The Moravian mission in Barbados 1816 - 1986

The prevailing feature of Barbadian society between 1816 and 1834 was slavery. After it was brought to an end by an act of the British Parliament, the ruling classes embarked on a policy of social containment. Those who ruled the island were essentially the local plantocracy and the British Colonial Office. The Moravian Mission in Barbados which began in 1765 was avowedly a mission to the blacks who had been conspicuously ignored as -Souls for the Lamb-. This study examines the attempt of the Moravian missionaries to improve the lot of the slaves and their descendants through religion and education, and explores to what extent their policy of eschewing conflict with the political authorities limited or aided their effectiveness in terms of changing the political and economic conditions of the blacks as a part of mission."