Snapshots Of Church History
- Contending for the Faith: Augustine of Hippo (354-430) (1)
- Who is Jesus? (2)
- Julian of Norwich (3)
- Rebecca Protten (5)
- Valiant For Truth (6)
If you know anything about the history of the church, you might associate the eighteenth century with big figures like John Wesley and George Whitefield, or the ex-slave ship captain John Newton, or even the American pastor and scholar Jonathan Edwards. What probably doesn’t spring to mind is complex cross-cultural mission and the church’s engagement with the oppressed. Yet, Rebecca Protten, a once-enslaved mixed-race woman was a pioneer of just this type of ministry, and a fascinating link between the giants of church history and its multitudes of unsung labourers. Her story should open our eyes to the surprising ways in which God works and the unexpected means he uses to save and transform lives.
A hidden past
Rebecca’s story starts with her mother’s abduction in the early 1700s in what is now Ghana, West Africa. Along with thousands of others, Rebecca’s mother was imprisoned at the coast and then transported across the Atlantic via the brutal middle passage of the slave trade triangle. Her final destination was the small island of Antigua, where some years later Rebecca was born.
We know no more than this about Rebecca’s mother, and the only thing we know about her father is that he was white, which means, of course, that Rebecca was conceived through sexual exploitation. She was born enslaved, in a meagre compound, with a mother whose care was constrained by her long hours in the field. Even this harsh childhood was cut short when, around the age of six, Rebecca was herself abducted and taken from her small hut to St. Thomas, an island 220 miles away where she began her own forced labour.
Little Rebecca became the property of a Dutch family and never saw her mother again. She became a house servant rather than a field worker, probably because of her light skin. In this house, as she grew up, she not only learned housekeeping but also how to read. Her master was part of a Dutch reformed church which, while not condemning the wickedness of slavery, had an official policy of sharing the truths of the faith with ‘the poor and blind pagans’, and so somehow, Rebecca learned about Jesus and began to read the Bible. In later life, she recalled how the stories of Protestant martyrs gripped her heart and she made the decision in her teens to be baptised. Despite the association of this faith with her oppressors, she discovered that it was a message of rescue for the oppressed and persecuted.
The church had fulfilled its goal in Rebecca’s conversion but now there was a problem. If she was a child of God, a member of the body of Christ, how could she be a possession to be used? Her owners set her free, though she remained an employee in their household, now earning a little and having choice in where she went when not working. Rather than seeking to profit from her income, Rebecca left behind her new privilege. Unlike others who were liberated, she didn’t save to set herself up in business or look out for further advantage; rather, she gave herself to the enslaved. In the little pockets of free time she now had, in the household and out of it, she spoke about Christ, ‘admonishing’ women ‘often to love God and the Saviour’. Before she had ever heard the word, Rebecca became a missionary.
Working together
Just as Rebecca was finding her feet in sharing the gospel with the enslaved, thousands of miles away a group was planning to do the same. Anthony Ulrich, a liberated slave, had journeyed to the Danish court to speak about physical and spiritual oppression on St. Thomas, and there he met Count Zinzendorf, the German leader of the Moravian church.
The Moravians were a Protestant group who believed in the primacy of personal commitment to Christ, to be expressed in personal holiness and radical living, and they were passionate about international mission. Anthony asked the daring question, ‘Who would go and give their life for this cause?’ Some rose to the challenge, even being willing, to ‘gladly become slaves if they could win only one soul for him.’
When one of these initial Moravian missionaries who arrived in 1736 met Rebecca, now aged 18, they were impressed. ‘She is well versed in the Scriptures and could be a worker … the women have great trust in her, and she makes a special effort to instruct them … she is a trustworthy woman.’ Rebecca had no role models of black or white women who taught the Bible, she may not even have been a church member, but here she was, befriending women so that she could teach them all about Jesus.
Rebecca quickly became part of the missionaries’ team. Soon a church was established, with services and a school, and wonderfully, a revival broke out with hundreds of enslaved people joining the church, around 10% of the island’s enslaved population. Following Moravian practice, which would be copied in Britain, the converts were arranged into ‘bands’ for discipleship, and alongside this were works of mercy. Rebecca not only taught and helped women practically, but she also cared for several orphans, despite her youth. Her life had become an overwhelming whirlwind.
In 1738, at the age of twenty, Rebecca was married to a German missionary, Matthaus Freundlich (arranged marriage was a Moravian tradition) and later gave birth to a little girl. This mixed-marriage stirred the anger of already hostile slave-owners, and Rebecca, her new husband and another missionary were called to court and imprisoned for fourteen weeks. The final sentence was pronounced that Rebecca be returned to enslavement and the Germans returned to Europe. Despite, or perhaps because of, this persecution, the church continued to grow, and the faith of the prisoners remained strong. Finally, through an extraordinary intervention, they were released.
The exhaustion of these years took its toll, however, and a year later it was decided that the crew should leave St. Thomas for the headquarters of the Moravian movement. A homeward route for the men, but a journey into the unknown for Rebecca and her child, which became a nightmare when, just as they arrived in Europe, Mattaus died. Rebecca now had to move on her own into the settlement called Herrnhag, where believers lived communally, in sex and age segregated accommodation. The restrictions of this faith-centred life must have brought some comfort in her deep grief; she was honoured because of her service and was given responsibilities for discipling others.
Reaching others
Rebecca’s life had a third stage, though, which took her away from Germany. After some years of widowhood in Germany, during which her daughter also died, she was married to a mixed-race Moravian, Christian Protten. Together they resolved to take the gospel to the heart of slave trading communities in West Africa. Though the route into this ministry was complex and arduous, and their marriage put under great strain, the Prottens were determined to teach black Africans about Christ.
Sadly, slave owners prevented them from fulfilling many of these longings, for, just as on St Thomas, all those profiting from slavery could see that the logic of the gospel undermined their trade. The Prottens did succeed in setting up a school for the many mixed-race children, children of African women and sailors, who had often been rejected by both communities. It was there, on the Gold Coast, that Rebecca died in her sixties, worn out after a life of great loss, and gospel hard work.
Rebecca Protten’s life was one lived radically for Jesus, with remarkable fruit. In the eighteenth century, no one expected a black woman, especially one who had been enslaved, to do anything important. Yet the revival on St. Thomas is regarded as being the beginning of the Afro-Caribbean church and the mission she was part of on the Gold Coast was one of the earliest Protestant attempts to reach indigenous Africans. What stands out in her very few existent writings, however, is not these ground-breaking acts, but her trust in God through great hardship and pressure. She may exemplify women’s ministry and cross-cultural mission, but most of all Rebecca Protten demonstrates godly, humble perseverance.
