Mingo: Damma’s Son, Moravian Leader, and Scribe
Mingo: Damma’s Son, Moravian Leader, and Scribe
by Louise Sebro
Scholars who have studied Damma’s letter have long speculated about who physically wrote down her words. Most have assumed that Damma did not write them herself because in 1736, she stated that she was not literate. If Damma was not the scribe, who would have taken on the challenge of writing in the Gbe language? Could it be someone who had heard Gbe spoken regularly, or possibly even used the language themselves?
Several scholars, including Cefas van Rossem and Hein van der Voort, have suggested that the scribe may have been Domingo Gesoe, or Mingo, who was Damma’s son. When the missionary A.G. Spangenberg met Damma in 1736, he wrote in his diary that she was Mingo’s mother. Their relationship is also mentioned in a baptismal list of the members of the congregation contained in the Moravian archives in Bethlehem, although Damma and Mingo’s path into the Moravian church is never explicitly linked in the Moravian diaries and letters.
Mingo, like Damma, was an important member of the Moravian community. We know that he was literate, and several of his letters are preserved in the Danish National Archives. A comparison of these documents suggests that it is probable, though not definite, that they were written by the same person as the scribe of Damma’s letter.
While it is difficult to establish a definitive connection between Mingo and the first draft of Damma’s letter, there are reasons to believe that he was the scribe. As her son, Mingo was likely familiar with the Gbe language, and it is possible that Damma may have spoken to him in Gbe, rather than Dutch Creole. Moreover, Mingo was one of the signatories on the 1739 letter to King Christian VI (1699 (1730)-1746), which was written at the same time as Damma’s letter.
Finally, Mingo’s relationship with his mother may have played a role in Damma’s decision to write the letter, particularly if she felt she could trust her son with the transcription of Gbe into the Roman alphabetic system. This essay explores Mingo’s unusual life story by drawing on original research in the Moravian archives as well as the Danish National archives.
Mingo: Damma’s Son
Mingo first appears in the historical sources in 1732, when colonial authorities in St. Thomas wrote to the religious authorities in Copenhagen to obtain advice on how to handle an uncommon case: a white woman named Magdalena Kembeck had given birth to a son, fathered by Mingo. Magdalena herself named Mingo as the father, but they were not married. Under Danish law, sex outside of marriage was illegal and normally, extramarital sex would be punished by prison, corporal punishment, or exile. According to Danish law, these punishments would apply to both the man and the woman. The colonial government in St. Thomas, however, wanted to apply English or Dutch law to Mingo’s case. They hoped to punish Mingo more severely than Magdalena, and they proposed the death penalty for Mingo. Their desire to seek such an extreme punishment is a clear indication of their desire to prevent and punish interracial sex between a white woman and a Black man.
Theologians in Copenhagen, however, disagreed with their case to execute Mingo. They suggested that both parties should instead be punished by whipping. However, before any punishment could be applied, Mingo fled St. Thomas, presumably with the help of his enslaver, Johann Lorentz Carstens. Two years later, Carstens, who was then on his way back to St. Thomas from a visit to Copenhagen, sponsored Mingo’s baptism into the Dutch Evangelical congregation in St. Eustatius. The baptismal certificate can be found in Carstens’ private archive in the Danish National Archives. Carstens would later plead for Mingo’s pardon based on his value to Carstens as well as Mingo’s Christian status. We do not know whether Mingo was officially pardoned, but he did find his way back to the Danish West Indies, where he worked as an overseer, coachman and musician and remained the legal property of Johann Lorentz Carstens.
Spreading the Gospel
In 1734, Mingo met the Moravian missionaries in St. Croix. Shortly thereafter, Mingo returned to St. Thomas and joined the Moravian congregation. In 1738, Mingo was formally admitted as a member of the congregation, after which he started his work as a mission helper and a lay preacher. He quickly became famous for his sermons, and he often preached in the plantations where he worked for Carstens: Mosquito Bay, where Damma had lived, and Carstens’ North Side plantation called “The Pearl.”
Mingo’s work can be followed in the many diaries written by the missionaries, contained in the Moravian archives in Herrnhut. Eventually he became famous for his funeral sermons. C.G.A Oldendorp’s historical description of the day-to-day life in the Moravian congregation often mention how well Mingo spoke at funerals.
After joining the Moravian congregation, Mingo continued to work as an overseer for the Carstens family. He obtained tremendous privileges compared to other enslaved Afro-Caribbeans. For example, records from the Moravian archives in Herrnhut include a document written by Carstens stating that he had offered Mingo his freedom in 1734, and that Mingo refused to accept it. But apart from his legal status, Mingo lived his life much like a free man, residing in the Carstens’ family house in town, as we can see in the official tax records from the 1740’s, the so-called Landlister.
Mingo’s wife Johanna, also known as Ginni, was a creole (i.e., born in the Caribbean) of Mandingo descent, a detail that was recorded in different versions of the baptismal registers. Ginni had originally been enslaved to the van Beverhoudt family, and they had supported her baptism in the Catholic church. In 1740, she was accepted into the Moravian congregation. The couple had several children, though we do not know how many.
One of the most surprising facts about Mingo is that he is described as owning enslaved people himself. According to baptismal records in the Moravian archives in Bethlehem, Mingo even owned other enslaved members of the Moravian congregation. Mingo also purchased a plot of land in town for the missionaries. In many ways, Mingo inhabited a position between the worlds of Black and white, enslaved and free.
When the Carstens family moved to Denmark in 1739, Mingo traveled with them. The family departed shortly after the Moravian leader Count Zinzendorf and after a short stay in Amsterdam, they traveled to Copenhagen and also visited Zinzendorf in Herrnhag. The journey can be followed in Carstens private archive.
After about a year in Europe, Mingo traveled back to St. Thomas alone. He then took up work as a manager for the Carstens family, sending letters to Johann Lorentz in Copenhagen, along with sweets for his children and greetings from the enslaved Moravians in St. Thomas. When Carstens died in 1747, Mingo once again traveled to Denmark to help settle his West Indian business with Carstens’ widow, Jacoba.
When Mingo died in 1758, the missionaries wrote that more than 1,500 people participated in his funeral. There is no doubt that Mingo had a special and unusual position both within the congregation, and in the Danish West Indian community. He was one of the few Black people buried in the missionaries’ cemetery at the New Herrnhut Moravian church in St. Thomas, according to Oldendorp, though there is no surviving stone that witnesses his name.
Masthead image: Detail of Mingo’s signature from a 1742 letter, Courtesy of the Danish National Archives, 05261 – Castenschiold, no. 1, Korrespondance 1703-1748.
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