Useful for the Baptizing of Natives in our Plantations: Prayer Book Revision and the Baptism of Indigenous Americans, 1584-1789
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Authors
Miller-Schulte, Sarah
Issue Date
2026-05
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
School of Theology Thesis 2026 , University of the South, Book of Common Prayer, Indigenous Americans, Church of England
Alternative Title
Abstract
In the long seventeenth century- at the same time as the Civil Wars, the abolition and restoration of both the monarchy and the episcopacy, and the revision and authorization of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer - English colonizers and missionaries were exploring and settling the east coast of North America, lands inhabited by people speaking Algonquian, Souian, Muskogean, and Iroquoian languages and constituting dozens of distinct tribes across what would eventually become the Virginia and Carolina colonies. Many scholars have examined the factors contributing to the revision of the baptismal rite of the Church of England in 1662 and of the Episcopal Church in 1789, and Nicholas M. Beasley and Rebecca Anne Goetz have addressed the cultural significance of baptism for Indigenous and Black persons in the colonies. The interplay between liturgical change and Indigenous mission, however, has been neglected: The English experience of the American Indian is one factor leading to the changed approach to godparentage in the 1789 Book of Common Prayer and to the changes in appropriate times and places for baptism in both 1662 and 1789. The cases of Manteo and the Roanoke, Pocahontas and the Powhatan, Prince George and the Yamasee and the struggles of later English missionaries provide context for the liturgical and theological changes taking place in this time of exploration and change.
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Citation
Publisher
University of the South