This book draws on the life of Presbyterian minister and diarist Archibald Simpson (1734-1795) to examine the history of evangelical Protestantism in South Carolina and the British Atlantic during the last half of the eighteenth century. Although he grew up in the evangelical heartland of Scotland in the wake of the great mid-century revivals, Simpson spurned revivalism and devoted himself instead to the grinding work of the parish ministry. At age nineteen he immigrated to South Carolina, where he spent the next eighteen years serving slaveholding Reformed congregations in the lowcountry plantation district. Here powerful planters held sway over slaves, families, churches, and communities, and Simpson was constantly embattled as he sought to impose an evangelical order on his parishes. In refusing to put the gospel in the pockets of planters who scorned it-and who were accustomed to controlling their parish churches-he earned their enmity. As a result, every relationship was freighted with deceit and danger, and every practice-sermons, funerals, baptisms, pastoral visits, death narratives, sickness, courtship, friendship, domestic concerns-was contested and politicized. In this context, the cause of the gospel made little headway in Simpson's corner of the world. Despite the great midcentury revivals, the steady stream of religious dissenters who poured into the province, and all the noise they made about slave conversions, Simpson's story suggests that there was no evangelical movement in colonial South Carolina, just a tired and frustrating evangelical slog.

The South Carolina Diary of Reverend Archibald Simpson, edited by Peter N. Moore, is a two-volume annotated edition of selections from the journals of a noted eighteenth-century lowcountry Presbyterian pastor and planter. Simpson's manuscript journals, consisting of approximately two thousand eight hundred pages of text, span from youthful entries in 1748 until 1784, and chronicle the religious, social, and cultural milieu of Scotland and colonial America during the revolutionary era. Preserved since 1854 by the Charleston Library Society, Simpson's firsthand accounts, augmented here with Moore's introduction and annotations, offer an insider's vantage point on this transformative period in colonial southern history. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, around 1734, Simpson appeared in South Carolina in 1754 and was a Presbyterian pastor in the lowcountry for almost two decades before returning to Great Britain in 1772. A meticulous and detailed writer, Simpson filled his journals with geographical information, local history, and commentaries on his South Carolina community and its inhabitants. Part 2 comprises Simpson's journals from 1770 through 1784. In these diaries Simpson divulged his failed attempts to remarry in South Carolina after the death of his wife, his family concerns and strife, and his continued ministerial work in the South Carolina lowcountry and his immediate community. Also included are Simpson's firsthand accounts after he returned to South Carolina in 1783 and wrote in-depth descriptions of the ravages of the war and of the chaotic conditions in a postwar society.

The South Carolina Diary of Reverend Archibald Simpson, edited by Peter N. Moore, is a two-volume annotated edition of selections from the journals of a noted eighteenth-century lowcountry Presbyterian pastor and planter. Simpson's manuscript journals, consisting of approximately two thousand eight hundred pages of text, span from youthful entries in 1748 until 1784, and chronicle the religious, social, and cultural milieu of Scotland and colonial America during the revolutionary era. Preserved since 1854 by the Charleston Library Society, Simpson's firsthand accounts, augmented here with Moore's introduction and annotations, offer an insider's vantage point on this transformative period in colonial southern history. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, around 1734, Simpson appeared in South Carolina in 1754 and was a Presbyterian pastor in the lowcountry for almost two decades before returning to Great Britain in 1772. A meticulous and detailed writer, Simpson filled his journals with geographical information, local history, and commentaries on his South Carolina community and its inhabitants. Part 1 includes selections from Simpson's journals from 1754 through 1770. Moore's introduction provides an account of Simpson's experiences in colonial South Carolina, religious meditations, and observations on his personal spiritual failings and local evangelical pastors. Simpson also remarked on larger issues of the colonial period, including the revolutionary sentiment in America and the imperial crisis of Great Britain.