Radical Protestants and the Politics of Empire

I will be presenting a paper called "Radical Protestants and the Politics of Empire: Moravian Aspirations in British North America" at the Coloquio Internacional “Historia, Protestantismo e Identidad en las Américas held October 6-8 in Mexico City.

Here is a taste of the paper:

In the summer warmth of June 1752, Colonial Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor, James Hamilton, entertained three representatives from a small but controversial – some would say “radical” – religious group known as the “Moravian Brethren.” With roots in the Czech Reformation and comprised of a network of pietist congregations and societies that had for decades spread out from the small village of Herrnhut, in Saxony, the Moravians established religious communities throughout the Atlantic World. In British North America, Moravians had subsequently carved out a little settlement in the “forks” of the Delaware River in 1742, naming the site Bethlehem. The settlement became the center of an aggressive missionary enterprise among native populations throughout the region. A decade after the founding of this settlement, frontier Pennsylvanians, including the Moravians, found themselves living in a war zone, trying to survive in the midst of the American theater of the Seven Years War. They would also find themselves embroiled in the political fray of the American Revolution.

Traveling from their frontier village, the three Moravians sought a hearing with the Lieutenant Governor to ensure him of their loyalty to the English crown since rumors were circulating that they were secretly French sympathizers. The irony of this visit rests in the fact that their spokesman, the Moravian leader August Spangenberg, declared to Hamilton that it was an “established maxim” among the Moravians that they would not “intermeddle“in politics of any kind – even as they sat in the Governor’s office conversing with him about politics!

The notion that they remained unsoiled by the kind of partisanship and schisms political involvement entailed was often repeated by Moravians, with the rationale that politics was “prejudicial to our main business of preaching the Gospel.” To their credit, eighteenth century Moravians did, in fact, try hard to remain untainted by the imperialism of Great Britain, for they were remarkably enlightened about the way political and religious motivations were often intertwined within the colonial context. Much of this was a direct result of the teachings of Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. A member of the nobility, Zinzendorf was responsible for providing protection for the first refugees from Moravia and he quickly became the group’s spiritual leader as well as its patron. Long interested in missions, Zinzendorf crafted a missionary program that intentionally transcended national and political loyalties. They thought of themselves as “cives universi” (residents of the whole world). This position, essentially a posture of neutrality, was a lofty ideal, but was naturally more difficult to maintain in practice. This was true in peacetime and especially so during periods of war. The fact of the matter is that Moravian leaders, even if it was through indirect channels, sometimes did become “intermeddled” in colonial politics. And I would like to suggest in this essay that the way that we have come to understand the relationship between Native peoples and colonial governments can provide a useful path toward understanding how Moravians interacted with these same colonial powers.