Online Document Assignment 17

Rebecca Protten

The Souls of Slaves

Rebecca Protten’s story focuses our attention on the complex and contested relationship between slavery, race, and religion in the eighteenth century. As modern observers, we find aspects of her life confusing and seemingly contradictory. How could a former slave own slaves? How could a person who devoted her life to saving the souls of slaves fail to work for their emancipation?

We will never know how Protten herself would have responded to our confusion. We can begin, however, to understand something of the world in which she lived and the choices she made by examining eighteenth-century commentary on the Moravian mission that played such a pivotal role in her life. For eighteenth-century observers, the efforts of Moravian missionaries to convert slaves to Christianity raised a number of related issues. Could African slaves be successfully Christianized? Should they be? How might their conversion affect their status as slaves—in the eyes of both society at large and the slaves themselves? As you read these documents relating to the mission, consider how each author addressed these questions. What connections did they make between race, slavery, and religion?

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