Rebecca Protten

Rebecca Protten (1718-1780) was born a slave and gained her freedom as an adolescent. As a free woman of mixed European and African descent who lived on the island of St. Thomas during the 1730s, she joined the movement to convert African slaves to Christianity. She became one of the first ordained African American women in Western Christianity.

Contents

• Rebeccas Revival Dr Jon F Sensbach
• Biographies
• References

Sources are unclear as to the location or circumstances of Rebecca’s birth, but some note that she was originally kidnapped from Antigua. She was then sold to a planter on St. Thomas named Lucas van Beverhout, who put her to work in his house as a servant and taught her the Christianity of the Reformed Church. Shortly after the death of Lucas van Beverhout when she was twelve, the Beverhout family freed Rebecca.

Religion played a central role in Rebecca’s life after her enslavement. Even though she was a free person, opportunities were still very limited for her on St. Thomas. Then Christianity missionaries from the Unity of the Brethren, often called the Moravian Brethren, arrived on St. Thomas in 1732, as part of the Church’s mission to convert the nations of the world to Christianity. The beginning of their ministry opened up new possibilities for Rebecca. She became a leader in converting African slaves, whose religious practices constantly challenged by planters fearful of a united slave revolt.

In 1742, Rebecca left St. Thomas with several Moravian missionaries, traveling to their home in Herrnhut, Saxony. There, she met and married Christian Protten in 1746. Protten was similarly noted for his mixed African and European descent. Protten, pursuing his life dream, journeyed to Christiansborg, a Danish fort on the Gold Coast, in an attempt to start a school but failed, returning six years later in 1762 to Herrnhut—the town founded by the first Moravian exiles and the headquarters of the movement, in which many of the Brethren lived. Protten and Rebecca returned together to Christiansborg in 1763, where they spent the rest of their lives teaching African children. Rebecca Protten died in 1780.

Unlike many other sects of Christianity, women were very important to the fabric of the Moravian church. This allowed Protten to have opportunities to participate in the church on almost an equal basis with men. The Moravian Brethren's belief that men and women were spiritually equal in the eyes of God paved the path for Protten to become a preacher. She was named a deaconess a few weeks after her wedding.