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The remarkable story of Rebecca Protten, a Caribbean slave who helped inspire the rise of black Christianity in the Atlantic world, is revealed in this account of her evangelical efforts on three continents.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Prologue
• 1 A Baptism of Blood
• 2 Rebirth and Remembrance
• 3 A Priestly Woman
• 4 The Path
• 5 Witness
• 6 The Devil's Bargain
• 7 A Pilgrim in Europe
• 8 Christiansborg
• Epilogue: Rebecca's Shadow
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Sources
• Acknowledgments
• Index

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Publishers Weekly Review

Sensbach, a professor of history at the University of Florida, offers a fascinating study of a woman and a religious revival in the 18th century. His heroine is Rebecca Protten, a freed slave living and working in the Dutch colony of St. Thomas. Born around 1718, Rebecca was freed by her master, for reasons the historical sources do not reveal, sometime after 1730. Always religiously inclined, her commitment to Moravian Christianity blossomed under the tutelage of Friedrich Martin, a German missionary who came to St. Thomas in 1736. Within two years, Rebecca's piety and religious education had impressed Martin so much that he commissioned her as a fellow evangelist. Sensbach chronicles Rebecca's remarkable life, which included two marriages (one interracial), a grueling arrest and lots of travel, including to Europe and Africa. During an age when thousands of Africans were transported as slaves to the Americas, Sensbach notes that Rebecca "lived as a kind of reverse cultural bridge." Scholars will appreciate Sensbach's ability to successfully translate what is often understood as an "American" story into the whole Atlantic world. This book is a rare gem, reminiscent of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale; Sensbach's detective work in piecing together spare Dutch and German sources to recreate Rebecca's life is astonishing. His prose is fluid and graceful, his mind is sharp and the story he tells is riveting. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

In discussing this especially important book in a short review, one can either focus on the biographical aspect of the book, including the subject's difficulties with the planters of St. Thomas, or on the development of Afro-Christianity. This reviewer has chosen the latter. Sensbach (Univ. of Florida) explores the role of Africans, women in particular, in the development of evangelical Protestantism in the Danish West Indies and its diffusion to Europe and Africa. The focus is Rebecca Protten, a slave who converted to Christianity and was crucial to the development of black Christianity in St. Thomas. Approving interracial marriage as an aspect of universal brotherhood, the Moravians preached spiritual equality, not freedom from slavery. Although critical of African religion and culture, the missionaries adopted aspects of that culture, including the emphasis on kinship and mentorship. Whether this resulted in a creolized African Christianity as in Jamaica and elsewhere is not clear. Well written and superbly researched, this is a valuable contribution to the literature on the transformation of Protestant Christianity in the Americas: Albert J. Roboteau's Slave Religion (1978); Shirley C. Gordon's God Almighty, Make Me Free (1996); and Sylvia R. Frey and Betty Wood's Come Shouting to Zion (CH, Jul'98, 35-6174). ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. A. A. Sio emeritus, Colgate University

Booklist Review

Historian Sensbach has painstakingly cobbled together an insightful biography of the extraordinary former slave credited with sparking a mass conversion to Christianity among slaves and former slaves in the Atlantic world during the eighteenth century. Born in the West Indies in 1718 and profoundly inspired by a personal childhood conversion experience, Rebecca Proten secured her freedom, joined a group of Moravian missionaries, and embarked on an astonishing journey, traveling across three continents to spread her evangelical message. The remarkable success of her mission throughout a broad spectrum of slave populations had a profound influence on the cultural, social, and religious evolution of the African American community. Although primarily undocumented, the evolution of black Christianity during Rebecca's lifetime provides an indispensable key to understanding the complex history of the African American experience. --Margaret Flanagan Copyright 2005 Booklist