Ritual time in British Plantation Colonies, 1650-1780

Church History, Sept, 2007 by Nicholas M. Beasley

Sabbatarian laws established the basic outline of Sunday in the plantation colonies. In the seventeenth century, a Barbados act required those within two miles of a church to come to church morning and evening on Sunday. Those more than two miles away were to come at least once per month. Constables, churchwardens, and sidemen were to patrol during divine service, especially "where they do suspect leud and debauched Company to Frequent." Persons found "misdemeaning themselves" were to be put in the stocks for four hours unless they paid a five-shilling fine for the poor. (55) South Carolina law similarly authorized a five-shilling fine for those who failed to go to church and "there abide orderly and soberly, during the Time of Prayer and Preaching." It forbade "publick Sports or Pastimes, as Bear-baiting, Bull-baiting, Football playing, Horse-racing, Interludes, or common Plays," and required church wardens and constables in Charles Town "in the Time of Divine Service, [to] walk through the said Town, to observe, suppress, and apprehend all Offenders whatsoever" and put them in the stocks. The same act provided that slaves were not to be obliged to work on Sunday. (56) Grand Juries impaneled in Carolina consistently complained about persons who did not honor the Christian Sabbath, especially "the Prophanation of the Sabbath Day by Barbers and others, who keep open Shops for the Convenience of their Customers, to the great Scandal of Christianity and Offense to all Sober and well disposed Persons." (57) In early 1747, Governor James Glen of South Carolina had "Sentinels ... placed at the Town Gates every Sunday, to prevent as much as possible the Prophanation of the Lord's Day, to restrain all loose and idle Persons from going a pleasuring on that Day during the Time of Divine Service, and to stop all Drovers, Butchers, and their Servants with their Carts and Horses from coming to Market on that Day," in keeping with the 1712 law for Sabbath keeping. (58) Jamaican legislation also established fines for those who permitted any "to tipple or drink in time of divine Service." (59) While there was distance between prescription and practice, Sunday was not the same as every other day in the plantation colonies.

Worshippers invested the basic Christian duty of Sunday worship with a variety of additional social and cultural meanings. Church attendance, for instance, consistently required a special level of dress. In early-eighteenth-century Jamaica, it was one of the few places where men did not wear a ruffled or "furbelowed Cambric cap," attire judged too hot by succeeding generations. (60) Men did wear wigs, silk coats, and vests trimmed with silver to church in Jamaica, court-time being the only other occasion calling for such formality. (61) A letter from a devout unmarried older woman named "Mary Meanwell" published in the South Carolina newspaper in 1732 complained that her "constant and devout Attendance on publick Worship" was undermined by her "misfortune to sit in the next Pew to a parcel of Girls and young Fellows, who are, three Parts of the Service, Giggling and Prating." (62) Even if the letter is fiction, it captured the reality of the church as one of the few public places for young people to gather. Late in the period, "several young Men made a practice of assembling under the Piazza at the West Door" of St. Michael's in Charles Town, "walking backwards and forwards, trailing sticks on the Flaggs and talking loud during Divine Service on Sunday forenoons." (63) Thoroughly impious, the young men nonetheless recognized that Sunday morning at church was still the place to be. For many others, worship was a more serious business. The memorial tablet of Thomas Harrison in St. Michael's church in Bridgetown noted that his "Constant attendance at Divine Service" earned him "the Esteem of his Acquaintances." (64) Sunday worship was also a time to take in the civic spectacles of political elites. In seventeenth-century Barbados, the governor went to church with "his marshall going before him" bareheaded, a posture some found too grandiose. (65) In Spanish Town early in the period, "every Sunday there is 250 foot and 60 horse in army, to Guard his Grace [the governor] to, and from the Church." (66) Gathering for worship on a Sunday was both a sacred duty and a social opportunity.