Evangelism was as a major justification for imperial expansion during the early modern period. Yet the actual relationship between missionaries and those they hoped to convert was far more complex than the narrative of conquest suggests. Missionaries were often the most prolific writers on non-European…
I have written several articles about Quakers and slavery in the seventeenth century. Two of them focus on antislavery thought, while the third examines Quaker slave holding practices in Barbados. All three of these articles begin from the premise that Quakers initially accepted slavery, but…
“Beyond the Half-way Covenant” redefines the New England church membership crisis of the 1650s and 60s as a crisis of outreach, rather than a crisis of declension. It examines family strategies and ancestral networks in Cambridge, Massachusetts and argues that Jonathan Mitchel, the minister of…
While Christian evangelization and conversion were often the primary justifications for imperial expansion in the early modern Atlantic world, the meaning of the word “conversion” remains contested among scholars, particularly when used to refer to non-European conversion to Christianity. Several historians have argued that the…
‘They Call Me Obea’ examines the role of obeah within the Moravian mission to Jamaica between 1754 and 1760. While much scholarship has focused on the significance of obeah in Tacky’s Revolt of 1760 and later, there has been less attention paid to obeah before…
My book, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World, shows 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…
