A Common Grave

Being Catholic in English America

Susan Juster

• Publisher: Omohundro Institute and UNC Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781469686226
• eBook ISBN: 9781469686233
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Early American History

From Nevis to Newfoundland, Catholics were everywhere in English America. But often feared and distrusted, they hid in plain sight, deftly obscuring themselves from the Protestant authorities. Their strategies of concealment, deception, and misdirection frustrated colonial census takers, and their presence has likewise eluded historians of religion, who have portrayed Catholics as isolated dots in an otherwise vast Protestant expanse.

Pushing against this long-standing narrative, Susan Juster provides the first comprehensive look at the lived experience of Catholics—whether Irish, African, French, or English—in colonial America. She reveals a vibrant community that, although often forced to conceal itself, maintained a rich sacramental life saturated with traditional devotional objects and structured by familiar rituals. As Juster shows, the unique pressures of colonial existence forced Catholics to adapt and transform these religious practices. By following the faithful into their homes and private chapels as they married, christened infants, buried loved ones, and prayed for their souls, Juster uncovers a confluence of European, African, and Indigenous spiritual traditions produced by American colonialism.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• Overview
• Part One Finding Catholics in the Early English Atlantic: Introduction
• Chapter One “A Catholic Here and There”: Accounting for Catholics
• Chapter Two “Papists in Masquerade”: Religious Passing in English America
• Chapter Three “A Set of Beads and a Crucifix Make a Good Catholic”: Object Lessons
• Part Two Sacramental Politics: Introduction
• Chapter Four “Here Is Every Thing Which Can Lay Hold of the Eye, Ear, and Imagination”: Rituals of Life
• Chapter Five “They Make a Great Adoe at Their Burials”: Rituals of Death
• Conclusion
• Index