George Whitefield Religion And Slavery

The slave owners would “fetch the niggers in and have prayers” (51), forcing them to become Christians whilst ignoring their own Christian maxim, ‘God created all men equal’ by treating their slaves as lesser beings. Twain also shows us the futility of society’s fanatic attempt to convert everyone to Christianity. This is brought to our attention comically with Jim’s view of King Solomon. Jim has been taught “…bout dat chile dat

his side helps secure the notion that the possibility of a future could be sought and

George Whitefield was a great preacher and religious leader in the Great Awakening. Everyone in the colonies loved to hear him preach of love and forgiveness because he had a different style of preaching. This led to new missionary work in the colonies in converting Indians and Africans to Christianity. Religious leaders were alarmed by Whitefield appearance because he was young

Economically, a large amount of money was spent on building new churches and financial aid was given to ministers. Massachusetts was the first colony to tax residents to support the Congressionalist Church. Also, during the Great Awakening, churches were making attempts to return those individuals who roamed away from the church. The Great Awakening was a revival caused by Jonathon Edwards during the enlightenment time period. The purpose of this revival was to inspire communities to become more religiously involved as pastors were feeling distant from god because of the lack of interest in religion at the time. The Great Awakening undermined the Old Clergy and increased both the number and competiveness of churches. Thousands of books were published and sold to bring the churches profit and therefore allowed more money to aid in the churches construction. Socially, religion brought people together. People of the same religion often worked better together which resulted in a stronger and closer community. Schools were developed for children to learn to read the bible and to teach young men leadership. In the New England region, dominance was shown with an impressive number of graduates, greatly excelling the southern colonies. Religion was so vital to these early colonists that it greatly affected social development, schooling, and even various basic rights we take for granted today. In Colonial America, one must have been a member

It is from this statement that one lesson can be drawn which is that Christianity somehow had a devastating influence on slavery.

The Great Awakening also played a role in government and society. The Great Awakening was based on a wave of rivals that were an attempt to keep churches and religion from dying in an era that believed that nature held more answers that the Bible. The Great Awakening allowed for ministers like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards to share their ideas about God’s vengeful supremacy and for the first time sermons were being aimed at colonist’s hearts, instead of their heads. These revivals awakened and refreshed the colonists, allowing them to forget the anxiety and uncertainty that they had about America at the time, as well as Great Britain affect on their new home. The sermons communicated the message that every soul in fact was important to God, as well as that both men and women had to choose to be saved, making religion a very personal experience that once was very generalized.

This leads to a major issue within the slave community. Slaves possess little knowledge of life outside the plantation or house in which they are working at. This means they have no idea how humans are supposed to be treated, and rather that a “god” would never allow for another to be beaten in such severity. This is an advantage that the slave owners held over the actual slaves. If the slaves were to gain an understanding of the world around them, the “religious” quotes recited by slave owners would quickly lose their worth and soon mean nothing as well as hold no influence over the slaves. Frederick Douglas was fortunate enough to understand this, and even addressed the issue in his life story, “What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference- so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked(71).” Douglas understands that the Christianity practiced by the slave owners was far different from the Christianity intended by Jesus Christ. As Douglas referred to it, the “Slaveholding religion” was prominent throughout the slavery era, not only was this damaging for the slaves,

1647 to 1776 was a time of growth in America, during this time colonist emigrated from Europe to America for several reasons, such as the hope to find relief from the war and rebellion occupying Europe, the chance to find bigger farms to make money, and most of all the chance to have religious freedom (“The Thirteen American Colonies” n.d.). Religious freedom was a very important part of the colonists’ lives and culture. According to “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic”, between 1700 and 1740, an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population attended churches, which were being built at a headlong pace.

The person that I researched for my legacy of slavery project was John W. Fields. John W. Fields was a young child living in Owensburg Kentucky. When he was six years old, he got separated from his family because his master had died and needed to pay off his estate. He had eleven other sisters and brothers who got divided and went to their new masters. He was sorrowful for the longest time after he got separated. His life after that was he would wake up very early and work until nightfall. When his master's estate had finally been paid he was transferred to a different mistress.

In the seventeenth century, religious persecution ran rampant throughout Europe. In attempt to escape the oppression, many fled to less critical countries and territories. One of the popular refuges was colonial America. Settling in the north, these religious refugees made up a majority in the New England population, endeavoring to use it to form their Ideal society. They could use the new land to implement a new civilization reflective of their beliefs.

“It should not be possible to treat a slave with Christian fairness and instruct him in the Christian faith as a just substitute for his pagan practices, without mollifying the relationship between master and slave. It has to be. Otherwise Christianity would not be able to spread. Otherwise the African would be deemed our equal simply because he shared out faith in one God and the Afterlife. We both know of the above to be false because of the evidence of how Africans live in their Primitive Land.” (p.111)

However, when Washington finally did return home in December, he found himself in such great debt that even noble experiments like the one that Lafayette had proposed, had to took a back seat to getting Washington's financial situation in order.

Christianity provided African American slaves with hope, because although they were suffering as merely human instruments of work, God was watching them and all of theirs suffering would be rewarded by him. “Slavery, with all its

During the 1730s and 1740s, something remembered as the Great Awakening happened. The Great Awakening was the first big movement in the colonies.The Great Awakening was the Awakening of religion which suddenly became popular. During the Great Awakening, a man named George Whitefield was one of the people that drew people's attention to religion. Whitefield preached and reached out to people. He also made Church fun and intriguing. According to Document A (Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography), George Whitefield was popular because everyone could hear, understand, and enjoy his sermons. Also, people came from far away to hear Whitefield preach. Nathan Cole says that Whitefield looks almost angelic when he gave a sermon. George Whitefield made church

     Religion was a very important part of everyday life in colonial America. Sometimes people were not allowed to question what they were taught, and if they did so they were punished accordingly. Before 1700 some colonies had more religious freedom then others. While others colonies only allowed religious freedom to a select group, others allowed religious freedom to all different kinds of religions. In the overall there was quite a bit of religious freedom in colonial America