Casey and Kait discuss some of the Moravians’ ideology on race and enslavement during the 1700s and discuss some of the history of enslaved workers and segregation in Wachovia during this time.

The Moravians during this time were primarily concerned with “bringing people to salvation through an awareness of Christ,” and that in the world, there was only the saved and unsaved, “a condition upon which skin had no bearing;” however, Moravians also had “little inclination to challenge the ways race was being used to construct massive social inequalities in the emerging Atlantic world,” because they were not really concerned with race as a worldly concept. They denied race in the spiritual realm but affirmed race in the physical world.

Within a few years of establishing Bethabara, the Moravians in Wachovia began renting and purchasing enslaved labor. During the first years of the establishment of Wachovia, everyone was educated together and worshipped side-by-side. In the last quarter of the 1770s, especially after the American Revolution, many Brethren began seeing land and enslavement “as their ticket to prosperity,” and segregation within the Wachovia community became more prominent in the community in the 1800s.

Bibliography & Further Reading:

Africa, Philip. “Slaveholding in the Salem Community, 1771-1851.” The North Carolina Historical Review 54, no. 3 (July 1997): 271–307.

Sensbach, Jon. A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Sensbach, Jon. “Race and the Early Moravian Church: A Comparative Perspective.” Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society 31 (2000): 1–10.

Ferguson, Leland. God's Fields: Landscape, Religion, and Race in Moravian Wachovia. 1st ed. Cultural Heritage Studies. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2011.

Fries, Adelaide, ed. Records of the Moravians in North Carolina. Volume I: 1752-1771. Vol. I. Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton Print Company, 1922.

Fries, Adelaide. Records of the Moravians in North Carolina. Volume II: 1752-1775. Vol. II. Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton Print Company, 1925.

Fries, Adelaide. Records of the Moravians in North Carolina. Volume III: 1776-1779. Vol. III. Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton Print Company, 1926.

Fries, Adelaide. Records of the Moravians in North Carolina. Volume VII: 1809-1822. Vol. VII. Raleigh, NC: State Department of Archives and History, 1947.

Music (freemusicarchive.org):

Allegretto (green pastures) by Dee Yan-Key (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

Grand Piano Theme - Echo - Loopable by Lobo Loco (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

On my Way to Work by Lobo Loco (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)