Adapting, Coping, and Evolving: Slavery and Vodun

“Roll, Jordan, Roll”, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Had”, “Go Down, Moses”, and “Wade in the Water” are the titles of only a handful of what were called “Negro Spirituals”, which originated during the reign of slavery in the United States (Frey). Such spirituals used call-and-response, a method of communication that was popular with slaves who brought African traditions to America, and gave way to the gospel music and unique form of preaching characteristic to the Black Church. The history of the Black Church, which began during the slave era, demonstrates the way that African Americans found refuge in Christianity, where the church became the center for African American communities (Baer). Born out of struggle and oppression, the Black Church not only became the focus for the religious practices of African American communities, but also worked to “re-member” the community through rituals such as that of call-and-response, a core element of the Black Church which served as a powerful tool for the African American community in the fight for the exercise of true freedom in America.

idea that theology is not universal, but tied to specific historical contexts. In A Black Theology of

African slaves were brought to America from many tribes and they brought with them a variety of beliefs and practices. In some ways, the religion that many West Africans practiced bears a striking resemble to the practices of Christianity and Judaism. There are however several differences that make it clear that it is its own separate faith. On the plantations in America slaves were taught a “modify” version of Christianity so that they would obey their masters, and often times slaves would hold their own services. Other slaves believed in and practice what was called “conjuration” along with Christianity.

“Not only did slaves believe that they would be chosen by the Lord, there is evidence that many of them felt their owners would be denied salvation” (34). Levine claimed that the slaves uses their beliefs and religion as a “means of escape and opposition” because it gave them a “serious alternative to the societal system created by southern slaveholders” (54.)

Many people believe that Christians played a great role in abolishing slavery. However, Douglass’ ideas about religion and its connection to slavery shine a light on the dark side of Christianity. Douglass’ account of his own life is a very eloquent first hand retelling of the suffering and cruelty that many slaves were going through. His account gives a detail of the ills that were committed against the slaves. The atrocities committed by the various different masters varied in intensity depending on the masters’ individual personality (Glancy 42). This first hand narrative gives us a glimpse in to the connection between religion (Christianity) and slavery.

African firmly believes that there is a living communion or bond of life which makes for solidarity among members of the same family. Before Christianity, Africans did have their own system of salvation. In traditional religions, salvation can and does take the form of courage to face the reality of morality. The church was looked art as a place for political activity, a source of economic cooperation, an agency of social control, and a refuge in a hostile white world. Slaves worshiped with great enthusiasm. Religion, after all, provided a ready refuge from their daily miseries and kindled the hope that one day their sorrows might end. Planter's actually encouraged religious observances among their slaves hoping that exposure to Christian precepts might make their laborers more docile, less prone to run away, and more cooperative and efficient workers. But slaves turned biblical scriptures to their own purposes forging a theology that often emphasized the theme of liberation. It was easy for them to see, for example, in the figure of Moses a useful model for their own dreams; like the Israelites, they too were ready to cross a River Jordan into a promised land of freedom. The religious services held in the quarters provided slaves with so many positive experiences that, even as they were being exploited, they managed bravely, but perhaps not too surprisingly, to feel that they were free within themselves. In this way slaves began to achieve a degree of liberation well

The development of Black Theology in the United was one that shocked the nation as a whole. While in slavery, Blacks had to sneak and hold church services. This was partly because Whites felt that Blacks were not able to be accepted into heaven, and they believed that once one as a Christian they could no longer be enslaved. So to appease their conscience they would not allow Blacks to take part in theology. Due to these issues Black Theology soon originated within the United States.

For almost eight decades, enslaved African-Americans living in the Antebellum South, achieved their freedom in various ways—one being religion—before the demise of the institution of slavery. It was “freedom, rather than slavery, [that] proved the greatest force for conversion among African Americans in the South” (94). Starting with the Great Awakening and continuing long after the abolition of slavery, after decades of debate, scholars conceptualized the importance of religion for enslaved African-Americans as a means of escaping the brutalities of daily life. Overall, Christianity helped enslaved African American resist the degradation

One of the first things that attracted the African American slaves to Christianity was a way of obtaining the salvation of theirs souls based on the Christian’s idea of a future reward in heaven or punishment in hell, which did not exist in their primary religion. The religious principles inherited from Africa sought purely physical salvation and excluded the salvation of the soul. However, they did believe in one supreme God, which made it easier for them to assimilate Christianity.

The author starts out by describing the harsh situation slaves were put in and how the black experience in America is a history of servitude and resistance, of survival in the land of death. The spirituals are the historical songs which tell us what the slaves did to hold themselves together and to fight back against their oppressors. In both Africa and America, music was directly related to daily life and was an expression of the community’s view of the world and its existence in it. The central theological concept, which is the prime religious factor, in the black spirituals is the divine liberation of the oppressed from slavery. Further, the theological assumption of black slave religion as expressed in the spirituals was that slavery contradicts God, and therefore, God will liberate black people. This factor came from the fact that many blacks believed in Jesus, and therefore, believed that He could save them from the oppression of slavery because of his death and resurrection. The fact that the theme of divine liberation was present in the slave songs is supported by three main assertions: the biblical literalism of the blacks forced them to accept the white viewpoints that implied God’s approval of slavery, the black songs were derived from white meeting songs and reflected the "white" meaning of divine liberation as freeing one from sin (not slavery), and that the spirituals do not contain "clear references to the desire for freedom". The extent of

The African Methodist Episcopal Church also known as the AME Church, represents a long history of people going from struggles to success, from embarrassment to pride, from slaves to free. It is my intention to prove that the name African Methodist Episcopal represents equality and freedom to worship God, no matter what color skin a person was blessed to be born with. The thesis is this: While both Whites and Africans believed in the worship of God, whites believed in the oppression of the Africans’ freedom to serve God in their own way, blacks defended their own right to worship by the development of their own church. According to Andrew White, a well- known author for the AME denomination, “The word African means that our church was

While black power focuses on the political, social, and economic condition of black people, Black Theology sees black identity from a theological context. Much of black liberation theology’s foundation comes from God's deliverance of Israel from oppression under the Egyptians. According to James Cone, “the consistent theme in Israelite prophecy is Yahweh's concern for "the lack of social, economic, and political justice for those who are poor and unwanted in the society."# The dominate view of Black Liberation theologists is “God in action, delivering the oppressed because of His righteousness. He is to be seen, not in the transcendent way of Greek philosophy, but immanent, among His people." God is "immanent”” because he is present in many historical moments that focus on liberation of the poor. Its derives it beliefs from the fact that in the bible, God often enters human affairs and takes the side of the oppressed, that god is heavily worshipped where human beings experience humiliation and suffering. Because of these beliefs, blacks adopted a gospel relevant to the uplifting of blacks and ending black struggle under white oppression.# Black theology places both our past and present actions toward black liberation in a theological context, eliminating all false Gods and creating value structures according to the God of black freedom.

Through out the entire time period of slavery, religion remained a high priority and a way in which to label different social groups. The lack or complete non-existence of religion among Africans led to them being viewed as somewhat inferior. Later in the second chapter Jordan talks about how during the slave era religion distinguished whites from blacks. Also how classification changed once Africans began to enter the Christian church. He himself viewed this type of labeling somewhat ridiculous, in that many of the Africans were baptized before the came to the New World. Thus they in many circles would be identified as Christians. This important information helps show the reader how the justifications for slavery evolved. Jordan captures the utter and blatant hypocrisy that the colonies exuded with regards to the slave situation. Jordan also sees religious injustice within the treatment of Indians and Africans. The English made attempts to convert the Indians and had little desire or intention to do the same for Africans. This again shows to what lengths early Americans went in creating a subculture for the purpose of slavery.

Long before their contact with whites, Africans were a strongly religious, and deeply spiritual people. During the early history of slavery, the African American spirituality was often seen by whites as a pagan faith. These rituals and dogmas were seen by whites as Voodoo, Hoodoo, Witchcraft, and superstitions. They often commented on these "pagan practices," and fetishes, and were threatened by them. As a result, great effort was put on eradicating these practices, and many were lost within a generation.# Although tremendous efforts was placed on eradicating the “superstitious” religious beliefs of the African slaves, they were not immediately introduced to the religion of white slave masters, Christianity. Many planters resisted the idea of converting slaves to Christianity out of a fear that baptism would change a slave's legal status. The black population was generally untouched by Christianity until the religious revivals of the 1730s and 1740s. The Bible was manipulated to support the institution of slavery and its inhumane practices. Christianity was used to suppress and conform slaves. Slaveholders, priests, and those tied to the Church undermined the beliefs of the millions of African-Americans converts.# White Christianity was used to justify the enslavement of blacks. By the early nineteenth century, slaveholders had adopted the view that Christianity would make slaves more submissive and orderly.

James H. Cone’s God of the Oppressed is his examination of the origin, development, and significance of black theology as it relates to how he and the black Christian community view God. For Cone, in an America seemingly dominated by white theology and the white Christian community’s views of God, it is imperative to acknowledge and attentively listen to the voices of the theologies of other races and what God means to them, especially that of the black community. Cone asserts without hesitation that the God that is referred to in the Bible and black religion is a Deliver of those held captive by the bondage of oppression. Cone not only asserts this viewpoint of God as the Freer of oppressed people, but he validates this assertion through the use of Scripture, the black experience, history, and tradition. Overall, the central theme of this book is that a plethora of factors continually shape and construct a people’s theology and how that theology is significant in regards to how they see God, the world, and themselves.