds passage, and for annual contribution & Gonzalez, 2010). For comparison, the towards raising an adequate salary for a Scottish Missionary Society’s missionaries in minister. (as cited in Russell, n.d.) Jamaica in the 1820s and 1830s took a “neutral” stance on slavery in order to His appeal was met with success. The first evangelize the enslaved population without minister, Rev. John Rae, arrived in 1809 and incurring the ire of the planters and

International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 26 (2020) A. Jones. Race, Religion, and the Scottish Empire. 5 magistrates (Proctor, 2004). In The Bahamas A native of northeast Scotland, Oswald made it appears to have been much the same. While his fortune as a part-owner of Bance Island, a there were some slaves amongst the Kirk’s notoriously brutal slaving station off the worshippers, they were a tiny minority; and coast of modern-day Sierra Leone (Whyte, there is no evidence to suggest that the 2006). membership included any free people of After his parochial education, young William colour by the 1820s or that the Scottish Maclure matriculated as a student at the ministers preceding Maclure made any University of Glasgow in 1815 (Innes, 1913). attempts to critique the institution of slavery Upon the completion of his arts degree, he (Johnson, 2000). remained in Glasgow to study divinity from Further, there is evidence that many of the 1821 to 1825 (Scott, 1928). According to major founding figures were themselves Rae, in Glasgow Maclure was “a pupil of Dr. slaveholders at one time or another. Michael Thomas Chalmers” (1910). The Chalmers to Malcolm acquired 160 acres of cotton land on whom this refers is the Rev. Dr. Thomas Crooked Island sometime after his arrival Chalmers, the preacher, professor, social with the other Loyalists and almost certainly reformer, and leading figure within the held slaves (Russell, n.d., p. 1). The Register evangelical movement of 19th century of Freed Slaves at the Bahamas National Scotland. The assertion that Maclure studied Archives includes manumission entries for with Chalmers is almost certainly misguided, Neil McQueen and Walter Finlay from the due to the fact that Chalmers’ only 1820s, when slavery became less profitable. professorship between 1815 and 1825 was at Alexander Begbie, the Scot who provided the the University of St. Andrews on the other land for the Kirk, freed a woman of mixed side of the country, starting in 1823. race in 1797 named Harriet by whom he had However, it is very likely that young William fathered four children (Parrish, 1958). Thus, Maclure attended the Tron Kirk in Glasgow however William Maclure may have felt in during his university days where Chalmers 1852, it is clear that the fathers of the Kirk preached from 1815 to 1819 – and possible were among those marked by “the curse of that he joined Chalmers in the urban St. slavery.” John’s parish between 1819 and 1823. Education and Exposure: William The records are frustratingly silent regarding Maclure in Scotland where Maclure lived and what he was doing In order to critically consider Maclure’s between his graduation in 1825 and Bahamian ministry, it is first vital to ordination in 1836. What is certain is that the understand the social, educational, and very same years saw the culmination of the religious worlds of his formative years in British antislavery movement, with wide Scotland. William Maclure was born around support across Scotland. Scottish 1800 in the rural village of St. Quivox in involvement in abolitionism dated back to the Ayrshire, where his father – also named first major campaign against the slave trade William – worked as the parish schoolmaster between 1788 and 1792 and continued when (Scott, 1928). Whether he was ever aware of the emancipation campaigns began to gather it or not, his own childhood was intimately support in the mid-1820s (Whyte, 2015). connected to the direct Scottish involvement From 1788 up until the abolition of slavery, in the Atlantic slave economy. The heritor – the Church of Scotland played a central role or local patron – of the parish church in St. in the Scottish antislavery movement. Quivox during the late 18th century was none Abolitionist societies were also started in other than Richard Oswald (Sinclair, 1793). Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Paisley, and

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Perth during the first wave and included the Finally, Maclure’s reference to slavery from support and participation of church leaders 1852 as a “curse” becomes less cryptic when from their inceptions (Whyte, 2006). While viewed within the context of other Scottish some Scots were complicit in slavery as Christian abolition language throughout the merchants and planters, the majority movement as a whole. According to Iain gradually came out against the enslavement Whyte (2006), “In an age that took divine of human beings and lobbied hard to abolish wrath for granted, this aspect found frequent the practice – both within and outside the mention” (p. 95). Phrases associated with the British Empire. impending national and cosmic The anti-slavery environment of Glasgow consequences of slavery from abolitionist and the rest of Scotland between William sermons and petitions from the era included: Maclure’s matriculation at university in 1815 “guilt upon our nation,” “ripe for destruction,” “guilt of the most atrocious and his ordination by the Presbytery of Glasgow in 1836 could not but have affected nature,” “avenger of the oppressed,” “exposed to the judgment of heaven,” and his own views on race and slavery. This seems all the more likely considering trends “gathering storm of divine retribution” in Scottish abolitionism, Maclure’s personal (Whyte, 2006, pp. 72-73, 91, 95, 224). While influences, and his eventual adoption of these linguistic precedents do not explain Christian abolitionist language. First, it was what Maclure meant by the “curse of slavery” during this same era that, according to with regard to his particular experience of Duncan Rice (1981), “the enlightened Bahamian society, they show that such critique of slavery” from the 18th century language was by no means unusual for a Scottish intelligentsia “came to be absorbed Christian minister from Scotland during the by men of acute religious sensibility” within antislavery era. the evangelical movement. Second, Maclure’s networks in Glasgow included at Mission, Conflict, and Race: William least two evangelical antislavery figures. The Maclure in Nassau first was Thomas Chalmers. Though he Maclure was ordained by the Presbytery of would later come to adopt a more Glasgow in December of 1836 and departed conservative view than many of his peers in soon thereafter for The Bahamas. He arrived the 1840s with regard to American slavery, in Nassau on April 5, 1837 with his wife and by the time Maclure met the churchman and immediately set to work. A number of letters professor, he had already motioned against by or about Maclure and his congregation slavery in 1814 and would write against it in appeared in various religious periodicals 1826 at the behest of the English antislavery between 1837 and 1852. It is these sources leader Thomas Clarkson (Whyte, 2016). The that provide the basis for the following second antislavery figure in Maclure’s section. What emerges is a complex picture ecclesiastical orbit was Professor Stevenson of a ministry defined by evangelical Macgill of Glasgow University. Macgill, distinctives, inter-denominational conflict, formerly minister of the Tron Kirk, was and ambivalence regarding issues of race. appointed to the Chair of Divinity at Glasgow The first communication from Maclure was in 1814 and would have taught Maclure in fact a poem he wrote, entitled “On Leaving during his divinity course between 1821 and Scotland for a Foreign Shore.” Published in 1825. In 1814, Macgill played a leading role The Scottish Christian Herald in 1837, the in Glasgow’s antislavery campaign (Scott, poem highlights the author’s affinity for his 1928). homeland whilst reckoning optimistically

International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 26 (2020) A. Jones. Race, Religion, and the Scottish Empire. 7 that departure for the sake of the Gospel is pp. 155-156). While the participation of worth the cost. In the early part of the poem Scots in the Kirk may have waned, the St. he waxes on about the “lochs” and “heathery Andrew’s Society continued to attract new braes” of Scotland that he will soon miss. members and maintain linkages with the This reveals the degree to which his own Kirk. For example, due to local expectation, “Scottishness” was central to his personal desire for fratriotic community, or a mixture identity. The end of the poem shifts to of both, Maclure himself became a member religious themes. The final two stanzas read: in 1841. When he decided to ordain four Favoured of heaven, my native land! elders sometime between 1837 and 1842, at Thou seem’st the golden source least half of the men he appointed were also all members of the society (Rules of the Saint Where Truth to many a heathen shore Andrew Society, 1941). In this first case, then, shall spend her glorious course; Maclure provides an example of the Till light shall break from distant tribes, perpetuation of Scottish diaspora networks and great Messiah reign amongst changing demographic environments. From rock-bound Greenland’s icy strand to India’s sultry plain. Regarding the racial breakdown of the congregation, Craton and Saunders (1998) Away, to haste that promised time, to regarded it as “exclusively White.” distant isles I go, According to Maclure’s letter from 1842, this Where earth reveals a fairer fruit, and sky is perhaps an overstatement. By his counting a brighter glow; there were at least a “few” Black congregants. Nevertheless, he was honest Oh! Soon with fruit,—with ray divine, about the fact that “the bulk of the black and good Lord, the nations bless, coloured population belongs, at least in The fruits of holiness be theirs,—the Sun name, to the Baptist persuasion” (Maclure, of Righteousness (Maclure, 1837) 1842, pp. 155-156). So while there may have been a small minority, those scholars are What becomes clear in this final section is generally correct in asserting that “the Kirk that Maclure initially understood his role as a took little interest in the black population” minister in The Bahamas in explicitly (Saunders, 2016, p. 27). evangelistic and eschatological terms. The 1842 letter also reveals that William The next notice from Maclure was an 1842 Maclure was an evangelical and conducted letter to Rev. R. S. Candlish, the editor of the his ministry along similar lines to his fellow Home and Foreign Missionary Record for evangelicals in Scotland. This is unsurprising the Church of Scotland. This second letter for a number of reasons. First, he came of age sheds light on the Scottish network of and was ordained during the height of the Nassau, the racial makeup of the Kirk, and evangelical movement in the Church of the evangelical program established by Scotland. Second, he had personal contact Maclure following his arrival in 1837. with two leaders of the movement: Chalmers Regarding the Scottish network, Maclure and Macgill. Third, he was enthusiastic about revealed that the Scottish contingent foreign missions and shared his enthusiasm responsible for raising the Kirk had largely publicly in The Scottish Christian Herald – abandoned it. “All our principal merchants an evangelical periodical. Accordingly, he were Scotchmen at no distant period,” he added a number of characteristically wrote, “now not above one remains” (1842, evangelical elements to the normal workings

International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 26 (2020) 8 A. Jones. Race, Religion, and the Scottish Empire. of the Kirk in Nassau. He held a “monthly exclusive access to religious education in the meeting for the reading of missionary schools despite continued protestations from intelligence,” supplemented his preaching the other denominations. As a result of these with “occasional lectures” on topics like the conflicts, ministers were disallowed from conversion of the Jews, instituted a weekly membership on the new Board of Education prayer meeting, and started “a Sabbath school in 1841 (Craton & Saunders, 1998). It seems of lately captured Africans” (Maclure, 1842, most likely that this decision to exclude p. 155-156). The last venture proved to be the ministers–and, in the view of non-Anglicans, most controversial. After mentioning his continue to privilege the episcopal clergy–in Sabbath school, Maclure tersely noted that 1841 was the event that Maclure alluded to “civil interference contrived to injure, almost with regard to “civil interference” (Lawlor, to ruin that” (1842, p. 155-156). 2015). Education in The Bahamas was slow to While Maclure continued to minister to his develop, and in the early- to mid-1800s Church of Scotland congregation in Nassau, schooling was largely left to the churches and the church at home prepared for potential parents willing and able to secure private crisis. Between 1834 and 1842, tensions education. According to Craton and Saunders between the two major parties in the Church (1998), of Scotland–the Evangelicals and the The Sunday schools attached to the Moderates–led a group of leading evangelical churches in the last period of slavery ministers to walk out of the 1843 General provided the first vestiges of education Assembly to form their own church. Among for the black majority of Bahamians. The this group was Thomas Chalmers and R. S. Anglican church entered the field only to Candlish. In 1842, Maclure’s colonial Kirk sustain its primacy under competitive session passed a motion in sympathy with the Evangelical Party and, in 1843, joined the pressure from the nonconformist chapel (p. 26) Free Church of Scotland (Rae, 1910). The next letter published by Maclure included a Indeed, the Anglicans began to institute a note of solidarity with the Free Kirk program of Sabbath schools in 1830 and alongside an editorial vote of thanks for a attempted to establish one in the then-vacant donation from the Bahamians of £30 (1844, St. Andrew’s Kirk. The local Presbyterian p. 104). members rejected the notion and the sympathetic Nassau Royal Gazette printed The next sources relating activity within the reports from a Church of Scotland Sabbath Kirk were back-to-back items published in school in Kingston, Jamaica, in an attempt to July of 1848 in an American Sunday School rally support within the Bahamian Kirk periodical called The Well-Spring. These (Sands, 1998). While this initial attempt was short pieces are informative on three accounts. First, they indicate the leading role to no avail, the reports from Jamaica doubtlessly showed the Presbyterians that played by one of the Kirk elders, Timothy such a program was possible in their own Darling. Darling was an American native and denominational context. one-time U.S. Consul to The Bahamas, whose native connections likely occasioned More educational infrastructure developed in to association with The Well-Spring, an organ the 1830s and 1840s that also impinged upon of the Massachusetts Sabbath School the religious atmosphere. As formal Society. Second, they show that a Sabbath education became a priority of the colonial school at St. Andrew’s was established assembly, the Anglican clergy lobbied for around 1845 and by 1848 included 70

International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 26 (2020) A. Jones. Race, Religion, and the Scottish Empire. 9 students. Lastly, according to the true religion (1852, p. 103) correspondence, the Sabbath school focused In summary, some form of religious on the conversion of the pupils to vibrant competition with the Bahamian Church of evangelical faith and the support of foreign England – or an Anglo-Catholic portion of it missions towards similar ends. The St. – between 1848 and 1852 caused trouble for Andrew’s class, along with a female sewing Maclure in a way that somehow related to the circle, financially supported a native effects of slavery on Bahamian society. catechist named Banka Behari Busu attached to Rev. Alexander Duff’s Free Church First, the archdeacon in question was an mission in Calcutta, India (“Letter from a Anglican cleric named John McCammon converted heathen youth”, 1848). Trew. In general, the archdeacon was one of the most vocal Anglicans on the island in The last source from this era is Maclure’s support of privileging Anglican religious 1852 update to the Free Church of Scotland education in the schools. He was so ardent in that included the allusion to the “curse of this regard that he “insinuated himself” onto slavery.” While the bulk of the letter was the Board of Education in the mid-1840s, good news regarding continued success with even after members of the clergy were the Sabbath school and “proofs of the banned from joining (Craton & Saunders, blessing of the Spirit” amongst the 1998). Beyond this, two instances brought congregation, it is the negative reports from Maclure or his allies into conflict with the 1852 that relate directly to issues of conflict archdeacon. In 1849, Maclure was barred and race that occupied St. Andrew’s, Nassau from officiating at the funeral of a during the intervening years (Maclure, 1852, Presbyterian child at one of the island’s burial p. 103). grounds. Eventually, Maclure and other Both the editorial introduction and Maclure’s ministers outside the Church of England attached letter provide information regarding successfully lobbied the colonial legislature issues of friction in The Bahamas. According to pass a compromise law allowing non- to the editor, Anglican clergymen to officiate funerals in The presence of an archdeacon and non-Anglican burial grounds. However, various clergy of the English Church, Trew was in favour of maintaining the has, it may easily be understood, given restrictions, felt the new law conceded too Episcopacy a considerable much, and “resigned his seat in the Council” predominance … and no inconsiderable as a result (Sands, 1998). Then, in 1850, Trew part of Mr Maclure’s difficulties have published a speech that took aim at the United arisen from the opposition to which High States for perpetuating a system of slavery Church sectarianism has given rise that allowed masters to abuse their slaves at (1852, p. 103). will. Maclure’s American elder, Timothy Darling, took issue with this accusation and Maclure’s letter then began: claimed that American slaveowners were not, Outwardly, the Sabbath could not be in fact, above the law (Johnson, 2000). As the better kept. But the remains of the curse ranking Anglican clergyman on the island, of slavery are upon us, and the intense Archdeacon Trew embodied the episcopal formality of the Episcopal Church, its arrogance that Maclure despised, effectively undissembled Puseyism, and its ever ignored his education and lawful ordination, eager efforts to proselytize, form sad and offended his elder and Sunday school drawbacks to the vitality and power of leader.

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Second, the accusation of “undissembled include the Afro-Bahamian majority Puseyism” was likely directed at another following emancipation. Anglican clergyman named W. J. Woodcock In this, Maclure–like his ecclesiastical in relation to educational competition. mentor Thomas Chalmers–fell prey to the Woodcock was consecrated by the Bishop of tendency to dichotomise between individual Jamaica in 1848, spent nearly three years in and structural sin and salvation (Whyte, active religious and educational work among 2012). As his poem and evangelical agenda the poor Black residents of Grant’s Town, made clear, his primary concern was and died in 1851. During his time as curate of preaching to convert individuals. While he the new St. Agnes parish, Woodcock used his most certainly would have ascribed to personal wealth to fund several schools abolitionist principles, he was comfortable designed to promote exclusive Anglican associating himself with power structures and religious education. By 1853, the Woodcock people linked to slavery. For instance, in schools had over 300 attendees. Despite a 1848 he and Timothy Darling were present lack of evidence that Woodcock was passionate about the support of their Indian himself an avowed Anglo-Catholic, the fact catechist in Calcutta. Yet Maclure did not that St. Agnes became the preeminent Black respond with a public denunciation of his high church parish in New Providence dignified elder when Darling effectively suggests that he very well might have been defended American slavery in his 1850 (Craton & Saunders, 1998). What is certain is interchange with Archdeacon Trew. In sum, that Woodcock–whose new parish church “the curse of slavery” for Maclure had more was less than half a mile from St. Andrew’s to do with immediate obstacles to his vision Kirk–found much greater success in of mission, conversion, and Christian education than Maclure with a system that education than an uncompromising stance disenfranchised the Scotsman’s beliefs. In his against the abuses and dislocations of positive report from the same letter, Maclure transatlantic slavery. made sure to include that his own Sabbath school was “a nursery for the Church…the Conclusion Shorter Catechism, with its proofs, forms, This paper has argued that the inclusion of next to the Bible itself, the main groundwork The Bahamas in considerations of the of the instructions of all the teachers” (1852, Scottish diaspora communities of the British p. 103). West Indies expands and enriches a strong– yet incomplete–body of scholarship. An Finally, what can be made of the assertion example of this is the relationship between that “the remains of the curse of slavery are race, religion, and Scottish and Scottish- upon us”? After analysing the context in American settlers in Nassau attached to St. which that statement was made, the most Andrew’s Kirk in the early- to mid-19th plausible explanation is that William Maclure century. Regarding that specific community, believed the system of slavery abolished in this paper has contended that the members 1838 did not allow for the proper and ministers facilitated the continuation of Christianisation of the Black population, White hegemony while simultaneously leaving them susceptible to what he seeking to improve the spiritual and dismissively referred to as their educational opportunities for the island’s “proselytization” by his denominational and Presbyterians. political rivals. The dark irony is, of course, that his own church was complicit in the perpetuation of that system and did little to

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References

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International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 26 (2020)