Tell us about yourself and the book you selected.
I am the Program Design Manager for Research, Training, and Program Design. I also interpret Ann Wager, the white schoolmistress of the Williamsburg Bray School. I chose Travis Glasson’s Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World (2011).
Why is this book meaningful to you?
This book takes a deep and unflinching look at the relationship between the Church of England, slavery, and faith in the 18th-century Atlantic World. It also explores the colonial exchange between enslaved and enslavers in defining this relationship.
What is your favorite quote from or detail about this book?
“Try as they might, [Anglican] supporters could not stop enslaved people from interpreting the meaning and implications of conversion for themselves . . . Even when enslaved people did not overtly use their Christian status to claim freedom, baptism or participation in Christian education and ritual could enable the exercise of new forms of autonomy and authority within their communities” (p. 107).
Why should others read this book?
This book challenges both what we know about the past as well as how that knowledge intersects globally and locally. Virginia's colonial Capital did not exist in a vacuum—in order to understand the American Revolution, the motivations of those engaging in this revolution, and their resistance to English structures, we must understand those structures in the first place and their legacy within our American history.