In an irony that demonstrated both black Virginians' spiritual independence
and white Anglicans' enduring lack of interest in black Christianity, baptized slaves planned their insurrection for Sunday morning, when whites would be at church without them. It is an arresting image: whites meeting serenely to read through Morning Prayer and perhaps to hear a sermon or to receive the sacrament, totally uninterested in the spiritual lives of their bondmen-who even at that moment were acting on their own faith and leaving their chains behind. These Africans, among whom probably ranked some Kongolese
In an irony that demonstrated both black Virginians' spiritual independence
and white Anglicans' enduring lack of interest in black Christianity, baptized slaves planned their insurrection for Sunday morning, when whites would be at church without them. It is an arresting image: whites meeting serenely to read through Morning Prayer and perhaps to hear a sermon or to receive the sacrament, totally uninterested in the spiritual lives of their bondmen-who even at that moment were acting on their own faith and leaving their chains behind. These Africans, among whom probably ranked some Kongolese Christians, erroneously believed that George II had declared all baptized slaves free but that Virginia's officials had suppressed that mandate. Between 20o and 300 slaves selected leaders, "commit[ted] many outrages against the Christians," and fled into the swamps of Norfolk and Princess Anne counties. Vengeful whites and their Indian allies apprehended the group fairly quickly and killed at least 29 of them. James Blair, the Anglican commissary in Virginia, reported on the event in a 1731 letter to England, indicating that "there was a general rumor among them that they were to be set free. And when they saw nothing came of it they grew angry and saucy, and met in the night time in great numbers. 1131 This episode confirms that Elizabeth Key and Fernando were not the only black Virginians who equated spiritual and civil freedom-or who acted on that equation in a manner sure to gain...
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