Ritual time in British Plantation Colonies, 1650-1780

Church History, Sept, 2007 by Nicholas M. Beasley

This mixture of the transcendent and the mundane meant that the sacred time and space of Sunday worship was an atmosphere charged with the authority of a community gathered together, a place for important things to be done and said. Banns of marriage were published for three Sundays in all the plantation colonies, offering the wider community time to consider the upcoming nuptials of those who did not purchase marriage licenses. Those abandoning the Roman Catholic faith did as Christopher Gilmor "did in the Parish Church of St. Michael in the Island of Barbados, on the 14 of July 1734 before the Congregation there assembled," when he "openly, publickly, and Solemnly read all what is Contain'd in the Above declaration and renunciation." (67) In Barbados, parish churches were the location for publishing new legislation. (68) In 1666, the legislators of the island issued a grand compilation of all acts still in force, to be put into "one fair copy of all said acts" and "sent to the Minister of the Parish of St. Michael, to be by him published in the said Parish-Church the next Sunday, and so from thence to some other Parish, to be published the next Sunday after that; and so successively from Parish to Parish." (69) Individual acts often included a provision for their publication by the minister in church and sometimes for their annual repetition. (70) Worshippers heard the "Act for the governing of Negroes" read twice annually, with its provision that a master's murder of a slave incurred only a 15 [pounds sterling] fine. Twice a year, this also put on the lips of the minister or the clerk the assertion that Africans were "of a barbarous, wild, and savage nature." (71) Writs for elections were published in church, elections often being held in parish churches in the plantation world. (72) In Carolina, probate matters such as the appointment of administrators were announced in church. (73) Landowners in Barbados did well to be present in church when their portion of the parish tax was announced on three successive Sundays as required by legislation. (74) Jamaican horse-catchers had to give notice in the parish church the Sunday before they intended to mark any animals. (75) Surrounded by the trappings of divine authority, these Sunday announcements were imbued with a power beyond their mundane subject matter.

Some avoided that authority, preferring the opportunities for sociability and travel that Sunday afforded. Lawmakers in Barbados bemoaned that on Sundays "many lewd, loose, and idle persons, do usually resort to such Tipling-houses, who, by their drunkenness, swearing, and other miscarriages, do in a very high nature blaspheme the name of God, profane the Sabbath, and bring a great scandal upon true Christian religion." (76) Some in Jamaica made "the Sabath day ... the chief day for their drinking and pastime," others "driving like madmen in kitterines ... feasting, drinking, [and] gambling. It is possible that these recreations took place after church, like the traditional church ales and pastimes of many an English parish. (78) In Charles Town, "disorders in Punch-houses" were not uncommon on Sunday. (79) The Barbadian Sunday witnessed by Pere Labat in 1700 was a long morning's work for his ministerial host but was followed by dinner and "the pleasure of watching a revue of the cavalry and infantry of the country." (80) No matter their timing and moral status, these activities reveal all the same how the rhythm of the Christian week structured life even for the irreligious in the plantation colonies. Africans and their descendents made the most of the relative freedom of Sunday. When slave owners extracted regular work from slaves on Sunday, other whites took notice. In Carolina "in several Parts of the Country," masters erred "by laying Negroes under a Necessity of labouring on that Day, contrary to the Laws of God and Man," complained the grand jury in 1737. (81) Clergy complained about slaves working on Sunday in their own provision plots, an activity that was sometimes a necessity and sometimes part of slaves' limited arena of personal control. Francis Le Jau of Goose Creek in Carolina thought it a great sin that slaves "are suffered, some forced---to work upon Sundays, having no other means to subsist." (82) Neither would he have approved of James Laurens's paying some of his slaves 3 [pounds sterling] and four bottles of rum to build new indigo vats on "their Sunday." (83)