The Moravian Missionary Experience: 1732-1800

The West Indies, Guiana and Surinam, 1732-1800

The Moravians were a Protestant sect that, under the leadership of Count Nikolas Ludwig von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, experienced a strong revival in the 1720s. The doctrine of the Moravians centered on the sufferings of Christ on the cross and involved much contemplation of the various wounds he received therein. Zinzendorf began the practice of sending Brethren to minister among the heathens in the New World and Africa, and potential missionaries underwent extensive indoctrination:

These missionaries, both men and women, envisioned themselves as “brides of Christ” whose father was God and whose mother the Holy Ghost. In this imagery, the church was born in the savior’s side wound, betrothed to Christ in Holy Communion, making it the daughter-in-law of both God the Father and the Holy Ghost (Price, 57).

Missionaries were taught to not involve themselves with politics or commerce in the colonies, although this did not always hold true. They also accepted slavery as the status quo, and in some cases, became slave owners themselves.

The Moravian presence in the New World began with the death

In June 1734 Tobias Leopold and seventeen others arrived in St Thomas. Some were to remain on St Thomas, others were to colonize and evangelize the abandoned St Croix. Dober sailed back to Europe to assume the mantle of chief elder of Herrnhut.

In 1741, a pious planter on St Johns requested the presence of one of the Brethren to preach to his slaves. Baptism was first preformed there in 1745, and in 1754, a resident missionary was stationed at Bethania, an estate purchased in 1749.

The journey of the new missionaries to St Thomas was a horrible one. Forced to winter over in Norway, and enduring terrible conditions aboard the ship, several of the missionaries were ill before they reached St Thomas. Once there, they found the conditions not much more in their favor; several succumbed to yellow fever before setting foot on St Croix. In the following six months eight of the original eighteen missionaries died, including Tobias Leopold. In February 1735 eleven reinforcements set out from Herrnhut, including physician Dr. Grottausen, who was the first to die. Within two months of landing on St Croix, four of these newcomers would fall victim to various tropical illnesses. Most of those that survived the initial illness, “during the years [1735] and [1736]…returned home in a miserable plight, three of them suffering shipwreck en route” (Hamilton, 54). In December 1736 the last Moravian on St Croix traveled to St Thomas to join Frederick Martin, who had been in charge of the mission there for almost a year. Martin had found some success on St Thomas. He and his assistant had found themselves preaching, at times, to some two hundred slaves.

Zinzendorf returned to Herrnhut, followed shortly after by Anthony, who gave his same testimony to the Brethren that the Count had heard in Copenhagen. Two young men, Leonard Dober and Tobias Leopold volunteered themselves to travel to the West Indies and serve as missionaries. The Brethren decided that Dober would travel, and Leopold would remain in Herrnhut for awhile longer.

In 1739, Theodore Feder and Christian Gottlieb set sail for the New World. After losing Feder in a shipwreck, and nearly dying himself, Gottlieb arrived in St Thomas. He and another young Moravian, George Weber, later left for St Croix to recommence the mission there. Progress was rather slow, and the first converts were not baptized until 1744, and Friedensthal, the first permanent mission station was founded in 1755.

Dober’s religious work among the slaves was hardly appreciated by the planters. There were extremely strict regulations monitoring the movements of slaves, and subsequently harsh punishments for relatively minor infractions. Rebellions among the slaves of St Thomas and St John were bloody and often resulted in the deaths of white planters. Mistrust and general wariness were extreme, and Dober’s association with the slaves earned him much of the same treatment from the planters.

In 1747, two tracks of land were purchased for the purpose of mission settlement: Ephraim on the Corentyn and Sharon on the Saramaka. In 1757 a lone missionary set up residence “on the Corentyn in the midst of an utter wilderness” (Thompson, 137). He faced innumerable hardships, but was pleasantly surprised when, after two years of his continued presence, a small congregation of Arawak, Carib and Warow converts began to settle around Ephraim. Dehne was relieved in 1759 by three missionaries; he retired to Sharon and later returned to Europe.

Some topics in this essay:
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