ABSTRACT
This excerpt is taken from the diary of David Zeisberger, a German Moravian missionary who moved to North America to establish a religious community and to bring his faith to the American Indian peoples. The Moravians were a Protestant sect, formed in central Germany, but with a wide reach due to their missionising efforts across the globe. They are marked, especially in the eighteenth century, by communal forms of living, devotion to the wounds of Christ, and practice of spiritual diary-keeping, that left a rich resource for historians (see also source 18 for some of their hymns). The passages given here reflect the tense political situation in, what is now, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during a period where British and French vied for power with each other, and local communities – the Wyan-dots, Delawares, and Shawanese. Allegiances could be short-lasting and anxious. The diary, translated into English in the late–nineteenth–century, provides insight into the everyday workings of the faith, where we see accounts of religious practice, community discipline, and the emotions such activities engendered, but it also highlights how these practices were underpinned by the underlying tensions produced by the political environment. Moravian relationships with the people they missionised are especially interesting, not least as they attempt to reconcile assumptions about natural white superiority with the physical resources and military power that Indian Christians brought to the Moravian community. If it is important to read this text as the work of a German missionary, and with reflection on how emotional languages are changed in translations, nonetheless it can provide useful insights into the emotions of ongoing community relationships during this period of conflict.
