The Religion of the Slaves

By Prof. Terry Matthews. Adjunct Asst. Professor. Wake Forest University

A Review
As we have already seen, the shifting of attitudes
towards slavery resulted in profound changes in
Southern society in general, and in religious circles in
particular. In the 1780's, Methodists--who represent a
standard example--had formulated strong rules
against slavery, and slaveholders. Slavery was
deemed to be "contrary to the laws of God, man and
nature, and hurtful to society, contrary to the dictates
of conscience and pure religion." Indeed, by 1784
Methodists were so bold as to say that they "promised
to excommunicate all Methodists not freeing their
slaves within two years." By 1820, however, the
Methodist church in the South was increasingly at
one with its culture on the issue of race, and was
advocating a "Mission to the Slaves."
As the conflict over slavery heated up, and as news of
the Vesey conspiracy broke in 1822, and word spread
about the rebellion of Nat Turner in 1831, a great
fear enveloped whites. Afraid for their lives, their
investments, the civil peace, and the preservation of
the South's way of life,
whites demanded--and their state legislatures passed--
laws curtailing the rights of African-Americans to
assemble, to worship, to become literate, and to do much
more, except under strictly controlled circumstances.

At the same time, this fear and anxiety was producing

an outpouring of concern to make Christians of the
slaves in the hope that they might learn to turn the
other cheek, and to accept their lot in life.
In the early decades of the nineteenth century,Christianity
had made little or no in-roads among blacks for fear that
they might take literally such narratives as the Exodus.

But as this "crisis of fear" spread across the South,

suddenly rather impressive efforts were made to
address the "needs" of the souls of black folk. These
were well organized evangelistic endeavors,
particularly in those areas with large plantations.
Congregations stepped up their appeals, and refined
their approaches to African-Americans. Preachers
and planters alike urged them to fill the gallerys, and
special seating that was set aside for these honored
guests. Some owners were even motivated to build
"praise houses" on their land, and recruited black
preachers to proclaim the Lord's name (as long--of
course--as a white foreman was present to monitor
things so that they did not get out of hand). Large
slaveholders like the Rev. Charles Colcock Jones
worked to comprise a Christian primer for slaves to
instill teachings that were designed as a response to
the portents of revolution, and to serve as preventive
measures to any insurrection.
I do not mean to suggest that the whole effort to
evangelize the slaves was motivated by a concern for
safety. Certainly, there were numbers of whites who
cared about blacks, both as persons possessing
immortal souls, and as friends with names.
Many others saw the mission to the slaves as an unfolding
of God's divine plan and these early evangelistic efforts as
the first step in a long process that would eventually lead
to the converting of the heathen of the dark continent. But
there were many others who sought to pacify and comfort
the slaves, to make them more dutiful and servile, and to
defer any gratification they might have longed for in this
life to the next.

In other words, the motives of White Southerners

were decidedly mixed. Often there was a genuine
recognition of the human needs of African
Americans, but rare was the time when members of
the "Ruling Race" would overlook the unique caste
and economic status of black people.
It would be difficult to determine whose religion--that
of African-Americans or that of whites-- was more
profoundly affected by this preoccupation with racial
matters during the antebellum period. On the
surface, it would appear that the religion of black
people was. But the reality is that both were
profoundly affected. Very little of what the white
church attempted and accomplished from 1830 to the
Civil War, remained free of racial and interracial
considerations.
The Religious Life of the Slaves
By the standards of the early nineteenth century, African-
Americans were said to be "a wretched stock of heathen,
in utter darkness of a loathsome pagan idolatry." Various
plantation owners expressed the concern that "the
superstitions brought from Africa have not been wholly
laid aside." Witchcraft, alleged superstitions, and fetishist
practices were often cited as evidence that the plantation
slave refused to abandon African paganism for American
Christianity.
There certainly may have been an element of truth to
these observations about the persistence of African-
American spirituality in the face of efforts of whites to
erase it. The Ashanti had a folk saying that "No one
shows a child the Supreme Being." Although the
African's world was populated by a plurality of powers,
including the forces of nature and a legion of magical
spirits, most tribes believed in a Supreme Being who was
viewed as a creator, giver of rain, and sunshine, the all-
seeing one, the one who exists by himself.
Moreover traditional African religion made no distinction
between the sacred and secular. All of life--not part--was
sacred. Nor was there any sense of a division between this
life and the one to come. All of life was part of a
continuum in which both the living and dead took part.
Long before their contact with whites, Africans were a
strongly religious, and deeply spiritual people.

The African beliefs in one Supreme Being, in a

realistic distinction between good and evil, in lesser
spiritual powers, and in creation as the handiwork of
God, paralleled much in the Hebraic background of
Christianity. These similarities lessened the cultural
shock as the African came into contact with the tenets
of White Evangelicalism. But on occasion there was
conflict. A white Methodist reported an aged Negro--
to whom he had been trying to explain the dogma of
the Trinity--once asked which of the three "was the
head man to which he should go when asking for
anything."
During the early history of slavery, the Africanisms that
were retained in African American spirituality were often
seen to be (by whites) a pagan faith. These rituals and
dogmas were variously described as Voodoo, Hoodoo,
Witchcraft, and superstitions, and were particularly
prominent among the Gullah speakers of South Carolina.
Whites often commented on these "pagan practices," and
fetishes, and were threatened by them. As a result, great
effort was expended on eradicating these practices, and
many were lost within a generation.

The degree to which whites were successful in this,

however, is the subject of great debate. Melville J.
Herskovits has advanced the thesis that the success of
Baptists in attracting blacks was rooted in the appeal
of immersion which suggests a connection in the
slaves' mind with the river spirits in West African
religions. Others have attacked this position
including, the black scholar E. Franklin Frazier who
argues that enslavement largely destroyed the social
basis of religion among blacks, and that the appeal of
Baptists to blacks concerns the emotional content of
their worship. Stanley Elkins (whose views were
heavily influenced by what took place in the
concentration camps of World War II Europe), has
argued--like Frazier--that slavery was so demeaning
that blacks (like the Jews in the camps) were
eventually stripped of every shred of dignity and
humanity, including their faith. John Blassingame, on
the other hand, has provided a significant body of
evidence that blacks hung on to their religion as a
form of resistence.
What is clear is that African-Americans were fairly
quick to abopt the prevailing evangelical culture.
Denominations such as the Episcopalians and
Presbyterians which stressed order did not attract the
slaves. Most African-Americans instead gravitated to
the emotionalism of the Methodists and Baptists.
Indeed, in a number of ways the religion of the
South's black population shared much more in
common with the Evangelical Protestantism of the
region's whites than it diverged from it. After all, it
was the evangelicals among Southern whites who
were motivated to bring the slaves to the Christians
faith. These evangelicals imparted to the black church
many of their forms and practices. (You may recall
that earlier in the semester I argued that the black
church preserves intact several forms of expression
that characterized white evangelicals in the
nineteenth century.)
But blacks also bequeathed something back to the
evangelical tradition. There is fair body of evidence
that suggests some whites copied certain practices of
black worshippers. Shouting in worship, for example,
was one such borrowing. Many blacks looked down
on whites who shouted in worship being poor copies
of themselves, or in the parlance of our day, as
"wanna-be's." The call and response pattern also
appears to be derived from the African heritage.
Even though Black evangelicalism shared much in
common with its white counterpart, when African-
Americans held their own services, whether approved
and overseen by whites or held clandestinely
("stealing away to Jesus"), they added their own
flourishes and unique styles to the white religious
legacy. In so doing, they created an "invisible
institution," a church that was their own. Because
Black evangelicalism was not identical to its white
counterpart, the points of difference between the two
tell us a great deal about the religious world of the
slave.
One of these differences was the expressiveness of
spirit that came to characterize black religion. While
it is true that White Methodists and Baptists were
also expressive, as the Reverend Henry Mitchell
suggests in Geneovese's book, "the whites were fiery
mad, while the blacks were fiery glad." For Black
Christians, the message was presented unvarnished
and the response was uninhibited. Such bad news as
one's eternal damnation called for a groaning and
bewailing befitting one's anguish and sorrow. Such
good news as God's gracious offer of forgiveness
through the love of Christ's sacrificial death was
received with shouts of joy and praise for blessed
release. This expressiveness meant that most blacks
felt inhibited in white churches, even though many
were seen at the altar along with whites.
Most African-Americans found their spiritual needs
were best met in secret. They would gather in "hush
arbors" and "praying grounds." A pot would be
turned over to hold in the noise, and in the safety of
the wee hours or a secluded location, they could
express themselves freely, and interpret their faith as
they saw fit.
As Black Christians had the opportunity to develop
their own styles of preaching and singing they did so.
The preacher may have been unlettered, but his
preaching was far from theologically illiterate. He
knew all he needed to know--the biblical message of
salvation--and a rich intimate awareness of the Savior
who lived in the believer's heart. Slaves were highly
critical--in these settings--of white preaching that
tried to keep them in their place. They saw sermons
on stealing--for instance--as self-serving in that it
tended to hide a greater evil. It was alright to steal a
ham--they reasoned--if it was needed to feed one's
family. This theology is reflected in a song sung by the
slaves:
We raise de wheat,
Dey gib us de corn;
We bake de bread,
 De gib us de crust;
We sif de meal,
Dey gib us de huss;
We peal de meat,
Dey gib us de skin;
And dat's de way
Dey take us in;
We skim de pot,
Dey gib us de liguor,
And say dat's good enough for nigger."
Such theologizing helped them to develop what today
might be referred to as a situational ethic.
John Jasper and Black Worship
Interestingly, given the increasing racial proscription
in the mid-1800's, Many Black preachers developed a
significant following across the South among both
whites and blacks. John Jasper of Virginia was one
such man. Slaves would defer funeral ceremonies for
as long as necessary to bring him to the plantation for
the service. And Jasper was equally popular among
whites. During the Civil War, Jasper won a warm
response from the Confederate wounded to whom he
preached and offered solace.
On the surface, Jasper's preaching sounded
unlettered, but his message was informed with a
profound theology. His most famous sermon was
entitled "De Sun DO Move' an De Earth Am
Square." He gave this sermon hundreds of times to
both whites and blacks, who listened to it, but the
message his listeners heard was dependent on their
race.
Jasper had heard that some heretics were misleading
his people into believing that the earth moved around
a stationary sun, and so he choose to respond to this
new scientific understanding. When he arose to speak
many of Richmond's most fashionable whites and the
countryside's poorest slaves had flocked to hear him.
Jasper went on to proclaim that "Joshuar tell de sun
ter stand' still till he could finish whippin de enemy
an de sun was travellin' long dar thew de sky when it
stops for Joshuar. It stopt fer business an' it went on
when it got thew." The whites had come for their own
amusement, and many left laughing at what they
considered to be Jasper's childish ignorance.
But they missed the power of what Jasper was saying.
Although he sounded illiterate to them, this man was
fully capable of perfect English. Using (for want of a
better term) Black English, he was putting forward
the proposition that God could intervene to alter the
natural order. And what was slavery according to
whites? It was part of the natural order of things. In
their own hearing, Jasper was proclaiming that "the
God of Joshuar" could and would intervene to save
his people. He was putting forward a damnning
critique of their position although few if any of the
whites who heard him recognized it. But slaves did
not miss the point.
Other revolutionary themes were also implicit in the
preaching of men like Jasper, themes that were very
clear to Blacks, but opaque to whites. When the Bible
taught that Jesus came to die for everyone, African-
Americans knew that meant them as well. The story
of Adam and Eve and as it was told by Black
Preachers, had Adam becoming so frightened by his
sin that he turned white.
Nor did Blacks accept the pro-slavery argument that
their condition was a result of a curse for the sin of
Ham. Yes, the conditions in which they lived were
evil. But they did not see themselves as being evil.
(This rejection of Orginal Sin probably reflects a
survival in that West African religions tended to be
life-affirming rather than guilt inducing.)
The spiritual music composed and sung by African-
Americans was as direct, heartfelt, and expressive as
Black Preaching. Such African-American hymns as
"Swing low, Sweet Chariot" conveys a message that
few whites heard: a fundamental equality of persons.
God welcomes both whites and blacks to the skies.
Some Concluding Observations
African-American religion dealt with life as blacks
lived it. It was about pain and sorrow, sin and
shortcoming, pardon and joy, praise and
thanksgiving, grace and hope. This version of
Evangelicalism provided a wonderful benefit; it was
able to accomplish great things in their lives that were
frequently shouted about.
Evangelicalism took root among African-Americans.
Large numbers underwent conversion, baptism,
instruction, worship, and lived the life of Christian
even in face of oppression. Although, the development
of their own religious institutions would await
Emancipation and the war's end, there were many
thousands of Negro Baptists and Methodists by 1850.
In some ways, church life proved to be more
important than family life, (which says something
about the impact of slavery on African-American
family life as much as does about the power of
religion and spirituality in the lives of African-
Americans). That is significant, because in the first
decades of the nineteenth century, the impact of
Christianity on the Southern black population had
been extremely small. Indeed, the religion of modern
blacks, represents a relatively modern development
that dates back to the last several decades before
slavery was brought to an end.
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