Early Methodism in the Caribbean: Through the Imaginary Optics of Gilbert's Slave Women—Another Reading

Abstract

The names of Methodist churches in Antigua, memorials to Gilbert, Baxter and Barrett, are interesting for what it neglects of the history of early Methodism in Antigua. A closer scrutiny of one of the walls of the oldest Methodist Church in Antigua and the Caribbean will reveal the names of two enslaved Black women whose hard toil and faith was crucial to the growth of a Methodist society. This paper highlights the problematic representation of early Methodist history in Antigua and attempts to give voice to the baptized slaves of Nathaniel Gilbert in the growth of early Methodism while Gilbert was alive and just after his death (1774-78). By means of a combination of history, reasonable conjectures and fiction, I will note the incomplete nature of the present history of early Methodism in the Caribbean, raise questions about the contradictions in the present narrative as told by Caribbean Methodists and historians, and attempt to give one of these early converts an opportunity to insert her story in that narrative.