PDF Mastering Christianity Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World Travis Glasson Books
Download As PDF : Mastering Christianity Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World Travis Glasson Books
Beginning in 1701, missionary-minded Anglicans launched one of the earliest and most sustained efforts to Christianize the enslaved people of Britain's colonies. Hundreds of clergy traveled to widely-dispersed posts in North America, the Caribbean, and West Africa under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) and undertook this work. Based on a belief in the essential unity of humankind, the Society's missionaries advocated for the conversion and better treatment of enslaved people. Yet, only a minority of enslaved people embraced Anglicanism, while a majority rejected it. Mastering Christianity closely explores these missionary encounters.
The Society hoped to make slavery less cruel and more paternalistic but it came to stress the ideas that chattel slavery and Christianity were entirely compatible and could even be mutually beneficial. While important early figures saw slavery as troubling, over time the Society accommodated its message to slaveholders, advocated for laws that tightened colonial slave codes, and embraced slavery as a missionary tool. The SPG owned hundreds of enslaved people on its Codrington plantation in Barbados, where it hoped to simultaneously make profits and save souls. In Africa, the Society cooperated with English slave traders in establishing a mission at Cape Coast Castle, at the heart of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The SPG helped lay the foundation for black Protestantism but pessimism about the project grew internally and black people's frequent skepticism about Anglicanism was construed as evidence of the inherent inferiority of African people and their American descendants. Through its texts and practices, the SPG provided important intellectual, political, and moral support for slaveholding around the British empire. The rise of antislavery sentiment challenged the principles that had long underpinned missionary Anglicanism's program, however, abolitionists viewed the SPG as a significant institutional opponent to their agenda.
In this work, Travis Glasson provides a unique perspective on the development and entrenchment of a pro-slavery ideology by showing how English religious thinking furthered the development of slavery and supported the institution around the Atlantic world.
PDF Mastering Christianity Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World Travis Glasson Books
"Travis Glasson has produced a work that is scholarly and fair. Naturally the connection between Christianity and slavery is a sensitive social subject and should be handled with great care. Glasson does an excellent job of writing as a dispassionate historian (as much as this is possible to do) and allows the various individuals of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) to speak for themselves. Glasson does well to demonstrate that the SPG was always committed to the evangelization of Native Americans and African-American slaves. However, the Society's commitments to a close Church-State relationship in the British Empire, the status quo of the English social order, and to slavery itself created difficulties for its evangelistic goals. In some cases, the SPG actually strengthened the institution of slavery through advocating the idea that Christian baptism did not result in a change in a slave's social situation (i.e., emancipation). Many members of the SPG defended slavery, and the society owned Codrington, a slave plantation in Barbados. Though the society was a slave owning institution itself, it did appeal to slave owners to treat their slaves humanely and to teach them Christianity. However, these efforts were, by and large, unsatisfactory in their execution. Glasson also shows that there were members of the society who were committed to the abolition cause, but they were a minority. Sadly, the SPG did not free its slaves until it was forced to by government legislation.
Mastering Christianity is well-researched and well-written. Glasson avoids presenting the reader with his own opinion of the rightness or wrongness of the people he treats. He simply records what they said. The potential reader should recognize that this book is an academic rather than popular treatment of the subject and reads as such (I do not say this as a negative but to let the potential buyer know what they are getting). Good book. Worth the read."
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Mastering Christianity Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World Travis Glasson Books Reviews :
Mastering Christianity Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World Travis Glasson Books Reviews
- Travis Glasson has produced a work that is scholarly and fair. Naturally the connection between Christianity and slavery is a sensitive social subject and should be handled with great care. Glasson does an excellent job of writing as a dispassionate historian (as much as this is possible to do) and allows the various individuals of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) to speak for themselves. Glasson does well to demonstrate that the SPG was always committed to the evangelization of Native Americans and African-American slaves. However, the Society's commitments to a close Church-State relationship in the British Empire, the status quo of the English social order, and to slavery itself created difficulties for its evangelistic goals. In some cases, the SPG actually strengthened the institution of slavery through advocating the idea that Christian baptism did not result in a change in a slave's social situation (i.e., emancipation). Many members of the SPG defended slavery, and the society owned Codrington, a slave plantation in Barbados. Though the society was a slave owning institution itself, it did appeal to slave owners to treat their slaves humanely and to teach them Christianity. However, these efforts were, by and large, unsatisfactory in their execution. Glasson also shows that there were members of the society who were committed to the abolition cause, but they were a minority. Sadly, the SPG did not free its slaves until it was forced to by government legislation.
Mastering Christianity is well-researched and well-written. Glasson avoids presenting the reader with his own opinion of the rightness or wrongness of the people he treats. He simply records what they said. The potential reader should recognize that this book is an academic rather than popular treatment of the subject and reads as such (I do not say this as a negative but to let the potential buyer know what they are getting). Good book. Worth the read. - New helpful details on the ministry of The Rev'd Philip Quaque
