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Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World
Rebecca's Revival is the remarkable story of a Caribbean woman--a slave turned evangelist--who helped inspire the rise of black Christianity in the Atlantic world. All but unknown today, Rebecca Protten left an enduring influence on African-American religion and society. Born in 1718, Protten had a childhood conversion experience, gained her freedom from bondage, and joined a group of German proselytizers from the Moravian Church. She embarked on an itinerant mission, preaching to hundreds of the enslaved Africans of St. Thomas, a Danish sugar colony in the West Indies. Laboring in obscurity and weathering persecution from hostile planters, Protten and other black preachers created the earliest African Protestant congregation in the Americas. Protten's eventful life--the recruiting of converts, an interracial marriage, a trial on charges of blasphemy and inciting of slaves, travels to Germany and West Africa--placed her on the cusp of an emerging international Afro-Atlantic evangelicalism. Her career provides a unique lens on this prophetic movement that would soon sweep through the slave quarters of the Caribbean and North America, radically transforming African-American culture.Jon Sensbach has pieced together this forgotten life of a black visionary from German, Danish, and Dutch records, including letters in Protten's own hand, to create an astounding tale of one woman's freedom amidst the slave trade. Protten's life, with its evangelical efforts on three continents, reveals the dynamic relations of the Atlantic world and affords great insight into the ways black Christianity developed in the New World.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
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July 5, 2019
Jon F. Sensbach's Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World is notionally a biography of Rebecca Protten, a native of Antigua who was kidnapped and sold into slavery on St. Thomas. But because there are so few details about Rebecca's life, Sensbach widens the aperture to review the impact of the clash of African, European, and native cultures in the Caribbean during the 18th century. In doing so, Sensbach reveals the complex sets of interactions that take place between Dutch planters on St. Thomas, their African and Creole slaves, and the German Moravian missionaries sent there to convert the slaves to Christianity. Sensbach explains how the efforts of the Moravians waxed and waned, and largely depended upon the efforts of those like Rebecca who, as a mixed race woman, were able to bridge the boundaries between whites and blacks. The Moravians themselves were representative of the 18th-century relationship between Pietism and missionary work. In finding the Moravian model on St. Thomas as an exemplar of Christian missionary work to New World blacks, Sensbach ultimately concludes that Rebecca participated in one of the first black congregations in the Americas and may have been the first black woman to have been ordained by Christians in the west. In doing so, Sensbach explains how Rebecca lived an extraordinary life amongst the ordinary across the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa.
Rebecca was born around 1718 on Antigua as the daughter of white European and black African ancestry. Known then as Shelly, the mulatto girl was kidnapped around the age of six and sold as a slave to the family of Lucas van Beverhout, a Dutch plantation owner on St. Thomas. She worked in the Beverhout household, converted to Christianity, and was freed by the family at age 12. When the Moravian Brethren arrived in 1732, Rebecca worked with the German missionaries to convert St. Thomas's slaves to Christianity. She later traveled to Germany where she met and married Christian Protten, another Christian of mixed descent. Christian and Rebecca traveled to Christiansborg on the Gold Coast of Africa, setting up a school for African children. Christian died there in 1769, and Rebecca died in 1780 despite an opportunity to return to St. Thomas.
The central historical backdrop to Rebecca's Revival is the 1733 slave revolt on the nearby island of St. John. The slave insurrection lasted nine months and spread across the entire island. Sensbach uses this event to frame the hostile relationship between white plantation owners and their black slaves, as well as the fear of another revolt. It was amidst this fear that the Dutch planters eyed the German Moravian missionaries with deep suspicion. While some plantation owners were sympathetic to slaves embracing Christianity, other planters saw the missionaries as a source which might ferment another uprising.
Sensbach's portrayal of Rebecca's life is limited by scattered and fragmentary primary sources. Christian Oldendorp's History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John (1777) is Senbach's most significant source. But even then, Sensbach admits that Oldendorp was writing a "promotional tract" that sought to paint a picture of "a momentous struggle between light and darkness." Sensbach also notes that about two-thirds of Oldendorp's manuscript was cut in the editing process. Sensbach (and his readers) will continue to wonder how many details of Rebecca's extraordinary life were lost to eternity by the heavy-handedness of an overbearing editor.
The fragmentary evidence is central to several contentious points through the story. As one example, several letters attributed to Rebecca appear in different handwriting. Sensbach speculates that some of her letters could have been dictated or re-written by someone else years later while acknowledging that the words on the pages may not fully represent her thoughts and views. A second, more probing example is the extent to which Africans embraced Christianity amid slavery. Sensbach recognizes that it is impossible to know how serious most slaves took their conversion experience, especially because some early conversion experiences often led to emancipation (as he speculates happened to Rebecca). Moreover, the continued influx of African slaves brought with them a continued and renewed interest in African religious culture, which never disappeared but existed alongside the newfound Christianity. Sensbach speculates that Christianity may have proved to be a sort of spiritual emancipation for some, especially women. Amidst all this uncertainty, Sensbach nonetheless makes tentative conclusions when warranted by the evidence, yet with the caution to avoid over-sensationalizing the experiences of Rebecca and those around her. What emerges is a historian who avoids the temptation to reach beyond the evidence.
But for the lack of primary evidence, Rebecca's Revival proves to be anti-climactic. Her most substantial influence on black Christianity appears to have happened during her life on St. Thomas. Her experience in Germany and even her ordination as the probable first black Christian woman are overshadowed by her husband's contentious relationship with Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, the Moravian bishop that sponsored the missions to St. Thomas. Her life in Africa was marred by illness and a lack of evidence of the potential success of her educational efforts. Sensbach acknowledges all of this in concluding that her greatest achievements took place on St. Thomas. Finally, Rebecca's return to St. Thomas in 1776 onboard the Ada, as foreshadowed in the prologue, never happens. Instead, Rebecca chooses to remain in Africa and dies in 1780. The basic facts of Rebecca's life story and the lack of evidence, especially during her later years in Africa, cannot provide a positive shape that does not exist. Nonetheless, the foreshadowing fakeout proves to be a somewhat disappointing conclusion. Aside from this minor criticism, Jon F. Sensbach's Rebecca's Revival is a strong example of African-Caribbean microhistory that contributes a better understanding of the complex relationships that existed in Atlantic history.
Rebecca was born around 1718 on Antigua as the daughter of white European and black African ancestry. Known then as Shelly, the mulatto girl was kidnapped around the age of six and sold as a slave to the family of Lucas van Beverhout, a Dutch plantation owner on St. Thomas. She worked in the Beverhout household, converted to Christianity, and was freed by the family at age 12. When the Moravian Brethren arrived in 1732, Rebecca worked with the German missionaries to convert St. Thomas's slaves to Christianity. She later traveled to Germany where she met and married Christian Protten, another Christian of mixed descent. Christian and Rebecca traveled to Christiansborg on the Gold Coast of Africa, setting up a school for African children. Christian died there in 1769, and Rebecca died in 1780 despite an opportunity to return to St. Thomas.
The central historical backdrop to Rebecca's Revival is the 1733 slave revolt on the nearby island of St. John. The slave insurrection lasted nine months and spread across the entire island. Sensbach uses this event to frame the hostile relationship between white plantation owners and their black slaves, as well as the fear of another revolt. It was amidst this fear that the Dutch planters eyed the German Moravian missionaries with deep suspicion. While some plantation owners were sympathetic to slaves embracing Christianity, other planters saw the missionaries as a source which might ferment another uprising.
Sensbach's portrayal of Rebecca's life is limited by scattered and fragmentary primary sources. Christian Oldendorp's History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John (1777) is Senbach's most significant source. But even then, Sensbach admits that Oldendorp was writing a "promotional tract" that sought to paint a picture of "a momentous struggle between light and darkness." Sensbach also notes that about two-thirds of Oldendorp's manuscript was cut in the editing process. Sensbach (and his readers) will continue to wonder how many details of Rebecca's extraordinary life were lost to eternity by the heavy-handedness of an overbearing editor.
The fragmentary evidence is central to several contentious points through the story. As one example, several letters attributed to Rebecca appear in different handwriting. Sensbach speculates that some of her letters could have been dictated or re-written by someone else years later while acknowledging that the words on the pages may not fully represent her thoughts and views. A second, more probing example is the extent to which Africans embraced Christianity amid slavery. Sensbach recognizes that it is impossible to know how serious most slaves took their conversion experience, especially because some early conversion experiences often led to emancipation (as he speculates happened to Rebecca). Moreover, the continued influx of African slaves brought with them a continued and renewed interest in African religious culture, which never disappeared but existed alongside the newfound Christianity. Sensbach speculates that Christianity may have proved to be a sort of spiritual emancipation for some, especially women. Amidst all this uncertainty, Sensbach nonetheless makes tentative conclusions when warranted by the evidence, yet with the caution to avoid over-sensationalizing the experiences of Rebecca and those around her. What emerges is a historian who avoids the temptation to reach beyond the evidence.
But for the lack of primary evidence, Rebecca's Revival proves to be anti-climactic. Her most substantial influence on black Christianity appears to have happened during her life on St. Thomas. Her experience in Germany and even her ordination as the probable first black Christian woman are overshadowed by her husband's contentious relationship with Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, the Moravian bishop that sponsored the missions to St. Thomas. Her life in Africa was marred by illness and a lack of evidence of the potential success of her educational efforts. Sensbach acknowledges all of this in concluding that her greatest achievements took place on St. Thomas. Finally, Rebecca's return to St. Thomas in 1776 onboard the Ada, as foreshadowed in the prologue, never happens. Instead, Rebecca chooses to remain in Africa and dies in 1780. The basic facts of Rebecca's life story and the lack of evidence, especially during her later years in Africa, cannot provide a positive shape that does not exist. Nonetheless, the foreshadowing fakeout proves to be a somewhat disappointing conclusion. Aside from this minor criticism, Jon F. Sensbach's Rebecca's Revival is a strong example of African-Caribbean microhistory that contributes a better understanding of the complex relationships that existed in Atlantic history.
November 24, 2022
Rebecca's Revival shows readers what an author can do on a subject with limited primary source material. Rebecca Protten is an enslaved mulatto girl born and Antigua, who is later kidnapped and taken to the island of St. Thomas. Jon Senesbach creates a narrative around Rebecca which shows the complexities of St. Thomas between the Dutch planters and the enslaved Africans and Creoles. Rebecca is used to highlight the Moravian missionaries who came and went from St. Thomas, and how their efforts largely depended upon people of colour, such as Rebecca to keep the conversion of enslaved going forward.
Rebecca becomes ordained in the Moravian way and participates in one first black congregations in the Americas. I went to a talk which was centered on religion and enslavement in the Caribbean, and one of the speakers talked about the rapid conversions of enslaved people in St. Thomas. The speaker called it the Black Acts Church (or something like that). It is shocking to hear and read, both in that talk and in this book what converts and the missionaries were willing to go through to exercise their religion. The Dutch planters were firmly against their enslaved people being educated in religion, and they barely tolerated the missionaries who kept coming to St. Thomas. Fear of another slave revolt such as the one in 1733 on St. John kept the planters very paranoid.
Due to the fragmented source material Senesbach can only guess at or suppose at some aspects of Rebecca's life, as she personally did not leave much-written material behind despite being literate. I was disappointed about the latter half of the book, not because of research or writing but because of the trajectory of Rebecca's life. She was imprisoned, one husband dies, she moves to Africa and evangelizes there (there's very little source material about her life there), she moves to Germany and another husband dies, her child dies, and she stays in Germany instead of going back to St. Thomas and dies there at an old age. I wish her life could have been happier, but most missionary narratives I've read have proved to be very contentious and dismal. Rebecca's Revival is a great microhistory that sheds light on the interconnectedness of the Atlantic world.
ps. Sensbach is my advisor in grad school and a very knowlegable person!
Rebecca becomes ordained in the Moravian way and participates in one first black congregations in the Americas. I went to a talk which was centered on religion and enslavement in the Caribbean, and one of the speakers talked about the rapid conversions of enslaved people in St. Thomas. The speaker called it the Black Acts Church (or something like that). It is shocking to hear and read, both in that talk and in this book what converts and the missionaries were willing to go through to exercise their religion. The Dutch planters were firmly against their enslaved people being educated in religion, and they barely tolerated the missionaries who kept coming to St. Thomas. Fear of another slave revolt such as the one in 1733 on St. John kept the planters very paranoid.
Due to the fragmented source material Senesbach can only guess at or suppose at some aspects of Rebecca's life, as she personally did not leave much-written material behind despite being literate. I was disappointed about the latter half of the book, not because of research or writing but because of the trajectory of Rebecca's life. She was imprisoned, one husband dies, she moves to Africa and evangelizes there (there's very little source material about her life there), she moves to Germany and another husband dies, her child dies, and she stays in Germany instead of going back to St. Thomas and dies there at an old age. I wish her life could have been happier, but most missionary narratives I've read have proved to be very contentious and dismal. Rebecca's Revival is a great microhistory that sheds light on the interconnectedness of the Atlantic world.
ps. Sensbach is my advisor in grad school and a very knowlegable person!
February 7, 2020
Books such as these, stories of extraordinary people, who have been forgotten, only to be brought to life via the work of historians are why history is amazing. Rebecca Protten deserves your time. I highly recommend.
May 2, 2009
Rebecca's story is more than compelling on its own- what's not to be interested in about a young girl sold into slavery, converted to Christianity then freed, who becomes a preacher and then moves to Germany and West Africa. All in the 17th century. What makes the story even more interesting is the sensitivity with which Sensbach narrates and the research necessary to "revive" this previously "lost" material. This book has much to contribute to the transformation of slavery in the Caribbean and the American south in the 17th and 18th centuries. Especially since it is extremely readable (even more than A Midwife's Tale, but in a similar vein. I might assign this to my students in the future
August 11, 2018
In the epilogue Sensbach states that Rebecca “stood where the three main currents of the eighteenth-century black Atlantic world flowed together: the dramatic expansion of the slave trade, the Afro-Atlantic freedom struggle, and the rise of black Christianity.” This book explores the history of the Dutch West Indies, the Gold Coast slave trade, the Moravian pietist missionary mission to the Caribbean and the Atlantic World in general. The author does so using the relatively fragmentary of the life of the freed black slave Rebecca as the overarching story. This is a wonderful exploration of the eighteenth century and the contradictions of the religious and geopolitical currents of the time.
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November 8, 2020Parts of this were super interesting; however, there's so little known about Rebecca directly that I felt as if I were reading a book about the backdrop of her life than a book about her. Still, I learned a lot.
January 3, 2022
First, minus 1 star that goes against the publisher of the Kindle version of this book. It is poorly formatted and all of the pictures are missing. I could understand if the kindle version was significantly less than the paper copy, but it isn't. The Kindle version has significant problems. This either demonstrates publisher's ignorance of how to create a Kindle book or simple laziness brought on by arrogance.
Now for the book. I read this book because it was the Jan 2022 book of the month for our book group.
I'm sure I would not have selected it on my own. However, I did enjoy learning about the history and of that time. We sometimes complain that the world is changing too slowly, but in the perspective of a few hundred years, the world has changed dramatically. Both in human rights as well as religious tolerance. We still have a long way to go. The one down side was that I grew tired of the speculation due to the lack of reliable sources.
Now for the book. I read this book because it was the Jan 2022 book of the month for our book group.
I'm sure I would not have selected it on my own. However, I did enjoy learning about the history and of that time. We sometimes complain that the world is changing too slowly, but in the perspective of a few hundred years, the world has changed dramatically. Both in human rights as well as religious tolerance. We still have a long way to go. The one down side was that I grew tired of the speculation due to the lack of reliable sources.
June 3, 2025
Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World by Jon F. Sensbach is a biographical history of Rebecca Protten, who was among the first black women to become an ordained priest in western Christianity. After earning her freedom, she joined the Moravian Church and began evangelizing to enslaved women throughout the Carribean. She eventually travels to Germany, becoming serving as a spiritual leader among German women. The book concludes discussing her missions to Africa. The book follows her life from enslavement of the Carribean island of St. Thomas. Sensbach argues that religion acted as an avenue in which enslaved and formerly enslaved people asserted agency through interpretation and evangelizing missions. His well-written narrative relies on Moravian church records, including reports, correspondence, and personal diaries. Rebecca’s Revival is a particularly strong narrative of black Christianity in North America.
February 3, 2023
This book, about a bi-racial woman from West Africa during the height of the slave trade, was brought to St. Thomas, Virgin Island in the early 1700s. She, as a young freed slave in Danish territory, traveled the trails of the island to teach the enslaved West Africans to know God and to read and write. She was a remarkable, tireless worker among the women. The Danish became threatened by her work and imprisoned her along with two Moravians from Germany. The politics did not resolve well and she went to Herrnhutt in Germany and joined that movement. Her work predates the early American mission outreaches of the Judsons and William Carey. This book is as much a research project as a story. It is well worth the read. The book brings to the table racial issues that blacks and whites both need to discuss.
March 13, 2022
This book was hardly about Rebecca's life. It mainly focused on the men in her life because so few records of hers or about her survive. Most of the time the author just mentioned her saying things like, "And Rebecca was there in the center of it," without really showing that she was. It felt like she was an afterthought or that she was used on the cover and in the title to sell more books. The story has interesting parts and is an important part of history, but the execution of this book was poor.
January 7, 2018
Sensbach is a bad ass historian whose research is pretty amazing. I admire this book on about a dozen levels, but it is not written in particularly compelling fashion and, to be honest, I got a little bored. But Sensbach is still an amazing historian!
February 26, 2011
This is the story of Rebecca Protten, an ex-slave, Moravian evangelist in the Caribbean. Rebecca's story offers such an interesting perspective on Christianity and slavery in the Americas, and it gives you a chance to see not only how Christians tried to evangelize in the context of wicked Christian slave-owners, but also how converted slaves themselves acted in the face of the violence of slavery. The book talks about Rebecca having to counsel young slave-women who would be routinely raped, or how certain slaves would calmly quote scriptures to their masters during a beating to prick their consciences and turn their bible, which was so often used to support their practices, back on their own heads.
The only fault was that the narrative lagged a little at the end. I liked the fact that the author offered plenty of interesting rabbit trails while telling the story of Rebecca's life (it offers so many - 18th century Christianity, the Moravian Church, slave evangelism, etc.), but near the end, the author loses focus and things drag.
Definitely worth reading, though; Rebecca Protten is just too interesting of an historical figure to ignore.
The only fault was that the narrative lagged a little at the end. I liked the fact that the author offered plenty of interesting rabbit trails while telling the story of Rebecca's life (it offers so many - 18th century Christianity, the Moravian Church, slave evangelism, etc.), but near the end, the author loses focus and things drag.
Definitely worth reading, though; Rebecca Protten is just too interesting of an historical figure to ignore.
April 6, 2015
Jon Sensbach takes a close look at the influence of the Moravian mission efforts in St. Thomas and how these efforts shaped history in far-reaching places. He examines and describes the societal roles and expectations for African slaves, women, and Christians. He presents an understanding of these roles that may leave modern readers unsettled, including the views that Moravians, including Zinzendorf himself had of slavery and Christianity and the relationship between the two. It is impossible to share this history without talking about Rebecca Protten, who found her place as a key figure of the Moravian mission efforts in St. Thomas in spite of the fact that she was a free biracial woman from Africa. It was her ability to navigate these roles that made her such a vital part of the church.
September 8, 2015
At first I was surprised that a historian used so much speculation to write a biography but after reading it I was highly impressed. Sensbach's task is to construct a narrative of a woman who left barely any written records. I think he successfully uses the missionary journals and the speculation to underscore the fact that Rebecca was, actually, a person with agency in her world, a truth very often overlooked by historians. Sensbach's conclusion is a bit tenuous (I find it hard to believe that one woman was the cause of the christianization of the entire Atlantic world; the title is a bit misleading as I don't think he makes a strong enough case for it), but I thought his main narrative was successful. Highly enjoyable read.
December 21, 2021
While this was a fascinating exploration of both slavery in the Caribbean and religion in Europe, Rebecca was not quite the central figure as imagined or stated. Worth a read in any attempt to understand slavery, Caribbean history, and religious movement throughout Europe, the Americas, and Africa.
Sensbach does an excellent job creating this "Atlantic World" and the complexities of identity, as a mixed race Black woman converts herself and other to Christianity. I'm not sure I agree with the individual agency of Rebecca herself, that this is her revival and how responsible she is for the development of the Black Church.
Sensbach does an excellent job creating this "Atlantic World" and the complexities of identity, as a mixed race Black woman converts herself and other to Christianity. I'm not sure I agree with the individual agency of Rebecca herself, that this is her revival and how responsible she is for the development of the Black Church.
January 8, 2014
Really well written totally readable history of a place and period (the 18th century in the Caribbean) that I knew next to nothing about. Rebecca (a freed slave who went on to be ordained in the Moravian church and teach and convert many enslaved African women) was reall inspirational, but I wish the book focused more squarely on her. And some of the theology of the Moravians at the time (the obsession with Christ's wounds most particularly) was a little hard to read about.
March 16, 2010
Joins old and new worlds, centered on Chrisitanity and the Atlantic slave trade. A brilliant microhistory that gets at significant broad trends. Shows how Christianity provided agency to African slaves in the Dutch West Indies and subverted slaveowners' oppression of slaves.
November 1, 2012
A good history of an overwhelmingly overlooked area: black women in Protestant ministry. Sensbach gives a intimate account of the struggles and trials of Rebacca, as she navigates a world far from positive towards her. Good reading for anyone interested in the Moravians as well.
April 8, 2014
An intelligent and balanced look at an intriguing microcosm of history. The author is very careful and unbiased, but his unwillingness to stick his neck out translated into an underlying insipidity, which made it less interesting than it could/should have been.
May 10, 2012
Lots of fun. Very interesting story with a lot of those places where we can cheer our fellow brothers and others where we can rebuke them soundly.
January 22, 2016
An easy read that helps explain how Black Christianity was established and spread in the Atlantic World
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews