Christian ignatius latrobe, “liberty of conscience,” and slavery in the west indies and the western cape, 1780s–1830s
Book Chapter
Gibbs, JM. (2019). Christian ignatius latrobe, “liberty of conscience,” and slavery in the west indies and the western cape, 1780s–1830s
. 69-89. 10.4324/9780429029127-4
Gibbs, JM. (2019). Christian ignatius latrobe, “liberty of conscience,” and slavery in the west indies and the western cape, 1780s–1830s
. 69-89. 10.4324/9780429029127-4
Gibbs uses Christian Latrobe, who ran the worldwide Moravian missions for almost 50 years, as a lens into Moravian conflicts over slavery and the growing abolitionist movement. The author does so by linking Latrobe’s British antislavery activism in the 1780s with his engagement in the Moravian missions in the British West Indies’ slave plantations and in South Africa between 1810 and 1820. She examines the tensions between the Moravians’ radical message of spiritual equality and liberty in their missions to enslaved people in the British West Indies and the Khoi and San indigenous people of South Africa. Gibbs examines how Christian Latrobe embodies these complex tensions: Between evangelical fervor and enlightened precepts of universal humanity; between Christianizing and civilizing; and between imperial and spiritual governance. Latrobe deplored slavery and espoused anti-racialists beliefs in human equality, both spiritual and intellectual, yet did not challenge the institution of slavery itself. Instead, his view of universal human spiritual equality and his sympathy for British slave trade abolition went hand-in-hand with his determination to expand existing and establish new Moravian missions in the British West Indies (prior to emancipation) and in the Western Cape.
