A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840

In colonial North Carolina, German-speaking settlers from the Moravian Church founded a religious refuge — an ideal society, they hoped, whose blueprint for daily life was the Bible and whose Chief Elder was Christ himself. As the community’s demand for labor grew, the Moravian Brethren bought slaves to help operate their farms, shops, and industries. Moravians believed in the universalism of the gospel and baptized dozens of African Americans, who became full members of tightly knit Moravi...