Montserrat and Methodism: Slavery, abolition and resistance

Project title:

Montserrat and Methodism: Slavery, abolition and resistance

“This project uses archival research…to examine the influence of Methodism on the British Overseas Territory, Montserrat.”

Researcher:

Project proposal:

This project uses archival research – predominantly in the (Wesleyan) Methodist Missionary Society Archive (MMS) at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) library – to examine the influence of Methodism on the British Overseas Territory Montserrat. It will develop a research database, and hold a sustainable exhibition jointly displayed at the University of Roehampton and at the Montserrat National Trust from 17^th March 2018 for 6 weeks to commemorate 250 years of Methodism on Montserrat starting with the St Patrick’s Day failed slave uprising on 17^th March 1768. The exhibition will include Methodist mission work on Montserrat on abolition, emancipation, and post-plantation socio-political and economic upheavals in the nineteenth century; and Methodist support work as islanders faced multiple natural disasters (hurricane, earthquake and ongoing volcano crisis) in the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first. The project will also include a database reviewing archival resources for future scholarship on the history of struggle, resistance and religious influence on the island. 

Themes: