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Early American Studies
Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World
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.
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.
296 pages, Hardcover
First published February 7, 2018
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548 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 22, 2022
This was really a great read tracing the beginning of slavery in the Caribbean, how white and Christian identities developed in the New World, the theological arguments surrounding the conversion of African slaves, how Christianity initially developed within slave communities, the friction between evangelists and slave owners, the theological differences between different churches in relation to slave conversions and teaching, and how all of this gradually led to a place of the supremacy of a White Protestant identity. Of particular interest to me is how Gerbner details friction over polygamy within communities of African slaves in the Caribbean. If polygamy is forbidden in Christianity, and those in polygamous marriages convert, which wife do they get to keep? As many initially believed Christians couldn't be enslaved there was a disincentive to convert African slaves until a theology emerged that allowed for Black people to be both enslaved and Christian. This reminds me of Muslim argumentation during the conquest of non-Arab peoples on whether it was wise to convert the conquered peoples and lose out on the jizya tax for non-Muslims. Moving forward we see in this book, and in that of Henry Louis Gates, that while Christianity could make the African slave even more subservient to white masters, it could also be used as a vehicle of education and empowerment (and often infused with African traditions).
July 3, 2019
Katharine Gerbner makes a compelling argument that what she calls "Protestant Supremacy" in American Protestant slave societies was the precursor to the ideology of White Supremacy. She traces how the concept of "Christian Slavery" developed from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries as missionaries from Protestant Europe attempted to placate slave-owners and make Christian theology compatible with slave owning in order to keep the status quo in Protestant American colonies.
June 22, 2020
This book is currently the best synthesis and history of the connections between religion and race in the 18th-century Atlantic world, especially for its area of focus (mostly the Caribbean). I especially like its treatment of multiple types of Christianity and different European colonies.
January 11, 2022
If Ibram Kendi synthesized the history of racism and showed how racist ideas formed to justify the enslavement of Africans, then Katharine Gerbner digs past that to show how Protestant Christianity functioned as a proto-racial identity to differentiate enslaved people from slaveholders – and how the potential conversion of slaves led to a dilemma solved by the development of racist ideologies.
Gerbner's book doesn't complicate the history of racism and slavery so much as highlight how religion was essential to those things. She shows how in the Caribbean in the 1600s, "Christian" was juxtaposed with "Negro" to create what she calls Protestant supremacy, which which Protestantism was considered equivalent to freedom and self-determination. But when Black people began claiming Christianity, too, Protestant supremacy in the early 1700s shifted into White supremacy, with Whiteness now serving as shorthand for freedom.
Gerbner also shows how Protestant missionaries – Quaker, Anglican, Dutch Reformed, Moravian – were so eager to evangelize among the enslaved that they were instrumental in the creation of a proslavery narrative that discounted the ability of baptism to grant freedom and led to numerous laws throughout the Atlantic world that explicitly disconnected baptism from manumission and instead centered race rather than religion as the signifier of enslavement.
While its arguments are compelling and eye-opening, the book itself gets dry in places, and as a scholarly work, it does a lot of the "set up-tell-conclude" style that feels redundant if you're trying to read for pleasure. But it's not boring, and the story it tells is deeply important. It's easy to assume Christianity was split between people who used it to justify slavery and "real Christians" who opposed it. Gerbner complicates this narrative by showing how planters opposed the evangelization of the people they enslaved; rather, it was Christians who were instrumental in propping up the slave system so their missionaries could gain access to plantations without threatening the planters' livelihood.
Gerbner's book doesn't complicate the history of racism and slavery so much as highlight how religion was essential to those things. She shows how in the Caribbean in the 1600s, "Christian" was juxtaposed with "Negro" to create what she calls Protestant supremacy, which which Protestantism was considered equivalent to freedom and self-determination. But when Black people began claiming Christianity, too, Protestant supremacy in the early 1700s shifted into White supremacy, with Whiteness now serving as shorthand for freedom.
Gerbner also shows how Protestant missionaries – Quaker, Anglican, Dutch Reformed, Moravian – were so eager to evangelize among the enslaved that they were instrumental in the creation of a proslavery narrative that discounted the ability of baptism to grant freedom and led to numerous laws throughout the Atlantic world that explicitly disconnected baptism from manumission and instead centered race rather than religion as the signifier of enslavement.
While its arguments are compelling and eye-opening, the book itself gets dry in places, and as a scholarly work, it does a lot of the "set up-tell-conclude" style that feels redundant if you're trying to read for pleasure. But it's not boring, and the story it tells is deeply important. It's easy to assume Christianity was split between people who used it to justify slavery and "real Christians" who opposed it. Gerbner complicates this narrative by showing how planters opposed the evangelization of the people they enslaved; rather, it was Christians who were instrumental in propping up the slave system so their missionaries could gain access to plantations without threatening the planters' livelihood.
October 11, 2021
“We grant you by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property [...] and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude.”
- Pope Nicholas V, Dum Diversas
- Pope Nicholas V, Dum Diversas
February 6, 2023
Summary: An exploration of the ways that slavery as practices in the Caribbean and North America was "Christian."
The rough thesis is that racial hierarchy developed not through an inherently racialized system but through a belief in Christian (and later Protestant) supremacy where Christianity was viewed as a type of ethnic identity, and only later was that Protestant (ethnic) identity slowly shifted over to white racial identity. Chapter four developed this idea most clearly:
In the 17th Century, the British began to colonize what became the United States and the Caribbean. The split of the Church of England from the broader Catholic church started in the 16th century. Still, it was not until the early 17th century that the Church of England was firmly established as a religious/cultural identity. And even then, in the mid-17th Century, the English Civil War shifted that identity. This Protestant identity developed concurrently with the rise of colonization, the development of capitalistic enterprises, and increased interaction with different cultures and geography. The weakness of the Church of England in the colonies (the churches were culturally important, but often there was a lack of clergy and no real supervision from the ecclesiastical structure) meant that the direction of church policy was more directed by concerns of lay people than theological or missiological concerns. Similar to the arguments of Joel McDermot's The Problem of Slavery in Christian America, Gerbner illustrates how the development of slavery can be traced legally through changes in law, but also points out how Christian theology was explicitly or implicitly used to create a justification for that law because of economic concerns.
One of the helpful aspects of Christian Slavery is that she looks primarily at the English-speaking Caribbean and then compares that with the British colonies in what became the United States and the Catholic colonies in the Caribbean. This methodology uses other English-speaking and non-Protestant non-English speaking communities to explore similarities and differences in how those areas approached the relationship between Christianity and slavery. There was significant communication between these groups, and within the English-speaking colonies, you can see legal language moving from community to community as they all attempted to address similar issues.
The 17th and 18th century was still very close to the reformation, and by this time, religious identity had been largely incorporated into ethnic identity. Within the Catholic domain, baptism and conversion of enslaved were more common, in part because the missionary orders of Dominicans and Jesuits who were politically and socially powerful and somewhat independent from state and economic concerns.
By the 1680s, the English protestant system had adopted a different approach, religious toleration. The Church of England was the state church, but to different extents, Catholics, Baptists, Friends, and other minority religious positions were tolerated legally, even as the Anglicans were politically dominant. The Catholic missionary orders were unable to act completely independently, and while there were many examples of abuse of slavery and bigotry against Native American or African slaves, many of the examples of Christians calling for human rights for the enslaved or indigenous were from the relatively independent missionary orders.
On the other hand, almost all church officials within the English-speaking Protestant world were based on a parish system and funded through local support, which meant that the clergy were dependent upon financial support primarily through either tithes or tax support from the local community, both of which were dominated by wealthy land owners who were largely wealthy because of their slave holdings. There were some missionary activities within the English-Speaking Protestant colonies, but even that was largely supported by the wealth directly or indirectly supported through slavery. It was only later in the early 19th century that abolitionist-leaning mission agencies arose that were financially independent of slave wealth.
There is a long discussion about the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel which did seek to evangelize the enslaved in both the Caribbean and British Colonies of North America. However, fairly early in the society's existence, a large donation was given to the society, which included two plantations with slaves. Gerbner has a long discussion about how becoming a slave owner as an organization impacted the mission. (The book All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church by Christopher J. Kellerman, SJ discusses how enslaving people impacted Jesuit missions. There is a video that summarizes his work.)
In Catholic and Protestant examples, the desire to evangelize ran counter to the idea that Christians could not be enslaved. Missions agencies in the English-speaking world worked to make explicit that Christians could be enslaved. And it was often in the same laws, as in the example of New York that is discussed extensively, suggested that slave owners allow for the evangelism of the enslaved also said that baptism was not grounds for manumission and that slavery was racially restricted to only non-white people and that slavery was passed down from mother to child, not father to child, as was part of traditional British common law.
A chapter on the Moravian missions to the enslaved discussed the Moravian focus on inner transformation in contrast to freedom from slavery. Moravians were theologically so focused on the inner transformation that they, like British mission groups, taught the enslaved that part of true Christianity was to be a good slave and not seek freedom. Gerbner is talking in this chapter about a theological decision to split social justice from evangelism. This movement became more explicit later but had its roots early in Protestantism.
Slavery developed into a race-based chattel slavery system in the western hemisphere because of economic incentives. But it is also true that it could not have developed into the system that it did without the support of the church, both Protestant and Catholic.
The rough thesis is that racial hierarchy developed not through an inherently racialized system but through a belief in Christian (and later Protestant) supremacy where Christianity was viewed as a type of ethnic identity, and only later was that Protestant (ethnic) identity slowly shifted over to white racial identity. Chapter four developed this idea most clearly:
"Toward the end of the seventeenth century, Protestant slave owners gradually replaced the term "Christian" with the word "white" in their law books and in their vernacular speech. Scholars have long recognized that whiteness emerged from the protoethnic term "Christian." Yet the intimate relationship between slave conversion and whiteness has not been fully appreciated. By pairing baptismal records with legal documents, it becomes clear that the development of "whiteness" on Barbados was a direct response to the small but growing population of free black Christians." (p74)
In the 17th Century, the British began to colonize what became the United States and the Caribbean. The split of the Church of England from the broader Catholic church started in the 16th century. Still, it was not until the early 17th century that the Church of England was firmly established as a religious/cultural identity. And even then, in the mid-17th Century, the English Civil War shifted that identity. This Protestant identity developed concurrently with the rise of colonization, the development of capitalistic enterprises, and increased interaction with different cultures and geography. The weakness of the Church of England in the colonies (the churches were culturally important, but often there was a lack of clergy and no real supervision from the ecclesiastical structure) meant that the direction of church policy was more directed by concerns of lay people than theological or missiological concerns. Similar to the arguments of Joel McDermot's The Problem of Slavery in Christian America, Gerbner illustrates how the development of slavery can be traced legally through changes in law, but also points out how Christian theology was explicitly or implicitly used to create a justification for that law because of economic concerns.
One of the helpful aspects of Christian Slavery is that she looks primarily at the English-speaking Caribbean and then compares that with the British colonies in what became the United States and the Catholic colonies in the Caribbean. This methodology uses other English-speaking and non-Protestant non-English speaking communities to explore similarities and differences in how those areas approached the relationship between Christianity and slavery. There was significant communication between these groups, and within the English-speaking colonies, you can see legal language moving from community to community as they all attempted to address similar issues.
The 17th and 18th century was still very close to the reformation, and by this time, religious identity had been largely incorporated into ethnic identity. Within the Catholic domain, baptism and conversion of enslaved were more common, in part because the missionary orders of Dominicans and Jesuits who were politically and socially powerful and somewhat independent from state and economic concerns.
By the 1680s, the English protestant system had adopted a different approach, religious toleration. The Church of England was the state church, but to different extents, Catholics, Baptists, Friends, and other minority religious positions were tolerated legally, even as the Anglicans were politically dominant. The Catholic missionary orders were unable to act completely independently, and while there were many examples of abuse of slavery and bigotry against Native American or African slaves, many of the examples of Christians calling for human rights for the enslaved or indigenous were from the relatively independent missionary orders.
On the other hand, almost all church officials within the English-speaking Protestant world were based on a parish system and funded through local support, which meant that the clergy were dependent upon financial support primarily through either tithes or tax support from the local community, both of which were dominated by wealthy land owners who were largely wealthy because of their slave holdings. There were some missionary activities within the English-Speaking Protestant colonies, but even that was largely supported by the wealth directly or indirectly supported through slavery. It was only later in the early 19th century that abolitionist-leaning mission agencies arose that were financially independent of slave wealth.
There is a long discussion about the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel which did seek to evangelize the enslaved in both the Caribbean and British Colonies of North America. However, fairly early in the society's existence, a large donation was given to the society, which included two plantations with slaves. Gerbner has a long discussion about how becoming a slave owner as an organization impacted the mission. (The book All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church by Christopher J. Kellerman, SJ discusses how enslaving people impacted Jesuit missions. There is a video that summarizes his work.)
In Catholic and Protestant examples, the desire to evangelize ran counter to the idea that Christians could not be enslaved. Missions agencies in the English-speaking world worked to make explicit that Christians could be enslaved. And it was often in the same laws, as in the example of New York that is discussed extensively, suggested that slave owners allow for the evangelism of the enslaved also said that baptism was not grounds for manumission and that slavery was racially restricted to only non-white people and that slavery was passed down from mother to child, not father to child, as was part of traditional British common law.
A chapter on the Moravian missions to the enslaved discussed the Moravian focus on inner transformation in contrast to freedom from slavery. Moravians were theologically so focused on the inner transformation that they, like British mission groups, taught the enslaved that part of true Christianity was to be a good slave and not seek freedom. Gerbner is talking in this chapter about a theological decision to split social justice from evangelism. This movement became more explicit later but had its roots early in Protestantism.
Slavery developed into a race-based chattel slavery system in the western hemisphere because of economic incentives. But it is also true that it could not have developed into the system that it did without the support of the church, both Protestant and Catholic.
March 26, 2023
I read and interviewed Professor Gerbner for my library's Unpacking Our History web series.
Check it out:
https://youtu.be/VbOWRPh_n-s
Check it out:
https://youtu.be/VbOWRPh_n-s
April 24, 2021
This is a scholarly, well-researched book and not for the casual reader. But, as a historian, I appreciated the deep research that Katherine Gerbner has done and the contribution that she has made to early enslavement in the Caribbean. She documents in great detail how Christians in the 1600s struggled with the notion of Christianity and holding people in bondage. Should they be Christianized? Was Christianity compatible with enslavement? Could a Christian "own" a fellow Christian? She traces the evolution of the thinking and the mental gymnastics that white Christians had to do morally to make their Christian faith and owning people compatible. She also makes a solid case for the transition from "Protestant supremacy" to "white supremacy." This book is an excellent addition to the bookshelves of people researching racism and the caste system that continues today.
Read
September 23, 2022I wanted to like this book, the thesis sounded really interesting. I think Gerbner's research is good, many of the facts she lays out, and the accompanying analysis, help to better understand the relationship between slavery and Christianity. Unfortunately, the book itself felt like it was going in circles, this disorganization did not do any favors to the research that was behind the book. Additionally, the writing style didn't really hold my attention and I frequently had to force myself to pay attention to what I was reading.
June 10, 2025
Dang this book is so interesting. It’s crazy how the “Christians” would logic their way into believing they deserved to rule over other people. It happened so many times and they always had the same reasoning.
March 22, 2021
Extremely informative, reading this book pushes you to do more research to gather a better under Christian dominations and what they are now today. Will definitely invoke a shift within.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews