1. John Marrant was an American Methodist preacher and missionary and one of the first black preachers in North America.
29 Facts About John Marrant
1. 2.
John Marrant's father died when he was young, and he and his mother lived in Florida and Georgia.
3.
John Marrant wrote a memoir about his life, published in 1785 in London as A Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a black; published were a 1789 sermon, and a journal in 1790 covering the previous five years of his life.
4.
John Marrant continued in school until the age of 11, learning to read and write.
5.
John Marrant frequently entertained the local gentry at balls and social gatherings.
6.
John Marrant experienced a dramatic conversion, falling to the floor in a faint or illness.
7.
John Marrant got better by studying the Bible, but his steadfastness to Biblical study was troubling to his family.
8.
John Marrant was found by a Cherokee hunter who knew his family but whom he persuaded not to take him back to town.
9.
John Marrant traveled and hunted with the Cherokee for more than two months to gather furs for trade.
10.
John Marrant lived with the Cherokee for two years during which he had visited with other tribes of the area, including Catawa, Housaw, and Creek people.
11.
John Marrant converted a number of Native Americans and is thought to have been an influence in creating lasting bonds between black and Cherokee people.
12.
John Marrant wore Native American style clothing made of animal skins.
13.
John Marrant had no pants, but wore a sash around his middle, and a long pendant that went down his back.
14.
John Marrant sought work on plantations as a free carpenter, and conducted missionary work with slaves until the start of the American Revolution.
15.
John Marrant described battles in his Narrative, but official records do not document him as having served with the Navy.
16.
John Marrant's brother sent him a letter asking for him to come to Nova Scotia.
17.
John Marrant worked for a clothing or cotton merchant in London after he was discharged from the Navy.
18.
John Marrant thus joined the ministry of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, which was a sect that practiced a combination of Calvinism and Methodism.
19.
John Marrant lived at Birchtown, Nova Scotia, the largest new black community, where he founded a Huntingdonian church.
20.
John Marrant served the black people in the Birchtown area and developed a strong Christian community there.
21.
John Marrant travelled throughout Nova Scotia to other towns where Black Loyalists settled, such as Jordan River and Cape Negro.
22.
John Marrant had difficulty among other churches, particularly other Methodist churches.
23.
John Marrant inspired the creation of Christian faith among black communities, including religious leaders Boston King, John Ball, and Moses Wilkinson, who were Methodists.
24.
John Marrant did not receive the monies he expected from the Countess for his missionary work in Nova Scotia and suffered a six-month bout of smallpox.
25.
John Marrant's struggle as a black Christian in an irreligious, white, slave-owning world that made little distinction between slaves and freeborn blacks was intended to inspire not just people of his own colour but his white readers as well.
26.
John Marrant traveled to London in 1789 or 1790, where the journal of the previous five years was published.
27.
John Marrant preached in chapels in London, including the Whitechapel area.
28.
John Marrant did not live a long life, but he influenced black people in the United States and Canada, including the Black Loyalists who settled in Sierra Leone in Africa in 1792.
29.
The Gospel of John Marrant: Conjuring Christianity in the Black Atlantic.