Rebecca Protten

Rebecca Protten was a slave and then freed woman of mixed white and African descent, who, while living on the island of St. Thomas during the 1730s became part of the movement to convert African slaves to Christianity. Sources are unclear as to the location or circumstances of Rebecca’s birth, but some note that she was originally kidnapped from Antigua. She was then sold to a planter on St. Thomas named Lucas van Beverhout, who put her to work in his house as a servant and taught her the Christianity of the Reformed Church. Shortly after the death of Lucas van Beverhout when she was twelve, the Beverhout family freed Rebecca. When missionaries from the Unity of the Brethren, often called the Moravian Brethren, arrived on St. Thomas in 1732, as part of the Church’s mission to convert the nations of the world to Christianity, Rebecca was a leader in converting African slaves, which was constantly challenged by planters fearful of a united slave revolt. However, in 1742, after only six years, Rebecca left St. Thomas with several Moravian missionaries, traveling to their home in Herrnhut, Saxony. There, she met and married Christian Protten in 1746, who was similarly noted for his mixed African descent. Protten, pursuing his life dream, journeyed to Christiansborg, a Danish fort on the Gold Coast, in an attempt to start a school but failed, returning six years later in 1762 to Herrnhut—the town founded by the first Moravian exiles and the headquarters of the movement, in which many of the Brethren lived. Protten and Rebecca returned together to Christiansborg in 1763, where they spent the rest of their lives teaching African school children. Rebecca Protten died in 1780.