Katharine Gerbner on the History of Obeah and Religious Freedom

In 1760, practicing Obeah became a crime in Jamaica — not because of its theology, but because of its power to fuel revolution. Centuries later, that law remains on the books. Associate Professor Katharine Gerbner’s recent book, “Archival Irruptions,” uses rare, untranslated German archives to reconstruct the history of this Afro-Caribbean religion before it was forced underground. From deciphering archaic handwriting to collaborating with global linguists, Gerbner explains how her work is recovering the voices, beliefs, and practices of 18th-century enslaved men and women. 

Tell us about your publication. What do we need to know?

“Archival Irruptions” tells the story of Obeah, an Afro-Caribbean religion that was banned in 1760 after the largest slave rebellion in the eighteenth-century British Empire. I explore the history of Obeah before it became a crime to show the impact of slavery on modern definitions of religion.

I argue that slavery fundamentally shaped modern ideas about religion and religious freedom. Colonial authorities persecuted practitioners of African diasporic religions, systematically defining them as rebellious threats to colonial order. This has had a long-lasting effect, and Obeah remains a crime today in Jamaica. Ultimately, I show that we cannot fully understand religious freedom — or religion itself — without examining the history and legacy of slave rebellion and the criminalization of anti-slavery religious practices.

How did you become interested in your topic? How does it connect to your broader interests?

When I was doing research for my first book, “Christian Slavery,” I found a document about Obeah from 1755 that no historian had discovered. It was located in an archive in eastern Germany belonging to the Moravian Church, a small Protestant denomination. Reading through these documents, it became clear to me that Afro-Caribbeans considered Moravian Christianity to be comparable to Obeah. Since most historical evidence about Obeah was produced after it was criminalized, I knew these documents offered an opportunity to tell a new story about Obeah.

The Moravian records, including the letter about Obeah, are written mostly in an archaic form of handwritten German called Sütterlin, so most historians can’t read them — even if they are fluent in German. I am one of a handful of scholars studying the history of religion and slavery who can read and translate Sütterlin script. While the technical challenges of Sütterlin are considerable, the content of the Moravian documents is astounding. The Moravians wrote some of the most detailed descriptions of enslaved and free Black life in the colonial period. Most significantly, the letters written by enslaved and free Africans form part of a significant and largely unknown collection of eighteenth-century texts written by African-descended people in the Americas. 

These documents have the potential to reshape the way historians understand life in early America and the Caribbean, and I hope that my research will bring much-needed attention to these rich sources.

What question is at the heart of this project?

“Archival Irruptions” is not just about Obeah: it’s about how to do historical research. The problem of the archive — what is recorded and what is not — is a perennial challenge for historians. Most surviving sources from the eighteenth-century Caribbean are written by enslavers or missionaries — not by people of African descent. We have to be very careful that we don’t take these sources at face value or reiterate the power dynamics of slavery and colonization.

Historians have come up with different strategies that allow us to glimpse different perspectives. The method I developed is focused on "irruptions": moments or words that don’t fit into the narrative of the document. I interpret these as ruptures that offer a window into an alternative story. I call my method “reading for irruptions,” which is like reading “against the grain,” but with more of an emphasis on dissonance.

My hope is that the book offers insight not only into Obeah, but also into the problem of the archive — and that it shows how historians can use different types of reading practices and interpretive strategies to use these archival documents to tell better, more representative histories.

What are the biggest takeaways from this project?

The history of Obeah forces us to reconsider the meaning of religion and freedom. Religious freedom is a core democratic ideal, but many religions have been criminalized for unjust reasons, and these traditions are not protected by religious freedom law. Obeah was deemed a crime because it was used to fight against slavery. While slavery is no longer legal, Obeah is still illegal in Jamaica.

What this history shows is that definitions of religion are often political, rather than theological, and the impact of this history remains with us today. We cannot understand religion — or religious freedom — without acknowledging that many religions, especially those that were used to fight slavery and colonization, were criminalized and, in some cases, remain illegal.

What's next for you? Any exciting upcoming endeavors?

Yes! In the Moravian records for St. Thomas, there is a letter written by a formerly enslaved African woman named Damma who wrote to the Queen of Denmark in 1739. In her letter, Damma protested the treatment of Black Christians and described her spiritual journey from West Africa to the Caribbean. The letter is written in both Dutch Creole and Damma’s native West African language of Gbe.

When I started my research, no one had been able to translate the Gbe portion of Damma’s letter. So I recruited an interdisciplinary team of linguists and historians and we have been working through Damma’s words together. Aside from myself, our team is made up of three West African linguists, a Dutch Creole and German linguist, and a Danish historian. I reference the letter in Archival Irruptions, but we are working on a digital project about it called Adga Tome (Damma’s Gbe term for her homeland in Africa) that will launch later this year.