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Rebecca Protten

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Rebecca Protten (1718-1780) was born a slave and was freed was freed as an adolescent. As a freed woman of mixed European and African descent, who, lived on the island of St. Thomas during the 1730s, became part of the movement to convert African slaves to Christianity.

Sources are unclear as to the location or circumstances of Rebecca’s birth, but some note that she was originally kidnapped from Antigua.[1] She was then sold to a planter on St. Thomas named Lucas van Beverhout, who put her to work in his house as a servant and taught her the Christianity of the Reformed Church. Shortly after the death of Lucas van Beverhout when she was twelve, the Beverhout family freed Rebecca. When missionaries from the Unity of the Brethren, often called the Moravian Brethren, arrived on St. Thomas in 1732, as part of the Church’s mission to convert the nations of the world to Christianity, Rebecca was a leader in converting African slaves, which was constantly challenged by planters fearful of a united slave revolt.[2] However, in 1742, after only six years, Rebecca left St. Thomas with several Moravian missionaries, traveling to their home in Herrnhut, Saxony. There, she met and married Christian Protten in 1746, who was similarly noted for his mixed African descent. Protten, pursuing his life dream, journeyed to Christiansborg, a Danish fort on the Gold Coast, in an attempt to start a school but failed, returning six years later in 1762 to Herrnhut—the town founded by the first Moravian exiles and the headquarters of the movement, in which many of the Brethren lived.[1] Protten and Rebecca returned together to Christiansborg in 1763, where they spent the rest of their lives teaching African school children. Rebecca Protten died in 1780.[1]

Religion played a central role in Protten’s post-slavery life. Even though she was freed, opportunities were still very limited for her on St. Thomas. When missionaries from the Moravian sect of Christianity landed in the island, a new opportunity was opened for her.[3] Unlike many other sects of Christianity, women were very important to the fabric of the church. This allowed for Protten to have opportunities to particptae in the church on almost an equal basis with men.[4] The belief that men and women were spiritually equal in the eyes of God paved the path for Protten to become among the first ordained African American women in Western Christianity, as she was named a deaconess a few weeks after her wedding.[5]

Biographies

The life of Rebecca Protten was looked at first extensively by Christian Oldendorp, a Moravian missionary who admired Rebecca's evangelical work, which he noted in History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John.[6] More recently, historian Jon F. Sensbach wrote a biography on Rebecca Protten, called Rebecca's Revival. Sensbach focused on how Protten became the leader of the African Christianity movement.[7] Rebekka Freundlich Protten also received mention in Time Longa' Dan Twine written in 2009 by Arnold R. Highfield.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Highfield, Arnold. Time Longa' Dan Twine, 2009, Antilles Press, USVI, ISBN 978-0-916611-23-1
  2. ^ Hempton, David (2011). The Church in the Long Eighteenth Century. New York: I.B.Tauris & Co. p. 84.
  3. ^ Sensbach, Jon. F (2005). Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 45.
  4. ^ Sensbach, Jon. F (2005). Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 47.
  5. ^ Hempton, David (2011). The Church in the Long Eighteenth Century. New York: I.B Tauris & Co. p. 85.
  6. ^ Arends, J (2004). "Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp, 'Historie de caribischen Inseln Sanct Thomas, Sanct Crux and Sanct Jan, insbesondere der dasigen Neger and der Mission der evangelischen Bruder unter denselben', part 1". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Langauges. 19 1: 171–176 – via EBSCOhost.
  7. ^ Sensbach, Jon F. (2005). Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 3.
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