The Religion Of African Slaves

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

“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.)

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

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

“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)

Other goods, including guns were also sold to the African dealers, which facilitated their obtaining more slaves. The shipment of the African slaves were brought from Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Windward Coast, Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin. They belonged to several tribes and several language groups along some coast of Africa. A typical idea believed by the English planters was that the African slaves did not hold to a system of beliefs that could be seen as a religion. The members of the plantation and the church that served them felt, their beliefs amounted to nothing more than heathenish superstition. But the Africans held religious beliefs derived from their homeland. It may be useful to note that some of the slaves, particularly these who came from the Fula-speaking area of Senegambia, were Muslims.

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.

It can be assumed that Christianity shaped slave culture in several ways such as developing a common bond among slaves. At the some time, it could also be argued that slavery altered Christianity in various ways including the formation of Methodist and Baptist denominations. However, these were not the only manners in which both cultures had an effect on each other. Black converts dramatically increased the number of Christians in the New World. The ideas instilled in slaves by Christianity gave some slaves thoughts of rebellion and influenced African-American music and dance. Not to mention the church was a major supporter of the proslavery argument which conveyed slavery as a positive thing during the

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.

Slavery had also been present in New York from the earliest days of Dutch settlement. As their role expanded so did slavery in the city, 30 percent of its laborers were slaves. Most came from different cultures, spoke different languages, and practiced many regions. Slavery allowed different individuals who would never otherwise have encountered, their bond was not kinship, language, or even race, but the impressment of slavery. They eventually came together an created a cohesive culture and community that took many years, and it processed at different rates of speed in different regions.

Learning the history of our modern world renders useless without applying it to present day occurrences. Throughout the timeline of this course, we’ve discussed numerous events ranging from the European arrival to the Americas, to the expansion of the US into Mexico and everything in between. Though all topics discussed are captivating in their way, one struck me for good: the period of the religious holocaust against African slaves implemented by the whites. As we spoke on the topic, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that this yet hasn’t finished, we are centuries in the future and still trying to subdue cultures and religions. The religious holocaust against African slaves offers me a new insight on France’s new terror laws and why

Since the dawn of time, there has been one thing that has survived and defined generations. That one constant that forever remains is the power and influence of religion on society. You would spend countless hours trying to trace its roots or documenting it from then to present day. It would be a much less daunting task to just focus on one period. In my opinion the influence of religion during slavery was a major point in its history. When free people were unwillingly removed from their homeland, the one thing they could call their own was their religious beliefs. But once they attempted to bring their beliefs and practices to this new land an opposition arose. The teachings they once held dear were now being challenged and attempted to be erased by the slave-owners. Looking back, there are many examples of African American religion during these times being more passive than anything. The side that is not glorified is the resistant side. Religion among African Americans may have promoted a lot of passivity but is also responsible for the resistance formed within the culture. Being the forgiving people who were fine with the ideology of slavery being gods work their patience would eventually run thin. Thus the great revolts of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, the rebellion among African American women against the norms of male dominated leadership in religion took form. In every single one of these instances it is proven that resistance is a larger byproduct of religion in

Over the past several decades scholars have struggled with the conflict of religious exchange between Europeans and enslaved African Americans. Jon Sensbach tells a remarkable story of Rebecca Protten a Caribbean descent. Born a slave in 1718, Protten had a childhood conversion experience, gained her freedom from bondage, and joined a group of German proselytizers from the Moravian Church. She embarked on a mission spreading black Christianity in the eighteenth century, and preaching to hundreds of the enslaved Africans of St. Thomas, a Danish sugar colony in the West Indies. Protten trying to insert faith into a slave society was challenging but her unique gifts and unending effort was a revolution in the African American Christian Community

The African society in Cuba has been looking for solace in their history of torture and discriminating experience: “The slave seeks a bit of peace and hope after much suffering and harassment. With rites, offerings and the sacrifice of blood, he invokes the gods of redemption, from whom he has been brutally separated by inhuman slavery” (Marshall 235). The religion makes them feel more human and therefore helping them live their lives the way the “gods” what them to live.