August Gottlieb Spangenberg

1704-1792. Moravian missionary and church leader. Son of a Hanoverian court preacher, he first studied law and then theology and finally became a teacher in Halle. When he joined the Herrnhut* community in 1732, Zinzendorf* assigned him to conduct legal negotiations with various European colonial powers for permission to establish mission works abroad. He took personal charge of the Moravian group that settled in Georgia in 1735, and greeted and advised John Wesley who arrived there in February 1736. The next month, Spangenberg joined the Schwenkfelder colony in Pennsylvania as a simple farmer, and within a short time was preaching to the Indians. In 1744 he was placed in charge of the Moravian work in America and devoted himself intensely to Indian missions. Appointed Zinzendorf's successor in 1760, he returned to Herrnhut two years later and led the group until his death.