The Longest Memory

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

Whitechapel is the focal character of D’Aguiar’s novel, The Longest Memory however, the author has used a great many other characters whose stories also stand-alone. Why has D’Aguiar structured his novel in this way and how does it lead the reader to an understanding of the impacts of slavery?

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

In the article ‘Black People in a White People’s Country’ by Gary Nash, he explains how slavery gave Africans a low role in America’s society, and how because slavery was allowed in the New World, they were “Socially and legally defined as less than people...”. It wasn’t just the fact that they were enslaved that made people treat them horribly, but also where they came from. In the eyes of a European, Africans were very different,

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.)

The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass' own intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus my attention on how education allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass' view was very similar to that of the women in antebellum America, and the role that Christianity played in his life as a slave and then

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,

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.

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

Christianity was new to most slaves who had been abducted from their native country and taken to the Americas. Some were hesitant to abandon their old traditions for the Christ their white captors taught of, but after several generations of slavery, most black slaves had succumbed to relentless preaching. However, the Christianity that took hold within the slave community was often interpreted differently, conveying different messages to pockets of slave population. The use of Christianity in slavery was a double edged sword, creating not only a tool for control, but a weapon of discontent in slave communities. Examining the works of Richard Allen and the stories of Nat Turner, create a narrative of how Christianity was applied differently to slaves.

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.

Understanding the ways in which these Christians were racist is harder because the racist ideals perpetuated by this group are sown into the fabric of Christianity and also due to the strong contradictions that exist. In order to address and account for the contradictions it is important to understand how racism was fundamentally tied into Christianity, its general views on pagans/non-Christians, and proteslyzing. Christians, specifically those in support of the society, viewed “the absence of moral and even of decent manners” as “the effects, the necessary effects of Paganism.” That same quote was also presented earlier and it serves as an example of how racism brought these two groups together for part of the reason that blacks were immoral was due to their paganism. Despite seeming to be the more moral groups of supporters the Christians were also fundamentally racist because of their views of non-christians or what they would call pagans. To reinforce the notion that the Christians were not just supremacists in relation to their own religion, one needs to look no further than Reverend Finley who said the ACS “should send “to Africa a population partly civilized and christian-ized for its benefit.” The implications of this statement then bridges the gap between the racist notion that pagans were immoral, and why these Christians were motivated to support the ACS. For in this statement, Finley essentially argues that Africa needs to be civilized and part of that civilization was converting Africans into Christians. For in the eyes of Christians becoming Christian was a necessary condition of becoming civilized. Signficaintly, Finley was not alone in this idea that Africa needed civilizing as another author wrote that the blacks making up the colonizing force should be viewed as “God’s army

Human slavery is a phenomenon that has been present since the times of the Romans and the Greeks. As a common misconception, societies, especially America’s tend to believe that slavery was always black. Throughout a period of enslavement, human beings have again and again treated slavery and racial hierarchy as an act of the “norm” embedded in human behavior, which they use in order to make a clear distinction between them and us to justify such atrocious and immortal acts. With careful analysis of premature human enslavement, whiteness as beauty, “the west and the rest,” disparities between European ethnic groups, the study of anthropology, white slavery, linguistic movements, popular culture and different political institutions supported by America’s governing law, the creation of the white race is drawn. With emphasis on the role played by Irish and Black Americans, the support of structural forces and cultural practices taken from historical examples drawn from the literary works of Harris, Painter, Roediger and Katznelson, slavery misconceptions, the distinction between races, the formation of the white race and its benefits and the homogeneity between black and slavery become apparent.

Slavery as a practice has subsisted since the beginning of recorded human history, with evidence of the institution dating back to antiquity. What was particularly unique about the American Slavery system was that it was a system design to subjugate people based solely on darker skin colour. American slave-owners to justify the specific enslavement Negros used the idea of white “superiority” and African “Inferiority” for centuries. Eventually the concept of being a slave and being African were synonymous as the same thing. This raises a significant historical question; why did the connection between Africans and slavery emerge by the beginning of the 18th century? The following essay will explore how various historical, economic and cultural realities of the New World that fostered the racialization of American slavery to refer almost exclusively to African men and women.