' The Life Of John Thompson, A Fugitive Slave

Slave owners used Christianity as an excuse for the awful ways they treated their slaves. Christianity played a major role on the increase of brutality and violence that spirited the slave owners. The scriptures in the Bible were twisted in the eyes of slave owners to how they wanted to interpret them. Douglass had a powerful experience with one of his masters, Thomas Auld. Mr. Auld was not a religious person and treated the slaves very poorly. In August 1832, Auld attended a Methodist camp meeting and that marked the day when he became religious, and suddenly even more cruel. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” After becoming religious, Auld uses scripture to justify his cruelty. Douglass thought that with discovering religion and using it, Auld would become more polite as how Douglass viewed Christianity. Unfortunately that was not the case. Auld justifies that being affiliated with religion would not change a person for the better. Being a slave, Douglass found that slave owners found religious sanction for their cruelty. “He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.", was what a slave owner had said to justify why he beat

They were in suppression of truth and their education was their only haven as they would have to teach themselves. Slaves were controlled and enslaved in every aspect of their life but they responded with singing, lying by pretending they were happy, fighting back, running away, and magic. Slaveholders abused their power and used scripture of the Bible or their Christianity as an excuse for what they were doing and murder with repercussion. Slaves, overall, were completely stripped away of their

For religious purposes there was differentiation to African Americans going to church even if enslaved. African Americans had no rights according to whites, even if free. So, for them to go to church it was a big deal. For them to go to church there must have been a white pastor. He would preach and the people would listen. Enslaved African Americans were rare to go to church because of how they had to work on the farm or for the family after the people they work for came home from their church. Education war poor. They didn’t get to learn how to read. Free slaves could learn but it would not be as much as white students. The reasoning behind slaves not learning was their work on plantations and the owners would not pay for education for an African American. Now, some slaves could learn how to read and learn through

Their ability to read and write was denied by their slave owners in order hypnotize the slaves that they are meant to only work the fields. The slaves were expected to endure hard labor all day and remain unaware of the freedom around them from birth. Douglass states the setbacks he faced in trying to enhance his knowledge by writing, "...We were trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings" (89). The slaveholders would rather have the slaves be involved in inhumane activities than read the bible which was their own faith. The slaves were not only in captivity physically, but also mentally through the lack of knowledge learned because the only freedom they experienced was occasional revelry. As Douglass himself learned to read, he became aware of how he no longer had the mindset he once retained as a slave, which enabled him to recognize the injustices of the American government. Douglass’s insight was what the slave owners did not want to occur amongst their slaves because it would lead to a massive rebellion.

As a result of the white clergymen who did not preach the whole gospel? Slaves develop what became known as the invisible church which drew from the African traditions and revivalist forms of worship. “It ain’t enough to talk about God, you’ve got to feel him moving on the altar of your heart,” (45). Therefore, the slaves along with slave preachers instituted the invisible church. The slaves used hymns as coded language to announce prayer meeting. Also hymns were used to talk about plans of escape to the North. Similarly, the invisible church helped to organize the revolts of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner. Raboteau points out that the invisible church had a dual function in the religious life of the slaves. The invisible church was otherworldly in the sense that this world was not the end nor the final measure of a person’s existence. Likewise, the invisible church was this- worldly because it helped the slaves to experience their own personal value (59). Chapter four examined looking for emancipation and the limits of freedom. The invisible church became visible and education became one of the primary emphasis of the freedman and the church. During the reconstruction period of 1865- 1877, white churches organized some of the historically black colleges. A number of school and colleges were founded by black churches also. What looked like the promise land for the freed slaves soon turned

First and foremost slave’s were beaten for anything they did. If slave’s disrespecting the rules in any way that the owner

them to use the Bible to teach in service slaves be obedient to your masters as Christ; was

These slave owners would threatened them until they would say something and if they did not they would be wiped. People got whipped because they tried to run away and they would just get caught and taken back to the plantation to be beaten by their masters. These individuals were faced in many different situations where they were tortured with crazy, hurtful

During the 18th century, religious leaders started efforts to educate slaves in religious instruction. This instruction was given to the slaves to purify them of their sins. Whites viewed their practices as barbaric, so teaching them the correct method of worship would help the purify the world.

A great religious movement were many Americans converted to a more “egalitarian God”. This new religious view helped Americans with the upcoming American Revolution, but that’s a paper for another day. The revivalist preachers generally did not challenge slavery, however they did preach to everyone, regardless of race. The Methodists and the Baptists, in particular, welcomed converts from the black and white working population. Fearing the Christian message of spiritual equality, slave owners initially resisted evangelicals preaching to their slaves, but as the revival movement spread, a few even came to consider it their Christian duty to teach their slaves about the Bible. But generally in the beginning African American slaves didn’t really take to this new religion. But as time went on and a new generation of African American’s grew up on America’s soil accepting Christianity became a part of accepting America as a whole. As time went on Christianity grew on slaves more and more. They found the messages of spiritual equality and deliverance comforting. This is kind of a foundation of black hope which we find in literature, life, and politics even

In the Slave Culture “slaves never abandoned their desire for freedom or their determination to resist total white control over their lives” (Foner, 2012). The way they survived their grim days was by taking comfort in family, music, dance and religion. Many slave men and slave women would marry and name their children after family members, such as a grandmother, grandfather, uncle, aunt or cousin. Also there were strong religious beliefs amongst the slaves. Every Sunday they would attend church. “Usually the preacher was a “self-called” slave who possessed little or no formal education but whose rhetorical abilities and familiarity with the Bible made him one of the most respected members of the slave community” (Foner, 2012).

Whether they spent their day at hard labor or doing menial tasks, there was one thing the vast majority of slave children had in common – their lack of formal education. Fearing that literacy would prove a threat to the slave system, all the Southern slave states passed laws forbidding slaves to learn to read or write and making it a crime for others to teach them. Accordingly, the vast

Examination of the Slave Experience Most African Americans of the early to mid-nineteenth century experienced slavery on plantations similar to the experiences described by Frederick Douglass; the majority of slaves lived on units owned by planters who had twenty or more slaves. The planters and the white masters of these agrarian communities sought to ensure their personal safety and the profitability of their enterprises by using all the tactics-physical and psychological-at their command to make slaves obedient. Even Christianity was manipulated in a way that masters communicated to their slaves that God had commanded them to obey their masters. Hence, by word and deed whites tried to convince

Something that is pretty obvious throughout the movie is that the white people are in charge. They are the ones always giving orders and they always had full control over the slaves. They claimed the black people as their property without papers claiming you were free you could do nothing. If you were to see a dark-skinned man with a well-dressed white man you could tell who was the slave almost immediately. The slaves had to always have their heads down they were not allowed to give an opinion or even oppose to an order. This was certainly shown when Solomon is in the boat with the other slaves. There he is warned to basically not talk back unless he wanted to die. Dominance was of course further shown in scenes where they are beaten. One

By this stage, slave owners had begun to realise that the only way to control slaves was by using violence and threats. A new culture had been introduced: one of black inferiority and white superiority. Many white plantation owners used extreme violence to make their slaves work, as they had no other means with which to control them. They could not reward the slaves by decreasing their length of servitude; the slaves were used for life, and their monetary value was too great for the plantation owners to reprieve them. However, sometimes the violence became so extreme that the slaves died, which decreased the plantation's profit. This use of violence extended to rape of black women and children, mutilation and branding. Rape of slaves produced an inter-race community, although this was violently unstable due to the racial and social discrimination present at that time. The plantation masters branded their slaves so that if they escaped, they would have a mark to show they were fugitive slaves. Families were often split up, to weaken the individual's spirit, and thus their confidence and urge to rebel decreased. The slave owner's greatest fear was of the slaves rebelling, so this method of weakening their reserves of energy and will was found to be effective. The plantation