Christian Slavery – Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World

Christian Slavery – Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World

By Katharine Gerbner

Quakers have long been hailed as heroes of the abolitionist movement. Friends like Anthony Benezet and John Woolman worked tirelessly to convince other whites to abolish slavery and embrace liberty for all. Yet, historian Katharine Gerbner argues that this is only part of the story when it comes to Quakers and slavery. When William Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania, he and other Quaker merchants relied on trade - including trading enslaved people - from Barbados, where thousands of Quakers lived and owned other human beings. Quaker founder George Fox, meanwhile, was radical in his vision that blacks and whites were spiritual equals, but he did not argue for abolition. Join Gerbner, professor at University of Minnesota, to explore the early history of Quakers and slavery in connection to the development of our modern concept of race in her recent book, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).

"There are a number of things to recommend Gerbner's welcome study. Throughout the text she reminds readers that the English, Dutch, and some French colonists in the Caribbean were arguably shaped more by their Protestantism than any national attachments. That this was especially the case in their engagement with slavery is an important revelation. She is also good at exploring and imagining the response of slaves and free blacks to the evolving theology of slavery that was gradually strengthening slavery's grasp in every corner of the Atlantic world. Perhaps most of all, she shines a light on Christianity's complicity in the development of modern racism."

—Journal of Early Modern History

"In looking at this relationship between white-exclusivist 'Protestant Supremacy,' the formation of a paternalist Christian Slavery that encouraged conversion of blacks but discouraged their literacy, and the role of Africans and African Americans in compelling (through their words and actions) a rethinking of the relationship between Christianity and slavery, Gerbner has given us a new synthesis that incorporates the Atlantic world perspective beautifully. And she has given us another version of the grim irony of Southern religious history."—Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"How and why did Christianity, seemingly built on spiritual emancipation and equality, give blessing to African slavery in the Americas? Christian Slavery is a powerful new interpretation of this question that will inspire scholars to rethink the connections between religion, race, and slavery in the early modern Atlantic world."

"With impressive chronological and geographical breadth and a clear-eyed, transdenominational perspective, Christian Slavery reveals how the religious programs of early Quakers, Anglicans, and Moravians all became entangled with colonial slavery."

—Travis Glasson, Temple University

Could slaves become Christian? If so, did their conversion lead to freedom? If not, then how could perpetual enslavement be justified? In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world. Slave owners in the Caribbean and elsewhere established governments and legal codes based on an ideology of "Protestant Supremacy," which excluded the majority of enslaved men and women from Christian communities. For slaveholders, Christianity was a sign of freedom, and most believed that slaves should not be eligible for conversion.

When Protestant missionaries arrived in the plantation colonies intending to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity in the 1670s, they were appalled that most slave owners rejected the prospect of slave conversion. Slaveholders regularly attacked missionaries, both verbally and physically, and blamed the evangelizing newcomers for slave rebellions. In response, Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries articulated a vision of "Christian Slavery," arguing that Christianity would make slaves hardworking and loyal.

Over time, missionaries increasingly used the language of race to support their arguments for slave conversion. Enslaved Christians, meanwhile, developed an alternate vision of Protestantism that linked religious conversion to literacy and freedom. Christian Slavery shows how the contentions between slave owners, enslaved people, and missionaries transformed the practice of Protestantism and the language of race in the early modern Atlantic world.

Katharine Gerbner teaches history at the University of Minnesota.