Reassessing the Beginnings of Evangelical Protestantism among Slaves in the Carolina Lowcountry

Fogleman’s presentation investigates the German Moravian slave mission in South Carolina from 1738 to 1740 and contributes to the growing literature on the origins of slave conversion to evangelical Protestantism in the Lowcountry.  The Moravian mission has been all but ignored by historians because on the surface it was a short-lived failure and because the documentation is in the difficult to read German handwriting of the period.  Yet the mission records illuminate details of the struggle among planters, slaves, missionaries, and others in the mid-18^th century, when Protestant Christian slaves were the exception rather than the norm and their conversion was controversial among all three groups.  This investigation of the Moravian mission reveals two important findings about the origins of evangelical Protestantism among Lowcountry slaves.  First, although the Moravian mission was short lived, its records provide important evidence of how slaves responded for and against early evangelical efforts in the Lowcountry.  Second, it supports the view that the beginnings of evangelical movement among Lowcountry slaves pre-dated the first visit of George Whitefield to the area in 1740.