Review
Scholars will appreciate Sensbach's ability to successfully translate what is often understood as an 'American' story into the whole Atlantic world. This book is a rare gem, reminiscent of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale; Sensbach's detective work in piecing together spare Dutch and German sources to recreate Rebecca's life is astonishing. His prose is fluid and graceful, his mind is sharp and the story he tells is riveting. (Publishers Weekly 2005-01-17)
Jon Sensbach's Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World is a winning reminder of the grave inaccuracy of the assumption of slave religions' indiscernibility. Eminently readable, and aimed at a wider audience beyond the boundaries of academe, Rebecca's Revival recounts the story of an extraordinary mixed-race former slave, neither illiterate nor invisible. (Jonathon Kahn Books & Culture 2005-05-01)
[A] most fascinating book. (Paul Peucker The Moravian 2005-06-01)
There have been many recent books on slaves and slavery, nonfictional and fictional, but for an account of the remarkable life of a freed-slave-turned-evangelist, it would be hard to beat Jon F. Sensbach's Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. Working from documents in the German, Danish and West Indian archives, plus a German missionary's book about Protestant missions in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) published in 1777, Mr. Sensbach has put together a fascinating story that goes well beyond the biography of one brave woman. (John M. and Priscilla S. Taylor Washington Times 2005-06-26)
Jon F. Sensbach's work is a detailed account of an extraordinary black woman, known as Rebecca, whose life experiences took her from the West Indies to Europe and finally to Africa...Sensbach's book, written in a way that is clear and uncluttered, is a microhistorical study of exceptionalism. Rebecca not only is an addition to the gallery of strong black women but also lays claim to being one of the most devoted and committed of eighteenth-century evangelists...The book should be a must-read for anyone interested in women's history and also for those who study the African diaspora. (Carol V.R. George Journal of American History)
This book is an excellent microhistory of a West Indian-born Mulatto slave woman named Rebecca...Sensbach skillfully describes the places and events relevant to Rebecca's life and those of her Moravian co-workers throughout her odyssey, and with this illustrates the interconnectedness of Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe on a personal level...This is a good Atlantic study that sheds light on important old questions regarding the conversion of African and African American slaves to Christianity. (Aaron Spencer Fogelman New West Indian Guide)
Review
Rebecca's Revival is one of the most daring books ever published on New World slavery, a book of triumphant scholarship with a heart. Sensbach has constructed a unique biography of an enslaved convert to Christianity from startlingly detailed previously unknown sources. Sensbach's unforgettable portrait of Rebecca's circuits through Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe may be the most powerful account of African resilience in the face of New World slavery since Frederick Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom." (Jon Butler, author of Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776)
About the Author
Jon F. Sensbach is Associate Professor of History, University of Florida.
