{"title":"\"I dreamt that the world was on fire\": Boston King's Memoirs, Visionary Discourse, and Colonial Salvation","authors":"Joe Lockard","doi":"10.1353/afa.2023.a920496","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p><i>Memoirs of Boston King, a Black Preacher</i> appeared in serial form in <i>The Methodist Magazine</i> between March and June 1798. King escaped slavery in South Carolina, joined the British army to fight in the Revolutionary War, eventually resettled in Nova Scotia, and emigrated to Sierra Leone. This essay argues that readings of King’s <i>Memoirs</i> solely as a historical document are inadequate. The essay first summarizes King’s biography and contextualizes it within early Methodist history; a second section reads epiphanic visionary moments in King’s narrative; and a third section considers how colonial and white supremacist thought in the early Methodist church employed King’s narrative as a conversionary instrument.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":44779,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/afa.2023.a920496","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, AMERICAN","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:
Memoirs of Boston King, a Black Preacher appeared in serial form in The Methodist Magazine between March and June 1798. King escaped slavery in South Carolina, joined the British army to fight in the Revolutionary War, eventually resettled in Nova Scotia, and emigrated to Sierra Leone. This essay argues that readings of King’s Memoirs solely as a historical document are inadequate. The essay first summarizes King’s biography and contextualizes it within early Methodist history; a second section reads epiphanic visionary moments in King’s narrative; and a third section considers how colonial and white supremacist thought in the early Methodist church employed King’s narrative as a conversionary instrument.
期刊介绍:
As the official publication of the Division on Black American Literature and Culture of the Modern Language Association, the quarterly journal African American Review promotes a lively exchange among writers and scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who hold diverse perspectives on African American literature and culture. Between 1967 and 1976, the journal appeared under the title Negro American Literature Forum and for the next fifteen years was titled Black American Literature Forum. In 1992, African American Review changed its name for a third time and expanded its mission to include the study of a broader array of cultural formations.