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Religious Migration and Political Upheaval: German Moravians at Bethel in South Australia, 1851–1907
Author(s) -
Jensz Felicity
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2010.01558.x
Subject(s) - protestantism , politics , settlement (finance) , german , colonialism , order (exchange) , ethnic group , ethnology , history , political science , geography , ancient history , archaeology , law , finance , world wide web , computer science , economics , payment
During the evangelical awakening of eighteenth‐century Europe, numerous religious communities were founded in order to create a geographical space in which religious and social identities could be constructed, including several communities of the Moravian Church. This Protestant Episcopal Church was based in Germany, but expanded from the mid‐eighteenth century throughout the colonial world in response to political turmoil. This paper traces the establishment of the Moravian town of Bethel in South Australia and the role of religion and ethnic backgrounds in the identification processes of Europeans in the British colonial world. It further analyses the role of politics both locally and internationally in the formation of such a settlement, and the dynamic exchange between the European headquarters of the Brethren and the “colony” of Moravians in South Australia in order to demonstrate how interactions between migration and religion affected the European world.