A separate Canaan: the making of an Afro-Moravian world in North Carolina, 1763-1840

Abstract

A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840. By Jon F. Sensbach. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Pp. xxiii, 342. Illustrations. Cloth, $45.00; paper, $17.95.) In 1769, Moravians of Wachovia, North Carolina, struggled to make crucial decision that would forever change their history. Because of their growing need for labor, some of Brethren, as they were known, wanted to buy an African slave named Sam, but others worried that slavery would undermine their Christian communal ethic. Torn between their desire for economic success and their fear of religious decline, Moravians eventually relied on their standard method of determining God's will: lot. After drawing positive answer, they rejoiced that the Lord himself had given his blessing to slavery in Wachovia (65). By 1802, they owned 73 slaves, and by 1830, they owned 350 (117, 273). In this book, Jon F. Sensbach tells tragic story of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Moravians and Africans whom they enslaved. In beginning, according to Sensbach, Moravians treated their slaves relatively well, especially those who converted to Christian faith. For example, when Sam, their very first slave, joined Moravians' fellowship, they addressed him as Brother, seated him in same section with white men, and allowed him to participate in such intimate rituals as kiss of peace. Outside of church, they allowed him and other slaves to supervise white labor. Shaped by hierarchical world of eighteenth-century America, they never questioned justice of his enslavement, but they clearly recognized his humanity. Despite his race, they saw him as true Christian who deserved to be treated with dignity and respect. As Sensbach argues, however, this relatively egalitarian world collapsed in decades after Revolutionary War. Ironically, many Afro-Moravians hoped Revolution would lead to their liberation, but instead, they found their freedoms increasingly curtailed as white Americans defined limits as well as benefits of citizenship. According to Thomas Jefferson and other prominent leaders, republican ideology applied only to white men, not to ignorant slaves (185). Even more painfully, Afro-Moravians were also increasingly marginalized by their own religious community. As Sensbach argues, Moravians who came of age in early 1800s were so enthralled by their economic success that they forgot their parents' stern religious commitments. Unfortunately old ethic of fraternalism was undercut by rising individualism (188), an emerging capitalist order (191), and a growing secularization of Moravian society (252). In shocking reversal of their earlier history, nineteenth-century Moravians forced their black brothers and sisters to sit in segregated pews, refused to greet them with intimate kiss of peace, and even buried them in graveyards. Rather than admitting them into their own congregations, they eventually created black church for them-a church they actively tried to control. In this separate canaan, Afro-Moravians rejected racism of white Christianity, forging new, collective identity that set them apart from their white masters (270). Since there have been very few studies of either German immigrants or Moravians, many American historians will welcome this book. Built on rich documentary evidence, including ministers' diaries, church records, and personal memoirs, it offers fascinating glimpse of eighteenth- as well as nineteenth-century slavery. Few other books offer such comprehensive narrative of how slavery changed in hundred years before Civil War. Unfortunately, however, Sensbach does not always use his evidence as creatively as one might wish. …