Archival Irruptions: Constructing Religion and Criminalizing Obeah in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica [Hardcover]

In 1760, following the largest slave revolt in the eighteenth-century British Empire, the Afro-Caribbean wordObeahfirst appeared in British colonial law. InArchival Irruptions, Katharine Gerbner traces how British authorities in Jamaica came to criminalize Obeah, a practice that was variously seen as a healing method, an Africana religion, a science, and a form of witchcraft. Gerbner shows that in the years directly preceding its criminalization, for enslaved Africans and Maroons, Obeah was a prophetic practice tied to healing and death rites. Drawing on Moravian missionary archives, Gerbner theorizes these descriptions of African religious beliefs, rituals, and concepts as “irruptions”: moments when Africana epistemologies break the narrative of a European-authored archival document. In these irruptions, we see European assertions of authority through the lens of Obeah. Moreover, we find that the modern category of religion is rooted in the histories of slavery, rebellion, and the criminalization of Black religious practices. Gerbner’s search for archival irruptions not only creates an opportunity to write an alternative narration about Obeah; it provides a new methodology for all those conducting archival research.USKatharine Gerbner traces how British colonial authorities in mid-eighteenth-century Jamaica came to criminalize Obeah, a religious practice held by enslaved Africans.Katharine Gerbner is Associate Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author ofChristian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World.“This vital story captures the spirit of colonial Christianity. Reading through the selective observations and strategies of racial suppression employed to silence Africana religion, Katharine Gerbner’s engrossing narrative reveals how Black ways of knowing left indelible marks on the archive of Atlantic slavery. More than anything el£½