Sensbach Review (unedited)

Sensbach, Jon F. Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. New Ed. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006.

In Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World, Jon F. Sensbach traces the life and work of a free mulatto woman named Rebecca from the colonial Caribbean to the Gold Coast of Africa during the eighteenth century. Rebecca’s extraordinary story reflects “the origins of the black church itself” (7), and through the examination of it, Sensbach is able to tell the much broader story of the rise of black Christianity on St. Thomas. He emphasizes the fusion of cultures and religious beliefs that combined to create the social atmosphere in the Caribbean, and which provided the foundation for this new form of Christianity. “Chafing cultures gave off the spark of something new, melded and fused, picked up new cadences, then spun off into something different again” (5). Rebecca’s story also highlights the role of women in the colonial Caribbean, especially in regards to their place in society and religion. Sensbach shows how Rebecca was a product of her environment as well as a great mover and shaker, “[challenging] the strictures of race, religion and gender” (7). As “the first black woman ordained in western Christianity” (7), Rebecca paved the way for many more by using the social avenues available to her. By telling Rebecca’s story, Sensbach aims to relate the story of St. Thomas, and the rise of black Christianity in the American colonial community, claiming that it grew out of the events on St. Thomas.
Sensbach uses a number of manuscripts from Denmark, Germany, the United States, and the U.S. Virgin Islands including several church registers, diaries, letters and colonial documents. He questions the authorship of many of the letters, and it seems that quite a few of them were written in another’s name. In these cases, the content of the letter was meant to reflect how that person was supposed to feel, and not necessarily how they actually felt. Other letters were rewritten versions of Rebecca’s real letters: “someone must have thought her letter needed more polishing and elaboration if it was to be presented, perhaps even read aloud, as suitable testimony of God’s marvelous grace. The second letter is a rewrite of her original, kneading many of her ideas into a smoother flow…properly punctuated and capitalized, and full of florid phrases” (131). His primary sources include Johan Lorentz Carstens’ St. Thomas in Early Danish Times: A General Description of all the Danish, American or West Indian Islands published in the 1740s and Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp’s accounts which he refers to quite frequently throughout this book. Pierre Pannet’s Report on the Execrable Conspiracy Carried Out by the Amina Negroes on the Danish Island of St. Jan in America 1733 and Nikolaus Ludwig von Zizendorf’s Budingische Sammlung (Budingen, 1740-1745) are also firsthand accounts Sensbach regularly cites in this book.
Sensbach opens with an in-depth description of the slave revolt on St. John, explaining the violent relationship between the planters and the slaves. Here, as in all plantation communities, slaves greatly outnumbered their masters. “To control this captive population, planters staged an elaborate choreography of terror” (10) involving severe punishments for all transgressions, such as amputation and whipping. In their revolt, the slaves retaliated in kind “killing white men, women, and children” (11). In this chapter, Sensbach also discusses the dynamic relationships between the slaves themselves. Despite their shared fate, the different tribes and peoples still retained a strong sense of identity, and in many cases, these cultural differences kept them apart. “The insurgents belonged to the Akwamu kingdom…whose shared culture enabled them to organize such an ambitious uprising” (16). Apparently, this particular uprising was exclusively Akwamu, a small minority of people known as the Aminas, who “operated out of old antagonisms and the desire to rule their former African subjects again” (20). These “old antagonisms” caused the revolt to ultimately fail. Without the aid of their fellow slaves, the rebels were unable to retain control over the island once the French came to the Danes’ aid. Most resorted to suicide rather than wait to be caught and face the horrific death that awaited them at the hands of the white planters. Through the story of the revolt, Sensbach sets up the historical backdrop for Rebecca and black Christianity, and reveals the complex system of relationships between very diverse peoples. Out of this tumultuous event came Rebecca, and her part in spreading Christianity to the free and enslaved black people of St. Thomas.
In the next chapter, Sensbach compares the lifestyles of slaves and their white Creole masters. While their slaves worked all day, many of the planters lived very decadent lives. This disparity was perfectly acceptable due to the belief that whites were inherently superior to blacks. It was this type of thinking that Rebecca confronted throughout her life, especially as a person of mixed race. She came from Antigua as a slave at the age of “six or seven” (29), and was bought by the van Beverhout family to work in their household. The van Beverhouts apparently grew to like her very much because they allowed her to learn to read and write. “This evident closeness with the van Beverhouts, and the skills in literacy it brought, resulted in two important changes during [her] childhood and early adolescence: she became interested in Christianity and she gained her freedom” (36-37). This was only the beginning for Rebecca. “She had a knack for gaining every advantage her position afforded – her master’s patronage, literacy, freedom, managerial status, higher social standing” (43). This success, elevation in status, and “unfulfilled spiritual yearning” (43) put her in the perfect position for the arrival of Friedrich Martin and the teachings of the Moravian Church. Martin and his associates came to St. Thomas for the explicit purpose “to preach among indigenous and enslaved people” (50). After several meetings, it quickly became apparent to Martin that “Rebecca’s demeanor and devotion…made her an ideal spokesperson for Christ” (46). She gradually became one of the prominent figures at Bible class, in “charge of the entire female half of the movement” (77), teaching slaves how to read and about Christianity.
While discussing Rebecca’s deeds, Sensbach continues to keep the historical and social contexts in view, showing how those influences shaped her life and those around her. For example, “the Bible classes…became searching discussions about slavery, violence, resistance, and the role of religion in helping people make sense of conflicting pressures” (57). When the slaves learned to read and began to read the Bible, it became very difficult for them to reconcile the Bibles’ teachings with their masters’ hypocrisy and their own misfortune. However, according to Sensbach’s interpretation, Rebecca seems to have had little need to reconcile her misfortunes. Instead, it seems as though she drew strength from her faith, especially while imprisoned with her husband. She also suffered the deaths of her first and second husbands, and her two daughters. There were the restrictions she chose for her life, such as the very austere rules of the Moravian sect especially in regards to sexuality. Rebecca embraced these restrictions as pious duties while she simply had to accept the imposed social strictures.
Rebecca was first married to one of the Brethren and a fellow missionary of herself and Martin, Matthaus Freundlich. During a legal investigation of Martin’s legitimacy as an official minister, Rebecca and Matthaus, who were married by Martin were then convicted of fornication. Martin and the Freundlichs spent several months in jail because it was against their religious beliefs to swear, and for Rebecca and Matthaus to be remarried would prove Martin was indeed a charlatan. Their time spent in prison, however, only reinforced their faith and sense of martyrdom for the Christian cause. Soon after their release, the Freundlichs decided to move to the Moravian settlement in Herrnhut, Germany where Rebecca was ordained. After the deaths of Matthaus and their daughter, Anna Maria, Rebecca was eventually encouraged to remarry by her congregation. In 1746, Rebecca was married to Christian Protten, a mulatto man and “Rebecca’s counterpart in every way” (184). They too had a child named Anna Maria, but she also did not survive into adolescence. From this point, Christian and Rebecca Protten moved to a mission at Christiansborg in West Africa, where they both stayed for the rest of their lives. Overall, Rebecca spent most of her life dedicated to Christianity, and actively worked to spread the Word throughout the world. It would appear that she was most successful in the Caribbean, but she continued her self-appointed mission in lands very foreign to her. Despite the many obstacles and tragedies in her life, she still accomplished much for Christianity, blacks and women in a world that did not cater to them.
In conclusion, Sensbach offers a well-researched biography of a very influential woman. He places her life within the broad context of colonial society and the spread of Christianity to demonstrate how amazing her accomplishments were in relation to the social constraints that fettered her. While she was still limited by these constraints, she gained the highest rank a free mulatto Creole woman in the eighteenth century possibly could. By stretching “the strictures of race, religion and gender” (7), she acted as a pioneer for blacks and women in New World Christianity. However, he does not discuss white women and their role in colonial society much at all. While he hints at the practice of voodoo in these slave societies, he never actually acknowledges it as such, nor does he put much stock in native African religions. He also only briefly mentions Islam though many slaves were probably practicing Muslims. On the other hand, his focus is centered on Christianity. He also incorporates a plethora of interesting facts and details, most notably on the Moravians’ fascination with Christ’s fatal wounds. Sensbach’s book opens the door for further study of slave’s lives and the interactions between the variety of different peoples that were brought together in the colonial New World. His focus portrays the tiny island of St. Thomas as an incredible melting pot of cultures, and Rebecca’s story depicts how these cultures began to fuse together through the establishment of black Christianity.
Rebecca’s Revival is tied very closely through the topic of slavery to Harm’s The Diligent and Schwartz’s Tropical Babylons. Sensbach’s book, however, is even more transatlantic in that Rebecca herself travels within the Caribbean to Europe to her final resting place in Africa. Ironically, her journey was the reverse of her African ancestors. The slave rebellion on St. John also connects this book with Dubois’ Avengers of the New World on the Haitian Revolution, an uprising which most likely drew inspiration from the St. John revolt. Rebecca’s Revival contributes the female perspective on slavery, religion and colonial life. It also provides a look into the rise of Christianity in the black community, and how they fused it with African beliefs and customs to create a very unique form of Christianity that set black Christians apart from white Christians.
Courtney Robertson
HIST 6337