ABSTRACT

In the archives of the Bible Society at Cambridge University Library, there are two New Testaments presented to black Antiguan Christians in the 1830s as part of a commemoration project following formal emancipation of enslaved people on 1 August 1834. They were marked as a gift by the Society, with a cover stamp and presentation label. After several decades of handling, they were given back to Bible Society representatives. This essay weighs the meaning of each act of giving, reading the evidence of the material text alongside the Bible Society’s documentation, scholarship in the history of emancipation, and writing on gift theory, primarily by Pierre Bourdieu. The Society’s project was an act of distraction or self-deception: abolitionists and missionaries were glad to think of themselves as generous benefactors. However, their idea of the gift, imposed from above like an impression on a leather cover, could not dictate the volumes’ whole history. Marks in each volume show how their readers put them to use in their own way. The return gift can be read as an expression of agency, inserting the religious and reading experiences of a community into the Bible Society’s archives.

摘要

在剑桥大学图书馆圣经公会的档案中，有两本新约在 1830 年代赠送给黑人安提瓜基督徒，作为 1834 年 8 月 1 日被奴役者正式解放后的纪念项目的一部分。它们被标记为礼物社会，带有封面印章和展示标签。经过几十年的处理，它们被归还给圣经公会的代表。这篇文章权衡了每一种捐赠行为的意义，阅读了圣经公会文件旁的材料文本证据，解放历史的学术研究，以及主要由 Pierre Bourdieu 撰写的关于礼物理论的著作。该协会的项目是一种分散注意力或自欺欺人的行为：废奴主义者和传教士乐于将自己视为慷慨的恩人。然而，他们对礼物的想法，像皮革封面上的印记一样从上面施加的，无法决定这些卷的整个历史。每卷中的标记显示了读者如何以自己的方式使用它们。回礼可以被解读为一种能动性的表达，将一个社区的宗教和阅读经验插入圣经公会的档案中。