Slavery and Social Power in Dutch Reformed Churches

Abstract

This chapter turns to the region's Dutch Reformed churches. It reviews the ways in which social power manifested within the church space, focusing in particular on the conditions of free and enslaved Black New Yorkers in these churches. The chapter argues that congregations' practices of selective admission to these spaces, exclusion from these buildings and church yards, and segregation within these spaces reinforced the social and racial hierarchies that supported slavery in their communities. It emphasizes that these churches and membership in them became tools of enforcing social power in these communities, which proved crucial in sustaining slavery. Ultimately, the chapter shows that enslaved people created alternative ways to continue religious worship when excluded from or segregated within these churches.

The Dutch Atlantic world, 1585–1815: Recent themes and developments in the field

“…Research on the ethnic and religious makeup of the population has shown that it was, in fact, diverse (Cohen, 1981), but the diversity alone would not have made it different because we could say the same about Holland. Unique to New Netherland vis-à-vis most towns in Holland was the black population (Mosterman, 2011;Dewulf, 2016) and Native Americans, which created new challenges and opportunities with respect to trade, defense, diplomacy, sexual relations, and kin networks (Venema, 2003;Merwick, 2006;Otto, 2006;Romney, 2014). 5 The period of disruption and decline in the first Dutch Atlantic overlapped with these commercial and cultural developments, and the disruptions lasted a long time, from about 1645 to 1678.…”