Rebecca Protten (1718-1780) was born in Africa and enslaved as a child, ultimately becoming a free woman who lived on three continents. Her extraordinary life and influence on the beginnings of black Christianity in the Americas are worth exploring. Jon Sensbach has painstakingly pieced together her story from myriad, often fragmentary, often newfound, sources in Rebecca’s Revival (2005; Harvard University Press).
Rebecca was snatched from her home in Antigua as a young girl of six or seven, crowded onto a slave ship to take a perilous journey, and sold at auction (likely) on the tiny Danish island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean.
One observer describes what the young girl likely experienced immediately after her arrival in her new world: “Before the sale begins, they are subjected to a thorough examination to determine the condition of their bodies, which is usually performed by a surgeon. Since these poor people are not yet rightly certain about the implications of the auction in which they are involved, they are usually quite apprehensive about it all and await the outcome with trembling and shaking.” Rebecca was sold to a family of high standing, the van Beverhouts.
A wealthy planter like Lucas van Beverhout collected slaves for housework as a signal of status. The wealthiest had as many as two dozen domestic slaves, by one account. Rebecca was to work as a servant among many others in the house. The van Beverhouts seem to have become very fond of Rebecca. She learned to read and write (perhaps taught by the van Beverhouts), an uncommon occurrence for slaves, even house slaves. She was taught Dutch (she had learned English on Antigua).
This apparent closeness to the van Beverhouts, along with her literacy, likely were important in altering her trajectory. In early adolescence, she became interested in Christianity and she gained her freedom. The two were probably connected, as it was much more common to teach Christianity to freed people than to slaves. Another possibility is that her conversion to Christianity led to her being freed. A later court document said she was “brought up in this island in the Reformed religion.”
Soon she was teaching slaves about Christ.
A letter, ascribed to Rebecca, from her early days as Christian highlights how she saw herself, her Savior, and his mission for her life. She saw that she had been in darkness, been blind to spiritual reality, and that Christ had “pulled me out of the darkness.” Her heart “melts” when she thinks of his goodness. She would “take up his cross with all my heart.” The letter declared her vision to preach to the plantation slaves and begin a new black, Christian community in America. Rebecca believed that Christ had revealed this vision to her. She would not hesitate or ask permission.
Rebecca became one of the leaders of a spiritual awakening among the slaves. Itinerant preachers would walk the path between plantations on the island. A small group of slaves or former slaves would walk the path with the preachers, showing them where and how to minister to the slaves. Men would typically teach and minister to the men; likewise, women were responsible for the women. Rebecca soon had more responsibility for evangelizing and teaching the women slaves on the island than anyone else. Since she was free, she could walk further, stay later, and teach longer than her enslaved brothers and sisters.
This work through a newly established mission on the island had great risk. The awakening among the slaves threatened the slaveholders’ (far outnumbered by slaves) social control. On her walks between plantations, she would have seen the results of the brutal punishment for disobedient slaves, such as amputated hands for those accused of theft.
The movement spread rapidly through the spoken word. Slaves gathered in fields and huts to debate Christian doctrine. One conversation or meeting at a time, Rebecca and other carriers of the word were making Christianity a faith for people of African origin.
Friedrich Martin, the Dutch leader of the mission, wrote, “Rebecca helps teach the Negro women. In the evenings when the Negro women come to school, she teaches them. She is true in her understanding, and the women love her.”
The mission opened countless slaves to the possibility of an immensely expanded life, both in learning to read and learning of Christ. The reading lessons were often the primary motivation at first. At the mission, the slaves were treated with the dignity that God’s image bearers demand. By learning to read, they were able to encounter the Bible, of course, but they also gained new power to learn and grow.
Rebecca loved to teach the women. She had a passion for helping others develop into the people God desired them to be. She was patient and persistent in gently challenging the women slaves to see who Christ was in Scripture. She constantly tutored women one on one in reading, especially in reading the Scriptures. The converted slaves saw that Christ could set them spiritually free. And they prayed that he would free them from their earthly masters.
Rebecca would marry one of the missionaries, Matthaus Freundlich, in a ceremony in front of their mostly slave congregation. The marriage was not recognized by the local, formal Reformed church leaders. Probably the mixed-race aspect of the marriage was the real scandal in their eyes. Also, the planters were looking for legal means to eliminate the mission and its influence on the slaves. Soon after the wedding, the authorities took action against the couple and mission leaders. The couple was imprisoned. Rebecca was threatened with being forced to return to slavery, if she did not renounce the marriage. Her refusal to do so, and her peaceful acceptance of this persecution were powerful examples to the slaves of the genuineness of her faith.
Rebecca and Matthaus would travel to Europe, intending to settle at the Moravian mission in Germany. Matthaus, however, died of fever on the trip. Rebecca was alone in Europe, where nearly all black women were slaves or servants.
Rebecca made it to the mission and began a new, regimented life in the church. She would become a leader of women here, also, becoming perhaps the first black woman to become ordained (as a deaconess, who could preach to women) in western Christianity. She soon was administering communion to the mostly white congregation, which included wealthy aristocrats.
Rebecca would remarry and spend her final years in Africa (Guinea, on the Gold Coast), commissioned by the church with her husband Christian to start a school for mixed-race children. It was the area she had been born in, a location where the slave trade still prominent. Little is known of her life in those years. She would die there at age sixty-two, having served Christ on three continents.
What are we to make of the legacy of this unique life, of which knowledge of important details is incomplete?
The success of the Moravian mission on St. Thomas was noticed and emulated by many in the Christian world at the time. The mass conversions among the slaves, with an emphasis on Christian egalitarianism, inspired, for example, Methodist and Baptist preachers to evangelize slave in the plantation country of Virginia and South Carolina in the 1740s and 1750s. There was often enthusiastic response, with emotional conversions and vibrant, multi-ethnic worship communities. By the time of the American Revolution, black Christians were eloquent voices calling for spiritual and social equality. And the Moravian church sent black missionaries from St. Thomas to regions in America and Europe.
Black Christianity, with the emphasis on spiritual freedom and equality, was critical to the antislavery movement in America and Europe. Denmark was the first nation to ban the slave trade to West Indian colonies in 1792. Much of the impetus for the ban came from seeing the authentic faith of the black Moravian converts.
In sum, the black Christians on St. Thomas had outsized influence on the growth of Christianity in black communities. And Rebecca Protten’s life had as much to do with the success of the St. Thomas mission as anyone’s.