Race and Religion in the Early Modern Dutch Atlantic World, Session 2 of 4

Presented on October 3, 2024
Presented by Stephen Staggs

Stephen Staggs will explore how ideologies of race influenced the ways in which early modern Calvinists of both African and European descent interpreted their Bibles, organized institutions, and participated in the broader societies of the Dutch Atlantic world.

September 26: Staggs will analyze the ways in which a Calvinist merchant in the service of the Dutch West India Company shifted the concept of race from one based on religious criteria to one defined by biology in 1704.

October 3: We will learn how the first person of African descent to be ordained as a minister in an orthodox Protestant denomination challenged the enslavement of Africans in 1742.

October 10: This session will focus on the debate over African American membership in the Dutch Reformed Church of Flatbush in 1799.

October 17: Staggs will trace the network of ordained and lay members of the Dutch Reformed Churchwho not only addressed slavery and the question of African American membership in the church, but also claimed Black people as property themselves.