In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary
Christianity's role in furthering racism in early America.In The Baptism of Early Virginia, Rebecca Anne Goetz examines the construction of race through the religious beliefs and practices of English Virginians. She finds the seventeenth century a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies—ultimately in the idea of “hereditary heathenism,” the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in particular, English settlers initially believed that native people would quickly become Christian and would form a vibrant partnership with English people. After vicious Anglo-Indian violence dashed those hopes, English Virginians used Christian rituals like marriage and baptism to exclude first Indians and then Africans from the privileges enjoyed by English Christians—including freedom.Resistance to hereditary heathenism was not uncommon, however. Enslaved people and many Anglican ministers fought against planters’ racial ideologies, setting the stage for Christian abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using court records, letters, and pamphlets, Goetz suggests new ways of approaching and understanding the deeply entwined relationship between Christianity and race in early America.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. p. vii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. ix-xii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. A Note on Terminology
  2. p. xiii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction: Potential Christians and Hereditary Heathens in Virginia
  2. pp. 1-12
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1 English Christians among the Blackest Nations
  2. pp. 13-34
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2 The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-Indian Christian Commonwealth
  2. pp. 35-60
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3 Faith in the Blood
  2. pp. 61-85
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4 Baptism and the Birth of Race
  2. pp. 86-111
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 5 Becoming Christian, Becoming White
  2. pp. 112-137
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 6 The Children of Israel
  2. pp. 138-167
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Epilogue: Christian Abolitionism and Proslavery Christianity
  2. p. 168
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 192-227
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Essay on Sources
  2. pp. 228-233
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 234-240
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.