Though the increasing influence of evangelical religion is often associated with participatory democracy, this thesis asserts that the rise of evangelicalism coincided with the establishment of planter hegemony. During the colonial period, many slaveowners in Chowan County North Carolina mixed civil and religious affairs in the Anglican Church. Slaveowners, however, felt threatened by parsons who attempted to preach to slaves. Former vestrymen and other slaveowners reluctantly accepted a popular movement for religious disestablishment they were unable to resist. The disestablishment of the Anglican Church had the effect of encouraging freer participation in religious fellowship, and slaveowners were even more fearful of the leveling impact of expanding participation in religious fellowship. By the 1830s, however, the slaveowning white men held a disproportionate amount of authority within evangelical and orthodox churches. As a result, evangelical and Episcopal churches increasingly embodied the refined tastes of a minority of residents in Chowan County.