Álvares, Domingos

Sweet, James H.

doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.50670

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…James Sweet has demonstrated the centrality of Catholic brotherhoods in Brazilian social and cultural life. 61 Many of these societies excluded women, so Caries' refusal to admit women to his more exclusive meetings may actually have worked to increase participation among men in the enslaved community.…”

Section: Mediation and Mentorshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“They call me Obea”: German Moravian missionaries and Afro-Caribbean religion in Jamaica, 1754–1760

Gerbner

2015

Atlantic Studies

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They call me Obea" examines the role of obeah within the Moravian mission to Jamaica between 1754 and 1760. While much scholarship has focused on the significance of obeah in Tacky's Revolt of 1760 and later, there has been less attention paid to obeah before it became linked to rebellion and criminalized in British West Indian law. The Moravian missionary sources, a voluminous yet largely unexamined archive of letters, diaries, and account books written by Moravian missionaries and their enslaved and free converts, offer new insight into the significance of obeah in pre-1760 Jamaica. When Zacharias George Caries, the first Moravian missionary to be stationed in Jamaica, arrived in 1754, he was an outsider on many levels. A German Moravian who had toured with the evangelist John Cennick through the British Isles, Caries brought with him a radical vision of the New Birth and a commitment to converting enslaved Africans to Christianity. Three months after his arrival, the enslaved men and women at the Bogue estate began to call Caries "obea," a term that Caries defined as a "Seer, or one who is able to see things in the future." What did it mean for Caries to be called "obea," and how did his behavior contribute to the perception that he was an obeah man? I argue that Caries' identification as an obeah man demonstrates that obeah was not just an Afro-Caribbean practiceit was also the frame through which Afro-Caribbeans interpreted European religious and medical practices. Several scholars have argued persuasively that obeah conflicts with European methods of categorization that divide "religion" from "medicine" and "true religion" from "superstition." This article contends that in order to fully appreciate the role of obeah in mid-eighteenth-century Jamaica, scholars must view Christian practice and European natural history as being part of the Afro-Caribbean category of obeah.

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Section: Mediation and Mentorshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“They call me Obea”: German Moravian missionaries and Afro-Caribbean religion in Jamaica, 1754–1760

Gerbner

2015

Atlantic Studies

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“…Ultimately, Domingos Álvares demonstrates how Africa and Africans like Álvares were "at the very forefront of the incipient modern world." 25 Like Álvares, the many individuals that comprise Ferreira's "microhistory of the Atlantic world" inhabited a South Atlantic world in which Brazil and Angola, instead of being "separated by an ocean" constituted "one social and cultural continuum connected by an ocean." Moving across this continuumeffectively creating "their own ( geographic) spaces"the freed and enslaved Angolan men and women that populate Ferreira's book, whose occupations included seafaring, itinerant trade in the Angolan interior, priesthood, and political activism, illustrate cultural, economic, and political entanglements that demonstrate that "Brazilian history is an integral part of Angolan history, and vice-versa."…”

Section: (Recent) Waves Of Atlantic Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Compartmentalized Atlantics: A Case for Embracing the Atlantic from Spanish American Shores

Bassi

2014

History Compass

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Despite the recent surge of Atlantic histories that pursue connections across political boundaries, compartmentalized Atlantics still dominate the field's historiographical map. This paper presents some of the most recent efforts to construct Atlantic histories that cut across political borders and depict the entangled nature of lived experiences in the early modern Atlantic world. In particular, focusing on recent works that look at islands as loci of entanglement and studies that follow individuals as they crossed political borders, this article suggests that historians of Spanish America should embrace the Atlantic as a way to contribute to the production of an Atlantic history that more faithfully represents the lived experiences and collective imaginaries of Atlantic dwellers.

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Álvares, Domingos

Cited by 2 publications

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“They call me Obea”: German Moravian missionaries and Afro-Caribbean religion in Jamaica, 1754–1760

“They call me Obea”: German Moravian missionaries and Afro-Caribbean religion in Jamaica, 1754–1760

Beyond Compartmentalized Atlantics: A Case for Embracing the Atlantic from Spanish American Shores

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