Religion is central to Caribbean life and culture. This welcome study examines the development, emancipation and transformation of diverse Caribbean religious traditions and constitutes the first comprehensive one-volume religious history of the Caribbean to be published in over 25 years. Edmonds and Gonzalez correctly point out that the Caribbean has been – and continues to be – a ‘microcosm of global religions’ (p. 203). The authors successfully capture the diversity of Caribbean religious expressions (aboriginal, European, African and Asian) and give ample attention to the interplay of these traditions. Caribbean Religious History supersedes Dale A. Bisnauth's ambitious A History of Religions in the Caribbean (1980) and covers considerably more ground than Nathaniel Samuel Murrell's Afro-Caribbean Religions (2010). Murrell's book, as its title implies, focuses on Afro-creole religions and does not include chapters on the interplay between aboriginal, European and Asian faiths.
Chapter 2 addresses native religions of the circum-Caribbean, with special attention given to the Taíno of the Greater Antilles, the Ciboney of Hispaniola and Cuba, and the island Caribs of the Lesser Antilles. Edmonds and Gonzalez skilfully incorporate recent archaeological findings that had previously been unavailable to researchers, such as the works of Samuel Wilson, William F. Keegan and José R. Oliver. Chapter 3 offers a survey of the role of the Catholic Church in the Caribbean, while chapter 4 examines the inroads made by Protestantism. In chapter 4, Edmonds and Gonzalez document the growth of European missionary churches as well as the challenges these churches posed to the Catholic Church's religious monopoly on the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Co-author Michelle A. Gonzalez is a specialist in Cuban religions who has previously authored Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture, and Identity (2006), and the fruits of her earlier research are very much evident in chapters 3, 4 and 5.
Chapter 5 highlights creole and African-based religions, focusing on forms of African/Roman Catholic syncretisms in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico as well as on palo monte and santería in Cuba. Caribbean Religious History is the first general history of Caribbean religions to give full coverage to Congo-based religions like palo monte. Inspired by the research of historian John K. Thornton, Edmonds and Gonzalez emphasise Christianity's long-standing presence in Central Africa. Many Africans, the authors point out, converted to Christianity while still in Africa, decades before Africans were transported as slaves to the Americas.
Chapter 6 examines the merger of African religions and European Protestantism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with attention given to newer religions like Myal and Revival Zion in Jamaica and the Spiritual Baptists in Grenada, St. Vincent and Trinidad. This chapter contains an excellent discussion of Spiritual Baptist origins. While underscoring the complex and ever-changing affiliations between Spiritual Baptist churches and Orisa (Sango) centres in Trinidad, the authors fail to underscore the extent to which Spiritual Baptist and Orisa believers maintain high degrees of ritual and spatial separation. As Stephen D. Glazier noted in Marchin' the Pilgrims Home (1991), Spiritual Baptist rituals and Orisa rituals have always been kept separate.
In Chapter 7, the authors examine the changing roles of post-emancipation churches in the twentieth century. According to Edmonds and Gonzalez, one of the most significant developments has been the phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism, which, they convincingly contend, has influenced all other religions in the region. The authors distinguish ‘mainline’, European-based churches (primarily serving the needs of island elites) and ‘clap-hand’ churches (primarily serving the needs of the lower classes). This distinction remains useful for the analysis of Caribbean religions, but many Pentecostal groups do not fit within either category. Pentecostal churches seem to attract both elites and the poor.
Chapter 8 highlights the introduction of Hinduism in the mid-nineteenth century and the advent of Jamaican Rastafari in the 1930s. The treatment of Rastafari is outstanding. Ennis B. Edmonds draws extensively from his earlier study, Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers (2003). His clear exposition of the history of Rastafari gives careful attention to the movement's turbulent beginnings, its competing founders, decades of struggle with the Jamaican political establishment, and schisms and offshoots within the movement. Chapter 8 is unquestionably the most well-referenced chapter of the book.
A concluding chapter touches on a wide variety of topics, including theological education in the Caribbean, inter-church relations, art, music, changing gender roles and the rise of ‘new religious movements’ such as Seventh-Day Adventism in Martinique and Mother Earth in Trinidad. Discussions of the ‘new religions’ are not up-to-date, however; Adventism, for example, is now well established in Martinique, and Trinidad's Mother Earth movement is largely defunct. None of these religions are covered in depth, but it is good that they are mentioned.
Caribbean Religious History is a meticulously researched, highly accessible volume that will prove invaluable for researchers specialising in Caribbean religions. The book is well organised, and Edmonds and Gonzalez provide ample documentation and a useful bibliography. In addition, Caribbean Religious History will serve as a valuable resource for students and general readers interested in Caribbean religions of the past, Caribbean religions of the present, and perhaps the future of Caribbean religions as well. Highly recommended.
