Seminar at the McNeil Center: Shakers and the Shawnee Prophet: Making & Breaking Religious Communities on the Early American Frontier

Speaker Douglas Winarski is professor of religious studies and American studies at the University of Richmond.   ouglas will discuss his current book project, Shakers & the Shawnee Prophet: Making and Breaking Religious Communities on the Early American Frontier. Written for a broad audience of students, scholars, and general readers, this braided microhistory examines the local dynamics of religious violence in the Ohio Valley during the decade following the Great Revival (1800–1805), a powerful religious stir among Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians that heralded the emergence of the southern Bible Belt. I chronicle two groups of religious outsiders—members of the celibate religious sect known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers; and the followers of the militant Shawnee Prophet, Laloeshiga, better known as Tenskwatawa—as they briefly discovered common ground and mutual respect within the racially charged and frequently violent crucible of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. I anticipate that Shakers & the Shawnee Prophet will resonate with readers attuned to the politics of religious difference and the troubling connections between religion, race, and violence. This gripping story of religious exchange and settler violence will deepen our understanding of the origins of the Bible Belt, complicate recent work on settler colonialism and the racialization of the early American republic and, perhaps, inspire readers seeking a way forward through the religious and political maelstrom of our own times.