Date of Award
2013
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in History
Department
Arch Dalrymple III Department of History
First Advisor
Charles Reagan Wilson
Second Advisor
Robbie Ethridge
Third Advisor
Nancy Bercaw
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
This research focuses on the efforts of a variety of missionary agencies, organizations, Presbyteries, synods and congregations who pursued domestic missionary efforts and established mission churches among enslaved Africans and Native Americans from South Carolina to Mississippi from 1818-1877. The dissertation begins with a historiographical overview of southern religion among whites, enslaved Africans and Native Americans. It then follows the work of the Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury among the Choctaw, the Rev. T.C. Stuart among the Chickasaw, the Rev. Charles Colcock Jones among enslaved Africans in Georgia and investigates the work of the Rev. John Adger and John Lafayette Girardeau among enslaved Africans in South Carolina. The work attempts to examine the mission church as a nineteenth century space for uncomopportunities with regard to interracial interaction, ecclesiastical equality and education. Further, the work connects postbellum interracial ecclesiastical relationships as firmly rooted in antebellum mission structures. Finally, the unique space of the Presbyterian mission church in the nineteenth century contained an incredibly diverse and multiracial congregation which often challenged entrenched societal notions of racial hierarchy, as well as the institution of slavery, which was so invasive and captivating of the culture.
Recommended Citation
Pickett, Otis Westbrook, "Neither Slave Nor Free... : Interracial Ecclesiastical Interaction In Presbyterian Mission Churches From South Carolina To Mississippi, 1818-1877." (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 638.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/638