Moravian Missionaries, Gender and Race in the 18th Century Caribbean

FAIN: FT-290913-23

Kelly Kaelin
University of Southern Indiana (Evansville, IN 47719-0227)

Writing a book on women’s participation in the 18th-century Moravian churches of the Caribbean. 

This project examines women missionaries from the American-German Moravian Church and their efforts to convert enslaved Black women in Danish and British Caribbean colonies throughout the 18th Century. I argue that Moravian theology created a space for sex-segregated ministry, in which American and European women proselytized to enslaved Black women in feminized spaces such as sickbeds and birthing chambers. Through my analysis of baptismal records and letters written by enslaved converts, I found that these island congregations were majority female, leading to a new understanding of the beginnings of Black Christianity. This project has important bearing on our understanding of Black Christianity in North America and the place of Black women within the hierarchy of these congregations both before and after Emancipation.