The Bigger Picture: How Slaves Found Freedom In Christianity Pt. 1
Note: The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent The K.I.N.G. Movement or its supporters. They are the views of the author alone.
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to appear as a guest on the popular YouTube talk show, "Talk With the Titans", hosted by Kalam El. My task for the evening was to tackle the question, "Christianity the White Man's religion?", followed by a brief Q & A. I have to say, I truly had a blast preparing for the show and presenting on a topic that I'm very passionate about. For this article, I thought I would share a few points from the presentation I delivered that evening. I began my presentation with a brief overview of African church history. Unfortunately, many people are still unaware of the 2000 years of Christian history on the continent of Africa. I actually consider that to be what I call the"easy question" when it comes to apologetics among people of African descent as there is a wealth of information available on that subject such that no reasonable person could deny that people of African descent have been meaningfully engaged with Christianity from the earliest days of the church till now. For anyone interested in a solid introduction to African Church history, I would highly recommend reading Chris Broussard's article entitled "Debunking the Myth that Christianity is the White Man's Religion" right here at www.kingmovement.com. In this article, I will be giving you the written version of the second major point of my presentation: Christianity among the Africans who endure the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Confronting the Hard Question
The belief, that Christianity is the white man's religion, is largely based upon an incomplete assessment of the historical evidence available to us today. When I first began looking into this issue for myself I thought I had a pretty good idea of how Africans experienced Christianity during the slave era. If any of you are like me you know there is this notion of the angry white slave-master with a Bible in one hand and a bull whip in the other beating Christianity into African slaves. I think we tend to imagine it as being like that classic scene from Roots where Kunta Kinte is beaten into taking on the name Toby. I assumed that's just how it went down: end of story.
But then, as I was reading through a collection of slave narratives (slaves conveying their experiences in their own words). I came across a passage that really shocked me. I would like to share to share that passage with you. These are the words of former slave, John Brown, who is describing what Sundays were like on the plantation. He describes Sundays as generally being a day of light work followed by everyone gathering at the slave-master's house for the church meeting. He says:
"Master John's wife would start the meetin with a prayer and then would come the singing the old timey songs. But the white folks on the next plantation would lick (beat) their slaves for trying to do like we did. No praying there, and no singin."
Now this really struck me as odd at first because, again, my understanding was that slave-masters used Christianity as a means to control the slaves, keep them in their place, beat it into them, and so on. But John Brown is reporting about how slave-masters were actively keeping their slaves from practicing Christianity. This was the first time that the lightbulb really turned on for me. It occurred to me that there were a diversity of ways in which slaves came in contact with or experienced Christianity; not just the one scenario I was familiar with. There was much more to the story than I had known.
Let's explore that a bit. I think most people out there probably formed their ideas about Christianity during slavery times based upon that single Kunta Kinte scenario I described. I know I did. But you see that's just one piece of the puzzle. Actually, I think when it comes to history the idea of history being like a puzzle is very helpful. Just like with a real puzzle the more pieces you have in place then better you can see what the picture is. With history the more facts we have to work with the better we can interpret what was going on in the past. When engaging people on this topic, my goal is not to make excuses for the church - far from it. What I want to do is look at five facts of history concerning Christianity during slavery, add those facts to our puzzle, and then see where that leads us in terms of our picture of what was going on back then.
Fact #1: Salvation versus Slavery
A significant number of slave-owners actively opposed the preaching of the gospel to their slaves. I hear a lot of folks today asking the question, "Why did our oppressors give us the Bible?" or something to that effect. I think an equally valid question is "Why is it that for significant portions of the slave era did slave-masters actively prevent Christianity from being given to the slaves?"
In her article entitled "The Ultimate Sin: Christianizing Slaves in Barbados in the Seventeenth Century", Dr. Katherine Gerber, puts it this way:
"The slave owner's initial confusion about the consequences of slave conversion is representative of a more general confusion about the repercussions of Christianity on slavery in the Protestant Atlantic world[sic] Slave owners did not know whether they would be forced to free or eventually manumit their slaves if the latter were converted to Christianity. Some were also concerned that Christianity would give slaves dangerous ideas about freedom and allow them to become too similar to their Christian masters."
It was a very reasonable fear for them to think that slaves being freed on the basis of them becoming Christians was a possibility because at that time ”according to English Common Law" it was illegal to own someone who was a Christian. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries there were a number of legal cases in which African slaves attempted to use this to their advantage and petition for their freedom on the basis of them having been baptized.
In the United States we see examples of these sorts of cases in:
Felix's petition to a Massachusetts court 1773
Peter Bestes petition for freedom in 1773
Petition made by a number of Africans to Judge Thomas Gage in 1774
To get a sampling of how Africans petitioned for their freedom on the basis of having become Christians, let's take a look at the argumentation in this excerpt from the petition made to Thomas Gage in 1773:
"By our deplorable situation we are rendered incapable of shewing our obedience to Almighty God. How can a slave perform the duties of a husband to a wife or parent to his child? How can a husband leave master and work and cleave to his wife? How can the wife submit themselves to there husbands in all things? How can the child obey thear parents in all things? …"
What the petitioner argues here is that the conditions of slavery do not allow for the enslaved person to fulfill what God of the Bible requires of us all. The implication is therefore slavery itself is against God's moral law and on the basis of God's law the judge should grant freedom to the petitioner.
Cases like these were a principle reason why many slave-owners stood firmly against Christianity being preached to the slaves. They saw slaves as property and didn't want to lose that so-called property due to a slave becoming a Christian. This is also why, in the early 1700’s, you begin to see laws being passed in the British-American colonies which effectively ended the legal possibility of baptism being grounds for slaves to be freed. In addition, slave-owners were well aware of the elements of Christianity that promoted liberty and equality among all people of all races. Obviously, the slave-masters did not want Africans to get any ideas about that either.
Fact #2: The Invisible Institution
There is substantial evidence of slaves practicing Christianity on their own terms. In his book entitled "Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution", Dr. Albert Raboteau, explains how African slaves were able to make a distinction between hypocritical slave-owner Christianity and authentic Christianity. In great detail, Dr. Raboteau describes how this understanding among slaves, about the hypocrisy of the slave-master version of Christianity, prompted the slaves to practice Christianity independently and hidden away from their slave-owners. Slaves would steal away at night into the deep woods where they would gather at what they called "Hush Harbors" to hold their own prayer meetings and worship services. If slaves were caught by patrollers while having these prayer meetings they would likely face severe physical punishment. So, in order to make sure they weren't heard during their night worship sessions, the slaves would do things like fill a basin with water so that whoever was praying or encouraging the others would speak into it to muffle the sound. In one slave narrative it is reported they would create an enclosed area by hanging up wet blankets around them, again to muffle the sound. To illustrate this a bit, here are excerpts from two interviews with former slaves.
Lucretia Alexander reported:
"The slaves didn't go to the church building. The preacher came and preached to them in their quarters. He'd just say, "Serve your masters. Don't steal your masters turkey. Don't steal you masters chickens, Don't Steal you master's hogs. Don't steal your masters meat. Do whatsomever your master tell you to do. Same ol' thing all de time.
My father would have church in the dwelling houses and they had to whisper "Sometimes they would have church at his house. That would be when they would want a real meetin' with some real preachin' "
W.L. Bost stated:
"Us slaves never have chance to go to Sunday school and church. The white folks feared for slaves to get any religion and education but I reckon somethin' inside just told us about God and that there was a better place hereafter. We would sneak off and have prayer meetin'. Sometimes the patterollers catch us and beat us good but that didn't keep us from tryin'.
The "Invisible Institution" was a very active yet informal system of Christianity which existed independently from and was in many ways counter to the slave-master's version of Christianity.
Till Next Time
So far I have covered two of the five historical facts related to Christianity among African slaves which I addressed in my "Talk with the Titans" presentation. I hope you guys stick around for the punchline as my next article will highlight the remaining three facts and tie them all together. In the meantime, feel free to check out my presentation on "Is Christianity the White Man's Religion?" at the link provided below.
Interview: Is Christianity the White Man's Religion?
Sources:
Aptheker, H. A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States. (1990). New York: Citadel Pr.
Barton, D. (2004). Setting the record straight: American history in Black & white. Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press.
Buchsbaum III, R. (2014) The surprising Role of Legal Traditions in the iRse of Abolitionism in Great Britain's Development. Thesis submitted to Wright State University
Daley, J. (2006). Great speeches by African Americans Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, Jr., and others. Mineola (N.Y.): Dover Publications.
Evans, F. W., & Banks, E. B. (2009). Hush harbor: praying in secret. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner.
Gerbner, K. (2010) The Ultimate Sin: Christianising Slaves in Barbados in the Seventeenth Century. Journal: Slavery and Abolition Vol 31 No. 1 March 2010 57-73
Harding, V. Essay Title: Religion and Resistance among Antebellum Slaves, 1800-1860. Fulop, T. E., & Raboteau, A. J. (1997). African-American religion: interpretive essays in history and culture. London: Routledge.
Hodges, G. R. (1997). Slavery and freedom in the rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865. Madison, WI: Madison House.
Levine, L. Essay Title: Slave Songs and Slave Consciousness: An Exploration in Neglected Sources Fulop, T. E., & Raboteau, A. J. (1997). African-American religion: interpretive essays in history and culture (T. E. Fulop & A. J. Raboteau, Authors). London: Routledge.
Noll, M. A. (2015). The Civil War as a theological crisis. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Raboteau, A. Essay Title: The Black Experience in American Evangelicalism: The Meaning of Slavery. Fulop, T. E., & Raboteau, A. J. (1997). African-American religion: interpretive essays in history and culture. London: Routledge.
Yetman, N. R. (2000). Voices from slavery: 100 authentic slave narratives. Mineola, NY: Dover.
Broussard Article: https://www.kingmovement.com/blog/?offset=1473703917547
Adam Coleman is passionate about equipping Christians with evidences for the faith and engaging the culture. He is a husband, father of two busy toddlers, social worker, writer, and public speaker. Upon graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Master’s in Social Work Adam Coleman began a career of community development, mentoring youth, and service to our nation’s veterans. Currently, Adam is primarily focused on using his “Tru-ID Podcast”, writing, and public speaking to promote the gospel of Christ through Christian apologetics.
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