Complex Connections: Communication, Mobility, and Relationships in Moravian Children's Lives

Abstract

This article explores the wide-ranging and complex relationships in the lives of children based on Moravian records of the 1740s and 1750s. Childrearing in Moravian settings involved integrating children into a web of connections with people both nearby and far away. Long-distance communication and mobility shaped the world of eighteenth-century Moravians and contributed to the complexity in children's relationships. These relationships are studied within three settings—boarding institutions where European American, Native American, and African American children were educated; rural, predominantly European American communities in Pennsylvania where Moravians operated day schools; and Native American mission communities, which also included day schools. This essay examines family relationships between children and adults, noting variations in parental influences and highlighting the role of the Delaware Indians' matrilineal social structure; however, it also devotes significant attention to the topic of child-to-child relationships, which represented both local and distant connections.