The Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race

by Rebecca Anne Goetz

Overview

Christianity's role in furthering racism in early America.

In The Baptism of Early Virginia, Rebecca Anne Goetz examines the construction of race through the religious beliefs and practices of English Virginians. She finds the seventeenth century a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies—ultimately in the idea of “hereditary heathenism,” the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in particular, English settlers initially believed that native people would quickly become Christian and would form a vibrant partnership with English people. After vicious Anglo-Indian violence dashed those hopes, English Virginians used Christian rituals like marriage and baptism to exclude first Indians and then Africans from the privileges enjoyed by English Christians—including freedom.

Resistance to hereditary heathenism was not uncommon, however. Enslaved people and many Anglican ministers fought against planters’ racial ideologies, setting the stage for Christian abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using court records, letters, and pamphlets, Goetz suggests new ways of approaching and understanding the deeply entwined relationship between Christianity and race in early America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421419817
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	02/15/2016
Series:	Early America: History, Context, Culture
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rebecca Anne Goetz is an associate professor of history at New York University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
A Note on Terminology
Introduction
1. English Christians among the Blackest Nations
2. The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-Indian Christian Commonwealth
3. Faith in the Blood
4. Baptism and the Birth of Race
5. Becoming Christian, Becoming White
6. The Children of Israel
Epilogue
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index

What People are Saying About This

James Sidbury

A major contribution to this rich field of historical inquiry.

From the Publisher

A major contribution to this rich field of historical inquiry.
—James Sidbury, Rice University

Editorial Reviews

Goetz has done an impressive job bringing religion to the center of the historiography on race, and her study is a must-read for all scholars interested in the development of race and the role of Protestantism in the Atlantic world.
—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

In a compact 173 pages, Goetz links race and religion in colonial Virginia in ways that few other scholars have even attempted.
—Journal of American History

This is impressive scholarship grounded in letters, pamphlets, court records, colonial statutes, and a wide array of additional archival and secondary sources . . . It is a book that will find ready readership in graduate seminars, seminaries, and undergraduate classrooms.
—Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

Professor Goetz . . . is to be warmly applauded for having produced a work of such methodological scope and intellectual sophistication, a most persuasive work that ranks as a major contribution to the field.
—Slavery and Abolition

Goetz posits her thesis in a history of England and Colonial Virginia, providing necessary context while educating readers in the general narrative of English and Virginia history.
—Choice

The Baptism of Early Virginia offers a significant contribution to the growing historiography of religion in colonial Virginia. . . Goetz's provocative work raises a number of questions. . . Even if Goetz does not always address these questions, her radical rethinking of religion in colonial Virginia will surely help others answer them. The Baptism of Early Virginia is an important book.
—History

Though much has been written about the complex legal and social construction of race in the seventeenth-century Anglo-Atlantic, Goetz's account of the role of religion in that process is the most thorough yet.
—William and Mary Quarterly

From the Publisher

This is impressive scholarship grounded in letters, pamphlets, court records, colonial statutes, and a wide array of additional archival and secondary sources . . . It is a book that will find ready readership in graduate seminars, seminaries, and undergraduate classrooms.

Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

Goetz posits her thesis in a history of England and Colonial Virginia, providing necessary context while educating readers in the general narrative of English and Virginia history.

Choice

The Baptism of Early Virginia offers a significant contribution to the growing historiography of religion in colonial Virginia. . . Goetz's provocative work raises a number of questions. . . Even if Goetz does not always address these questions, her radical rethinking of religion in colonial Virginia will surely help others answer them. The Baptism of Early Virginia is an important book.

History

Goetz has done an impressive job bringing religion to the center of the historiography on race, and her study is a must-read for all scholars interested in the development of race and the role of Protestantism in the Atlantic world.

Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

Though much has been written about the complex legal and social construction of race in the seventeenth-century Anglo-Atlantic, Goetz's account of the role of religion in that process is the most thorough yet.

William and Mary Quarterly

In a compact 173 pages, Goetz links race and religion in colonial Virginia in ways that few other scholars have even attempted.

Journal of American History

Professor Goetz... is to be warmly applauded for having produced a work of such methodological scope and intellectual sophistication, a most persuasive work that ranks as a major contribution to the field.

Slavery and Abolition

The Baptism of Early Virginia offers a significant contribution to the growing historiography of religion in colonial Virginia... Goetz's provocative work raises a number of questions... Even if Goetz does not always address these questions, her radical rethinking of religion in colonial Virginia will surely help others answer them. The Baptism of Early Virginia is an important book.

History - Matthew J. Sparacio

Professor Goetz... is to be warmly applauded for having produced a work of such methodological scope and intellectual sophistication, a most persuasive work that ranks as a major contribution to the field.

Slavery and Abolition - Betty Wood

This is impressive scholarship grounded in letters, pamphlets, court records, colonial statutes, and a wide array of additional archival and secondary sources... It is a book that will find ready readership in graduate seminars, seminaries, and undergraduate classrooms.

Virginia Magazine of History and Biography - Edward L. Bond

In a compact 173 pages, Goetz links race and religion in colonial Virginia in ways that few other scholars have even attempted.

Journal of American History - Richard A. Bailey

Goetz has done a impressive job bringing religion to the center of the historiography on race, and her study is a must-read for all scholars interested in the development of race and the role of Protestantism in the Atlantic world.

Register of the Kentucky Historical Society - Katharine Gerbner