Planting a seed
PEART, DALEY, Reid-Foster and Barnett are all connected to the seed planted by Ulrich. The mission to follow the Lamb (of God) is emblazoned in keeping with the church’s emblem “Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur” (Our Lamb has conquered; let us follow Him).
“It all began with a black ex-slave named Anthony Ulrich from the Danish Virgin Islands. Von Zinzendorft, a very wealthy man, heard him talk about the abuse of black slaves in the West Indies. Ulrich told him it would be good if missionaries came to the West Indies to help the slaves, in spite of their shackles,” Peart began with flawless diction and composure.
Her mesmerising elocution continued as she tracked the history of the seed planted in the mind and heart of the baby born in 1700 in frigid Austrian ice, but fed food of resistance theology. That resistance found its way thousands of miles away to tropical and verdant Jamaica at Rowe’s Corner in Manchester (also called Somerset), which is soon to be declared a national heritage site.
HARSH TREATMENT
Young von Zinzendorft was troubled by the harsh treatment of dissidents to Catholicism in Europe, leading many to flee to protestant areas of Germany. Raised by his grandmother, expectedly, he followed his father into government by age 21. A year later, he bought his grandmother’s estate and established a Christian community, and fate and faith brought him face to face with a Moravian named David, who became his first tenant. David was followed by 10 others, who founded a settlement on the Count’s lands and in 1726 the number increased to 300.
While visiting Copenhagen in 1731 for the coronation of King Christian VI, von Zinzendorft met Anthony Ulrich, who was described as a converted slave from the West Indies. Ulrich sought missionaries for the region because he wanted his brother and sister already there to be taught the gospel.
Johann Leonhard Dober and David Nitschmann immediately volunteered for the mission, with the backing of von Zinzendorft, and a year later, a potter and a carpenter headed to what is now St Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Their voyage to the region was not long, as
one returned within weeks and the other after two years.
Others came, criss-crossing continents often in calamitous voyages to the New World with unfamiliar biting insects eagerly providing a guard of honour on arrival. Many died after arriving in Jamaica in 1754, in Black River.
Like the Spanish and English before them, they, too, captured thousands of acreage of Jamaica’s picturesque lands. But John Amos Comenius’ philosophy that humanity was all of one blood was the fulcrum of their desire to teach slaves to read, using the Bible. In 1804, formal pioneering work began at Fairfield, a property house bought and transformed into a chapel and schoolhouse.
But the hot, swampy conditions of Black River and the mosquitoes were merciless on their bodies. They fought back by building churches on hills where it was deemed cooler. Only Trinity Moravian in Kingston was not built on a hill.
Much of Lititz was used as a cattle farm, as well as Comma Pen, but Mandeville and Malvern grew coffee.