Missions in Jamaica before Emancipation: A Comment on "Moravian Missionaries and Slaves inthe West Indies" [with Reply]Author(s): Mary Reckord and Oliver W. FurleySource: Caribbean Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Apr., 1968), pp. 69-74Published by: Institute of Caribbean Studies, UPR, Rio Piedras CampusStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25612052 .

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IV- COMMENTS

MISSIONS IN JAMAICA BEFORE EMANCIPATION

A Comment on "Moravian Missionaries and Slaves in the West Indies"

In his article, "Moravian Missionaries and Slaves in the West Indies" (Caribbean

Studies, Vol. V, No. 2, July 1965) Mr. Oliver W. Furley claims that the Moravian mission

aries "contributed probably more in the way of sensible preparation for emancipation than any other of the numerous mission societies in the field." But comparison of the

Moravian contribution (to the slaves) in Jamaica, the largest single unit in the British

West Indies with the work of the other missions there, does not substantiate this claim.

Missionaries were sent out to Jamaica in significant numbers after 1815. Before

that date the Moravians, working at the request of absentee planters maintained three

stations, and the Wesleyans maintained two. Between 1815 and 1834 the Moravians

developed eight and the Wesleyans fourteen missions in all. The Baptist mission,

starting work in 1814, established sixteen and the Presbyterians, comparative late comers in 1824, five.

The slave generation which lived to enjoy freedom, therefore, was less exposed to

the influence of Moravian than of Wesleyan and Baptist missionaries: they had only half the number of missions maintained by the Baptists, and at the time of emanci

pation their membership was only a quarter the Baptist and Wesleyan enrollment.1

The Wesleyans and Baptists influenced more slaves: was the preparation they afforded them in any way less "sensible" than the Moravian variety? The term sensible is not defined, but the article attributes the Moravians with three major contributions: that they started a school system, that they encouraged marriage and that they stamped out African superstition and customary revelries among the slaves. They were doing their best to "educate their slave converts into a fully fledged Christian community

with the typical tenets and institutions of a modern Christian community anywhere, indirectly presenting a forceful argument for emancipation." 2 All the missions made contributions along these lines. In the field of education the Moravians, like the

Presbyterians, enjoyed particular advantages. While Baptist and Wesleyan schools suffered recurrent financial difficulties, being inadequately supported by their home societies, the Moravians and Presbyterians could rely on their planter patrons. Patrons provided, or subsidised school houses and teachers salaries and, equally important,

1 Moravian membership, 2,500; Baptist membership, 11,000; Wesleyan member ship, 12,000. See Periodical Accounts, Vol. XIII, p. 283; Baptist Missionary Society, Annual Report, 1831, p. 18; Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Society, Annual Report, 1834, p. xx. The point is made that the Moravians dealt "almost exclusively" with the slave population, but this is, of course, equally true of the other denominations.

All the missionaries went to Jamaica for the purpose of working among the slaves In the Wesleyan churches at Port Royal and Spanish Town free members out-numbered slave members, but these churches were exceptional. Most country stations had some free coloured members and the Moravians dealt with the free coloured settlers character istic of the Paratee Bay area.

2 "Moravian Missionaries and Slaves in the West Indies," Caribbean Studies, Vol. V, No. 2, July 1965, 11-12.

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70 IV. COMMENTS

allowed their estate children time in which to attend. On this basis, the Moravians, with the assistance of free coloured teachers, were able to run seven estate day schools

serving 60 to 100 pupils each. The Presbyterians, with five missionaries in the island,

ran two schools on a similar scale and numerous smaller ones. 3

It is worth pointing out, however, that Moravians in Jarpaica had to be prompted

into action by their Mission Board. In Antigua, where missionaries of all denomi

nations enjoyed planter patronage, the Moravians had schools attached to most

stations. But in Jamaica the planters tended to feel that "education schemes would

revolutionize the country," 4 and their prejudice was first challenged not by their friends

the Moravians, but by the Baptists who opened a public day school in Kingston in 1822. The Moravian Mission Board had to appoint a mission superientendent from Antigua,

John Ellis, to stir the Jamaican brethren into action.

The Moravians' close relationship with the planters also permitted them, as the

article points out, to institute their own form of marriage among the slaves and avoid

the legal and practical difficulties confronting the Baptists and Wesleyans; their right to perform marriages was not fully and unequivocally established until the Marriage

Ac* of 1836. Also, there was a widespread opinion among the slave owners, not shared

by the Imperial Government, but incorporated in the Jamaica Assembly's 1826 Slave

Code, that the permission of the owners was necessary before slave marriages could

be performed. It is possible, therefore, that the Moravians, working with planter

cooperation married a higher proportion of their converts than the Baptists and Wes

leyans did, though it cannot be certain that this was the case. There is some evidence

to suggest that the missions' greatest obstacle in making slave marriages was the

hostility and suspicion of the slaves themselves. In a system where the slaves' only

claim to privileges was by virtue of long established custom they could hardly feel

confident that a new practice would be respected by their masters. The missionaries

themselves could give no real answer to the question of what happens to the marriage

if the parties are separated by their masters? The Moravians advised remarriage

especially if children were involved, a practical solution though not one that emphasized

the sanctity of the institution. The Wesleyans, more fatalistically, advised submitting

to God's will and facing the duties of the day. Again, the Moravians' close association

with the planters might help give their converts more confidence that their contracts

would not be interfered with. But there were other bases for slave hostility. Mono

gamous marriage cut across both the current practice, an informal sort of polygamy and

the sense of what was customary and right in a particularly personal area of conduct.

Missionaries recorded that even couples who had gone through the marriage ceremony

needed instruction on how to organize their households in the Christian manner

afterwards, had to be directly instructed to live in one house and share one bed and

to keep their property in common. One Wesleyan missionary found that the property

question was a particular deterrent to industrious wives. In a dramatic presentation

of the problem, the woman character protests,

3 Periodical Accounts, Vol. XIII Report of Schools in Jamaica, March 1834, 71-2

Scottish Missionary Society and Philanthropic Register, June 1831, p.245. The missions

served approximately 1,300 children in all of whom some 900 were slaves. The Wesl

eyans had 59 slave pupils in their Kingston school, the Baptists approximately 140 in

Kingston and 60 in Spanish Town. % . 4 J. M. Phillipo, Rough Sketch for my Autobiography, Baptist Missionary Society

Archives, Mss. p. 94.

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CARIBBEAN STUDIES / VOL. 8, NO. 1 71

"Me raise plenty stock and take em to market ?me make

cassava bread ?me work sometime till second cock crow."

Was the prospective husband really worthy of sharing the fruits of her efforts,

"He run about too much, too much... he no caree for me, nor for the pickanees not so much as so (showing her

finger)." 5

It is interesting that while all the missionaries thought that the price of salvation was either marriage or chastity, and while neither condition represented the slaves'

current mores, no society made marriage of eligible members a qualification for mem

bership, or even for advance to communicant status.

Instituting marriage among the slaves was a vital part of creating "fully fledged Christian communities" among them; equally important was the battle against the slaves'

own religious traditions and against the drumming and dancing and drinking so

intimately connected with traditional religion and with all forms of ceremonies and

celebrations among the slaves. The Moravians, it is claimed, on the authority of their

missionary historian J. H. Buchner virtually extirpated drunken dancing and revelry in

the vicinity of the missions. Since church goers formed only a small proportion of the

population in the vicinity of any Jamaican mission it is difficult to see how this can have been the case. Mission teaching did make significant differences in the lives of

slave members. In the slave village, as in the English mining towns, the Christian ethic

scored some social successes.

"The hovel became a house ... instead of the rum bottle some neat article of clothing or useful appendage to the

family came from town ... a most harmonious and interesting association of religion and refinement soon displayed itself

alike in their persons, their habits and morals ... 6."

Victories of this sort were shared among the missions, but none of their victories eliminated the conflict between Christian teaching and indigenous tradition. The conflict came to a climax every Christmas when missionaries urged their congregations to keep away from the rowdy, heathenish dances and maintain their Christian dignity. But the three-day Chrissmas holiday was a testing time even for settled congregations and while Christian slave children sang carols on one estate the drums were busy

nearby luring members back to their old ways. A "thoroughly European type of

Christmas was substituted," as the article claims, for members who chose to attend:

but every missionary had to be prepared for backsliders.

The missions' battle against traditional African religion and the use of obeah was

equally inconclusive: obeah and myalism flourished long after emancipation. There is no evidence to suggest the Moravians were any better at combating this tradition than

any other sect, but plenty of evidence to show that they were running into African

5 Methodist Missionary Society Archives, Box West Indies B. 1. A Series of tracts for Slaves in the West Indies, Pts. 1-4, Pt. 2.

6 A statement of the Plans, Objects and Effects of the Wesleyan Mission to the West Indies, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Committee (1824) 34.

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72 IV. COMMENTS

:eligious practices on the eve of emancipation. One of them reported, for instance,

that the slaves he taught on one plantation were preparing a "superstitious rite" for the

restless spirit of a boy who had been drowned, a great feast had been provided and

an obeah man employed to put the spirit to rest. 7

The Moravians, therefore, contributed together with the other mission sects to the

creation of "Christian communities" among the slaves: they were able to offer more

slave children education than any other sects: it is possible they persuaded a higher

proportion of members to marry, it is certain they made no more headway against

traditional religion, or traditional drumming and dancing than any other sect and since

they exerted influence over smaller numbers of slaves the impact was, in fact, propor

tionately less. There is a sense in which these activities can be regarded as as preparation

for freedom. By teaching slaves to read the missions helped to spread political

knowledge among them, gave them access to newspaper accounts of the anti-slavery

campaign in England. And the whole tenor of mission work, serving the slaves in a

society geared to exploit them? tended implicitly to bring the slave system to question.

Beyond this the Moravians made no contribution whatever to the slaves' political edu

cation. They never themselves, as the article makes clear, brought the slave system

to question. They apparently prepared the slaves for a change in their political status

by ignoring the possibility of such a change. Such political guidance as the slaves

enjoyed derived entirely from the Baptists and the Wesleyans.

None of the missions in Jamaica, of course, wished to work, or could have worked

overtly against the status quo: all the missions stressed obedience and anticipated that

a proper knowledge of Christianity led

"...to the due discharge of the duties of the lower classes and

the total destruction of discontent and insubordination." 8

But the relationship in which they worked with the ruling class vitally affected their political role in the society. The Moravians working on the estates, or in con

sistent partnership with a group of resident planters were indentified with the white

plantocracy. They projected, at best, an image of white paternalism. The Wesleyans

and Baptists, in contrast, arrived in the island at their own discretion, rather than by

planter invitation, and expected to build up their missions as they had built up their

churches in England, by buying land, setting up a building and holding themselves to some extent independent of the planters. In fact, their legal position in the island

was so much open to question that until 1828 they could only work by the grace of the

local magistrates who issued their preaching licences. This insecurity of tenure meant

that the Wesleyans and Baptists lived in recurrent fear of losing their friends among

the ruling class and therefore had to spend time and energy seeking favours in a way

the Moravians were spared. On the other hand recurrent struggles with the magistrates,

particularly in the case of the Wesleyans who applied their itinerant system to the

mission field and were for many years forced to obtain a license for each parish in the

island, made it clear that these missionaries were not simply an adjunct of the white

ruling class. They were also subject to petty persecutions: their services interrupted

7 Periodical Accounts, Vol. XII, p.363. Diary of New Fulnec, July, 28, 1831. 8 Methodist Missionary Society archives, Letter from Rev. G. Johnstone to Rev.

Ratcliffe, April 9, 1818.

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CARIBBEAN STUDIES / VOL. 8, NO. 1 73

by overseers out on a spree; their congregations intimidated by constables sent to check

that services were over by sunset. More outrageous incidents included an attack one

Christmas on the Wesleyan mission at St. Ann's Bay, and the imprisonment there on dif

ferent occasions of three Wesleyan missionaries charged with illegal preaching. The

missionaries considered themselves as suffering for the Gospel's sake, but in the context

of slavery their sufferings also constituted a protest against a system which barely tolerated religious instruction for the slaves.

These incidental protests became deliberate in the last years before emancipation when the Wesleyan mission successfully challenged in the island courts the right of the magistrates to prevent them from preaching and followed up this victory by invoking,

together with the Baptists, the authority of the Imperial Government to protect the

religious rights of the slaves. In two instances where slaves were subjected to unjust

plunishment because of their religion (one was sent to the workhouse for attending a

Wesleyan chapel and there repeatedly flogged until his life was in danger, another was

sentenced in court to flogging and imprisonment for an offence which, even if proven, merited only one of these punishments) the missionaries closest to the case sent details

to their Societies in England. The Colonial Office was informed, the Governor asked

to investigate. As a result the judge in the court case, who happened also to be the

chief magistrate of the parish and Speaker of the House of Assembly, was erased from

the roll of magistrates. The accused in the other case escaped the same sentence only

because overtaken by death, a fate the missionaries, no doubt, considered providential. 9

These actions demonstrated that the Baptist and Wesleyan missionaries were not

content to work within the slave system. They came to recognize, partly through

experience and partly under the influence of the humanitarian campaign in England that slavery hindered the progress of Christian teaching. As one of them told the

home society:

"We have witnessed too many of its cruelties, its degradations and the obstruction which it rears to the spread of the Gospel not

to pray for its speedy termination.

The significance of these actions did not escape the slaves. When the Baptist mis

sionary Thomas Burchell went to England in May 1831 it was widely anticipated among his converts that he would return with the emancipation proclamation,10 and in Decem

ber 1831 a slave protest movement, part strike, part rebellion, organized by Baptist

converts, promoted by Biblical texts and looking to the missions for support conclusively demonstrated the role the missions had played in the political education of the slaves.

The rebellion propelled the Baptists and Wesleyans into advocating emancipation. The planters forced the closing of their missions and delegates sent to England to

protest the situation were caught up in the final stages of the emancipation campaign. There they testified before the Committees of Lords and Commons their confidence in

the Negro population of the island, their belief that emancipation presented more

problems in theory than would ever be found in practice, while as the article describes

9 Communications relative to the reported maltreatment of a slave named Henry Williams in Jamaica, P.P.H.of C, 1830-31, Vol. XVI, no. 91. Communications relat

ing to the trial of Sam Swiney for certain alleged offences relating to religious worship, P.P.H.of C, 1831-32, Vol. XLVII, no. 480.

10 Report from the House of Assembly on the Rebellion, p. 188, evidence of H.R.

Wallace, P.P.H.of C, 1831-32, Vol. XLVII, no. 561. H. Bleby, Death Struggles of Slavery (London, 1853), 2-3.

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74 IV. COMMENTS

the Moravian brethren at Fairfield weighed freedom in terms of the extra ?30 a year it would cost.

The Moravian contribution to the slaves in Jamaica was, therefore, quite outclassed

by the Wesleyans and the Baptists. Not only do the achievements of these denomi

nations as "creators of Christian communities" bear comparison with the Moravians',

but by contributing more directly to the slaves' political awareness they were preparing for freedom in the most vital way possible.

MARY RECKORD University of Alberta

A REPLY

Dr. Reckord contributes an interesting survey of missionary activities in Jamaica

before emancipation, which really stands as an article by itself, and with which I find

little to disagree. Insofar as she comments on my article, I think she overlooks the

fact that I was concerned with Moravian missionaries in all the West Indian islands,

not just Jamaica. It would be impossible to maintain that in Jamaica the Moravian

missionaries had a preponderance of influence, and I would not wish to do so, for their

followers were only a small minority among Christian converts. In some of the other is

lands, however they had a much more important place, especially in Antigua, where

nearly half the slave population at the time of emancipation were Moravian followers.

In any case, in saying that the Moravian missionaries contributed probably more in

the way of sensible preparation for emancipation than any other of the numerous mis

sionary societies in the field? I was making a qualitative, rather than a quantitative

judgement, with reference to their own converts irrespective of their numbers. They

did establish a widespread educational system (though their schools may not have

been the first in every island); they did attempt to change slave society into one which

they hoped would adopt the institutions of free society in the islands such as Christian

marriage and "European" rather than "African" forms of celebration and entertainment.

Whether this was a "sensible" preparation may perhaps be open to doubt, but at

least in the eyes of contemporaries it was successful, as evidenced by the special favour

with which Moravian slaves were treated at the time of emancipation on some of the

islands, which I refer to on the last page of my article.

I think missionaries in general did in fact fail when emancipation was clearly coming

in not giving really suitable training for freedom to their followers, and as I pointed out in my article, "the training in citizenship, trades, skills and agriculture which could

have transformed the future peasantry was missing." One has only to compare the

training given by missionaries to freed slaves in East and Central Africa to see this.

The Moravians gave training in citizenship only in the sense that they taught the virtues

of obedience to the civil authorities. This did in fact contribute to the coming of

emancipation in that it demonstrated to the world that the West Indian Negro could be

a reliable and peaceable citizen ? one of the forecasts which the planters vigorously

tried to deny. The activities of Baptist missionaries such as Knibb and Burchell in

Jamaica, joining in the emancipation campaign in its last stages, and travelling all over

the island explaining the implications of emancipation to the slaves when it came, are I

agree of an entirely different order. OLIVER W. FURLEY

University of Edinburgh

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