The following is an interview with Ted Andrews, an assistant professor of history at Providence College in Rhode Island. Yesterday, Christopher Jones reviewed his book, Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), and now Ted is speaking with The Junto about the process of writing it. Ted teaches early American, Atlantic, and Native American history, and he was recently awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to explore his next project on global missionary connections among early modern Protestants. Native Apostles is his first book.
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Monthly Archives: November 2013
Review: Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World
Edward E. Andrews, Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013.
On the eve of the American Revolution, an unlikely band of ministers and benefactors devised a plan to send John Quamine, a free black man, and Bristol Yamma, a slave, as missionaries to Africa. The project was conceived by the two would-be missionaries themselves, and supported by controversial Congregationalist minister Samuel Hopkins and his more moderate colleague Ezra Stiles. In 1774, Stiles and Hopkins arranged for the duo to be sent to the College of New Jersey, where Presbyterian minister (and president of the College) John Witherspoon would train them. Their proposed mission gained some notoriety, and a diverse lot of supporters championed their cause, including Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet, New Jersey lawyer and politician Elias Boudinot, Scottish theologian John Erskine the noted black poet Phyllis Wheatley, Eleazar Wheelock and his Mohegan pupil-turned-preacher Samson Occum, and black Anglican missionary to Africa Phillip Quaque (though his endorsement came with serious reservations). The outbreak of war in 1775 and the subsequent death of Quamine in 1779 ultimately thwarted the planned mission. In spite of its failure, though, it remains an important but oft-ignored episode in what Edward E. Andrews calls “the tangled history of cultural encounter between Europe, Africa, and the Americas” (188). Continue reading
Conference Panels and Intellectual Connections
For early Americanists, fall is conference-planning season. Proposals for the Omohundro Institute Conference were due in mid-September, SHEAR is accepting proposals until December 1, and a bevy of other conferences have posted CFPs in recent months. Watching this flurry of activity has led me to think about the intellectual goals that structure the formation of conference panels.
Of course, the conference panels we form—and whom we invite to participate in them—are partly functions of pragmatism. Each of us wants to find our way onto the program of our desired meeting, and mobilizing our networks is one way to do this. We scramble to find friends, colleagues, friends-of-friends, and acquaintances from research trips and prior conferences to join us on our panels. But if one of the goals of conferences is to enter into scholarly conversations, rather than simply to share our work with academic audiences, then it is essential to think about the kinds of questions our panels are asking and answering. Continue reading
The Week in Early American History
It’s been another marvelous week for early American history. First, we saw the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. As John Fea notes, the exact wording of the speech has been causing trouble; Barack Obama has been accused of refusing to read a crucial passage. The AP’s Allen G. Breed investigated the various drafts of the speech and, with help from Martin P. Johnson, discussed their significance to American journalism. On SNL, though, Mr. Jebediah Atkinson had harsh words to say about the address.
Reptiles of America
Thanks to the Comte de Buffon’s comprehensive Natural History, every European in the eighteenth century knew that the American environment was conducive only to degeneration. Still, Buffon admitted, “though Nature has reduced all the quadropeds of the new world, yet she has preferred the size of reptiles, and enlarged that of insects.” As his Dutch colleague Cornelis de Pauw put it, giant insects and venomous snakes “so unhappily distinguish this hemisphere” from the more hospitable side of the Atlantic.[1] Leaving aside insects for the moment, reptiles—and especially serpents—have always had a powerful symbolic valence. In the American context, the ambivalent use of the reptile shows up some of the complex relationship between the colonists’ natural world and their political imagination.
Godly Heritage and Plantation Chic: The Case of Vision Forum
A recent news story has me thinking about the weird enduring appeal of the Lost Cause. It seems to me that this news story about a contemporary religious organization might lead us into an interesting case study. Why, at this late date, do so many Americans still want to see the antebellum South as a tragically vanished world of nobility and grace?
Most early Americanists are familiar with David Barton, a conservative activist who argues that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. He’s been mentioned here several times as the most visible proponent of a view that’s common among members of the “Religious Right.”[1] What’s less widely understood is how often his Christian-founding ideology overlaps with a claim advanced by a few other evangelical conservatives: that the Confederacy—and antebellum southern culture, if not slavery itself—are also part of “America’s Godly heritage.”[2] In these circles, in other words, the Founding is sometimes wrapped up with the Old South.
American Studies Association: A Preview for Early Americanists
This coming weekend the American Studies Association descends on Washington, D.C. for the annual conference. The theme this year is “Beyond the Logic of Debt, Toward an Ethics of Collective Dissent,” and with thirteen concurrent sessions it promises to be a busy weekend. The ASA is not exactly a bastion of early Americanist work these days, but many of the overriding themes in current scholarship have their roots in early American history. Investigating the ramifications of colonialism and colonialist attitudes? check. Wrestling with (the legacy of) slavery? check. Questioning the role of gender in society? check.
For ten years, the Early American Matters Caucus has been sponsoring panels, and thanks to scrupulous program combing by Dennis Moore and the Working Committee, we can provide a guide to early (meaning, pre-1900) events at the conference.
My Lecturing Disjunction
As I near the end of a somewhat unusual semester, I wanted to reflect a bit on my experiences as a Teaching Fellow for a course on the American Revolution. This semester I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to deliver a number of lectures. And it has gotten me thinking about the lecture as both a piece of writing and a pedagogical tool. The purpose of this post is mostly to throw out some things that have occurred to me throughout the semester but to also get thoughts from those of you with experience giving lecture courses. Continue reading
The Week in Early American History
Another week, another round of links. Here we go! Continue reading
The JuntoCast, Episode 6: The Continental Congress
Submitted for your approval . . . the November episode of “The JuntoCast.” This month, Ken Owen, Michael Hattem, and Roy Rogers discuss the Continental Congress, including a number of recent popular histories about it, its popular and academic historiography, and various aspects of its importance. Continue reading
The Junto 