The Hart Sisters of Antigua: Evangelical Activism and “Respectable” Public Politics in the Era of Black Atlantic Slavery

Elizabeth Hart Thwaites (1772-1833) and Anne Hart Gilbert (1773-1834) enjoyed a rare public presence during the late slavery period in colonial British Antigua. The Harts played a leading role within the small but significant cadre of politically active and economically ascendant free people of color in Antigua. Both Anne and Elizabeth married two of the island's most prominent white Methodist lay leaders. These well-connected, educated women occupied an unusual position in fin-de-siècle Antigua. Most African-descended women, free or slave, engaged in concubinage in intimate partnerships whether with black or white men, and had limited educational and professional opportunities. The proposed paper will investigate the Harts' writings as testaments to Black Atlantic intellectualism and will explore their roles in particular as historians and spiritual thinkers of late slavery Antigua. The Harts were women of their time and as such, their expressions and public work were informed by the constraints of their social positions. Their writings comprise a consciously created and rare archival record of the black experience in Antigua. Their accounts reveal the existence and impact of leadership by African-descended women in Antigua, and the possibilities and contradictions posed by activism among this historically degraded group. And beyond their ameliorative brand of slave advocacy they advance a provocative discourse on race, and also reveal an intimacy with enslaved communities quite distinct from their white Methodist clerical counterparts. Ultimately, the Hart sisters offer a thoughtful intellectual perspective, illuminating the intersections of black spirituality, free colored activism, and racial and gender ideologies during this critical period in Caribbean history. Their everyday lives and charitable work highlight the restraints faced by African-descended women who sought to cultivate public politics at the turn of the 19th century, and how such politics bore directly on the making of a Black Atlantic.