The Community of Enslaved Africans and their Religious & Spiritual Practices.
During a most dark and dismal time in our nations history, we find that the Africans who endured horrible circumstances during slavery, found ways of peace and hope in their religious beliefs. During slavery, Africans where able to survive unbearable conditions by focusing on their spirituality.
Christianity was amongst the slave community. Being that the vast majority of the slave community was born in America, converting slaves to Christianity was not a struggle. All slaves were not Christian, and slaves that had accepted Christianity were not official members of the church. Over time Slaves made Christianity their own. There would be occurrences where church gatherings would hold both white and black members. Slave religion was both institutional and non institutional. The slave gatherings would be both formally organized and spontaneously adapted. These gatherings would usually take place at night in the woods. Slaves enjoyed their own meetings better because they could sing and pray as they wanted. In some cases slave masters would not allow attendance of church gatherings and prayer meetings, some slaves would risk flogging to attend these meetings. Christianity was transformed into by the slave community to its own particular experience. Teachings by white masters were usually geared towards reminding slaves that on good behavior to their white masters, they would be accepted into heaven and even then , they would be limited to a lesser heaven than there owners. Jesus was not talked about, teachings consisted only of the laws to not lie or steal from their masters. Slaves would soon start to hold their own gatherings to just sing and pray a...
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.... So ultimately, owners failed at this.
Moreover, many owners later came to feel that Christianity may actually have encouraged rebellion (all those stories of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt, after all, talked about the liberation of the slaves), and so they began to discourage Christian missionaries from preaching to the slaves. African Americans have taken their own spiritual, religious journey. God was looked upon as a source of peace and encouragement. The community of enslave Africans were able to use religion and spirituality as a way of overcoming the mental anguish of slavery on a daily basis. To a slave, religion was the most important aspect of their life. Nothing could come between their relationship with god. It was their rock, the only reason why they could wake up in the morning, the only way that they endured this most turbulent time in our history.
It always maintained that taking someone’s God given right of freedom was against the church preaching’s and beliefs. In addition, some of the first emigrants to the newly discovered land (North America) were slaves themselves and they were white. One of the main reasons they immigrated to North America was to escape religious persecution. The political situation did not help either; too much support to antislavery and the church could lose the much needed support of wealthy churchgoers. The institution stopped short of actively going against the problem of slavery, instead they focused their efforts in making slavery more “tolerable” for slaves. After all, most of the church goers in the south were white slave owners and/or in some way or another supported slavery and the economic factors in benefitted. In the North, the Presbyterian Church had deplored the issue of black and religion; they were never unable or unwilling to tackle the problem from its source. In the North the free blacks had more religious freedom and were allowed to participate in churches or form their own congregations. There was another phenomenon that affected the lives of slaves in the plantations. Most owners controlled all aspects of their slaves to include religion. The owners used the Gospel as a social control method to tell the slaves why they had to obey their masters (according to God) and inculcate and foster the belief of having to serve and be faithful to their
Douglass continues to describe the severity of the manipulation of Christianity. Slave owners use generations of slavery and mental control to convert slaves to the belief God sanctions and supports slavery. They teach that, “ man may properly be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained by God” (Douglass 13). In order to justify their own wrongdoings, slaveowners convert the slaves themselves to Christianity, either by force or gentle coercion over generations. The slaves are therefore under the impression that slavery is a necessary evil. With no other source of information other than their slave owners, and no other supernatural explanation for the horrors they face other than the ones provided by Christianity, generations of slaves cannot escape from under the canopy of Christianity. Christianity molded so deeply to the ideals of slavery that it becomes a postmark of America and a shield of steel for American slave owners. Douglass exposes the blatant misuse of the religion. By using Christianity as a vessel of exploitation, they forever modify the connotations of Christianity to that of tyrannical rule and
I belong to a Methodist church and I have a very strong belief in my christian morals. Because of this I had no intentions of treating my slaves poorly, I wanted to help them. I wanted to be like a
They are fully cognizant that having the word of God on their side affords them even more power over their slaves, and they use this knowledge as a channel through which slave behavior may be controlled. “After the alarm caused by Nat Turner’s insurrection had subsided, the slaveholders came to the conclusion that is would be well to give the slaves enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters” (Jacobs 57). This passage is the first to demonstrate whites using religion itself as an oppressive force. Plans are revealed to, “hold a separate service on Sundays for [the slaves’] benefit,” in which pointed sermons were to be delivered to the slaves (Jacobs 57-58). One such sermon is inherently accusatory and meant to instill fear in its slave audience. Statements such as “God is angry with you,” “You tell lies. God hears you,” and “God sees you and will punish you” serve to foster a sense of guilt and fear within the slaves, casting disobedience in any form as an affront against God, one that merits divine punishment (Jacobs 58). The sermon creates an emotional tie to profitable slave behavior – obedience stemming from fear – which it goes on to enforce as the will of God: “If you disobey your earthly Master,” the preacher claims, “you offend your heavenly Master” (Jacobs 58). What is presented to the slaves as religious tenet is merely
This paper elaborates on the diverse contributions peoples of African descent have made to the pluralistic religious landscape of America and replicates various passages from our textbook. It focuses on the personal narratives of non-religious to religious leaders—exemplifying their influence on the African American religious movement during slavery and the reconstruction of America. Each section represents different historical periods, regional variations, and non-Christian expressions of African-American religion.
Slave-owners forced a perverse form of Christianity, one that condoned slavery, upon slaves. According to this false Christianity the enslavement of “black Africans is justified because they are the descendants of Ham, one of Noah's sons; in one Biblical story, Noah cursed Ham's descendants to be slaves” (Tolson 272). Slavery was further validated by the numerous examples of it within the bible. It was reasoned that these examples were confirmation that God condoned slavery. Douglass’s master...
Slavery, the “Peculiar Institution” of the South, caused suffering among an innumerable number of human beings. Some people could argue that the life of a domestic animal would be better than being a slave; at least animals are incapable of feeling emotions. Suffering countless atrocities, including sexual assault, beatings, and murders, these slaves endured much more than we would think is humanly possible today. Yet, white southern “Christians” committed these atrocities, believing their behaviors were neither wrong nor immoral. Looking back at these atrocities, those who call themselves Christians are appalled. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Harriet A. Jacobs describes the hypocrisy of Southern, Christian slave owners in order to show that slavery and Christianity are not congruent.
In alignment with what the Bible told them, abolitionist understood that each man represented one of God’s creations and that men were part of God’s plan. If slavery was allowed to exist, then man was interrupting God’s de...
Douglass makes the distinction between the true and false forms of Christianity clear in the Appendix of his Narrative. He first characterizes the Christianity of Christ, practiced by himself, his fellow slaves, and non-slave owners in general, as genuine and peaceable. This sort of ideology is true to what Douglass interprets as the actual teachings of the Bible, and adherents are humble, kind, impartial, and nondiscriminatory. Douglass then distinguishes this proper ideology from the “corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land” (430). Douglass believes that slavery and Christianity are opposing forces. The teachings of C...
Author of “The Negro Family”, E. Franklin Frazier believed that the centrality of the bible, structure of Black worship, and notion of God that evolved from the invisible institution to the Black Church was confirmation of the power of white influence . These tactics and different developments were merely adaptive methods used by slaves in order to worship freely in a confined space. Frazier’s beliefs were undermined by author Gayraud S. Wilmore’s description of Vodun in his book Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Frazier’s contention that black religion was evidence of white influence assumes a blank and passive slate. While Vodun in West Africa did have organization that was probably “infiltrated by Roman Catholicism” the goal of New World Africans was to adapt and understand their lives (Wilmore 43). Although white influence was forced upon New World Africans, slaves did not accept this influence but rather interpreted it to create a new, place-based Vodun religion. Vodun adapted to New World conditions, functioned as a coping mechanism, and possessed evolutionary qualities.
In their quarters, slaves expressed themselves with some what more freedom from white slave owners. Religion provided a feel of similar freedom and also gave slaves mental support. By attending church, slaves created a Christianity that emphasized salvation for every race, including slaves.
Although, the Civil war brought about change for Africans, along with this change it brought heart ache, despair and restriction of worship to the African...
This is the account of an ex-slave by the name of William Barker who now resides in Bethany, AL. He is approximately 95 years old and lives in a little shack with a plot of land. He has worked for some local townsfolk doing some grounds keeping and gardening since he was freed when he was 20. But for the most part, Barker keeps to himself. He has no wife and no children. He is only 5 foot 4 and may weigh about 145 lbs. As a slave he worked as a gardner, and later learned to cook, but soon thereafter was freed. Gardening is all he seems to know. However, he seems very proficient at hunting. He says that is the only way he keep alive, living off what God gives him from the land and water. He was son to Frances William and Eliza William. His father died in the war. Because of his size and ability to cook, William Barker did not go to war. His mammy died within weeks of being free due to starvation. Here is his account
From Slavery to Freedom: African in the Americas. (2007). Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Retrieved October 7, 2007 from Web site: http://www.asalh.org/
The development of Black Theology in the United States 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.