In the American South, Christian ministers actively sought to convert African American slaves to Christianity. Ultimately, the vast majority of African American slaves would embrace some form of protestant Christianity. By the mid-nineteenth century, most African American slaves had been born in the United States and raised as Christians from infancy.
Tension emerged between the white Christian churches and the enslaved population. White Christian ministers regularly preached that slavery was endorsed and supported in the Bible. Not surprisingly, most African American slaves did not find a true spiritual home in their master’s congregations.
African Americans developed their own distinct form of Christianity. Slave preachers emerged as prominent figures among the enslaved community. African Americans developed distinct forms of Christian worship, often drawing upon customs from West Africa.
Religion among Enslaved Persons/Communities
Economic growth, violence, and exploitation coexisted and mutually reinforced evangelical Christianity in the South. The revivals the Second Great Awakening established the region’s prevailing religious culture. Led by Methodists, Baptists, and to a lesser degree, Presbyterians, this intense period of religious regeneration swept the along southern backcountry. By the outbreak of the Civil War, the vast majority of southerners who affiliated with a religious denomination belonged to either the Baptist or Methodist faith. Both churches in the South briefly attacked slavery before transforming into some of the most vocal defenders of slavery and the southern social order.
Southern ministers contended that God himself had selected Africans for bondage but also considered the evangelization of slaves to be one of their greatest callings. Missionary efforts among southern slaves largely succeeded and Protestantism spread rapidly among African Americans, leading to a proliferation of biracial congregations and prominent independent black churches. Some black and white southerners forged positive and rewarding biracial connections; however, more often black and white southerners described strained or superficial religious relationships.
As the institution of slavery hardened racism in the South, relationships between missionaries and Missionaries in the South preached a proslavery theology that emphasized obedience to masters, the biblical basis of racial slavery via the curse of Ham, and the “civilizing” paternalism of slave-owners.
Slaves most commonly received Christian instruction from white preachers or masters, whose religious message typically stressed slave subservience. Anti-literacy laws ensured that most slaves would be unable to read the Bible in its entirety and thus could not acquaint themselves with such inspirational stories as Moses delivering the Israelites out of slavery. Contradictions between God’s Word and master and mistress cruelty did not pass unnoticed by many enslaved African Americans. As former slave William Wells Brown declared, “slaveholders hide themselves behind the Church,” adding that “a more praying, preaching, psalm-singing people cannot be found than the slaveholders of the South.”
Many slaves chose to create and practice their own versions of Christianity, one that typically incorporated aspects of traditional African religions with limited input from the white community. Nat Turner, the leader of the great slave rebellion, found inspiration from religion early in life. Adopting an austere Christian lifestyle during his adolescence, Turner claimed to have been visited by “spirits” during his twenties, and considered himself something of a prophet. He claimed to have had visions, in which he was called upon to do the work of God, leading some contemporaries (as well as historians) to question his sanity.
Inspired by his faith, Turner led the most deadly slave rebellion in the antebellum South. On the morning of August 22, 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia, Nat Turner and six collaborators attempted to free the region’s enslaved population. Turner initiated the violence by killing his master with an axe blow to the head. By the end of the day, Turner and his band, which had grown to over fifty men, killed fifty-seven white men, women, and children on eleven farms. By the next day, the local militia and white residents had captured or killed all of the participants except Turner, who hid for a number of weeks in nearby woods before being captured and executed. The white terror that followed Nat Turner’s rebellion transformed southern religion, as anti-literacy laws increased and black-led churches were broken up and placed under the supervision of white ministers.
Source: The American Yawp. A Free and Online, Collaboratively Built American History Textbook, 2017-2018 Edition.
African Americans and Christian Spirituals
Many slaves embraced Christianity. Their masters emphasized a scriptural message of obedience to whites and a better day awaiting slaves in heaven, but slaves focused on the uplifting message of being freed from bondage.
The styles of worship in the Methodist and Baptist churches, which emphasized emotional responses to scripture, attracted slaves to those traditions and inspired some to become preachers. Spiritual songs that referenced the Exodus (the biblical account of the Hebrews’ escape from slavery in Egypt), such as “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” allowed slaves to freely express messages of hope, struggle, and overcoming adversity.
The lyrics begin, “My brudder sittin’ on de tree of life, An’ he yearde when Jordan roll; Roll, Jordan, Roll, Jordan, Roll, Jordan, roll! O march de angel march, O march de angel march, O my soul arise in Heaven, Lord, For to yearde when Jordan roll.” This version of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” was included in Slave Songs of the United States, the first published collection of African American music, which appeared in 1867.
Source: “Cotton is King: The Antebellum South, 1800-1860.” Lumen. U.S. History/OC Collection.
Persistence of Traditional African Beliefs
African beliefs, including ideas about the spiritual world and the importance of African healers, survived in the South as well. Whites who became aware of non-Christian rituals among slaves labeled such practices as witchcraft. Among Africans, however, the rituals and use of various plants by respected slave healers created connections between the African past and the American South while also providing a sense of community and identity for slaves. Other African customs, including traditional naming patterns, the making of baskets, and the cultivation of certain native African plants that had been brought to the New World, also endured.
Source: Source: Corbett, P.S., Janssen V., Lund, J., Pfannestiel, T., Vickery, P., & Waskiewicz, S. U.S. History. OpenStax. 30 December 2014.
Religion among Enslaved Persons/Communities
When immigrants reach a new land, they often maintain many aspects of their traditional culture. This has been the case with most immigrant groups to the New World. The language, customs, values, religious beliefs, and artistic forms they bring across the Atlantic are reshaped by the new realities of America and, in turn, add to its fabric. The rich traditions of Africa combined with the British colonial experience created a new ethnicity — the African American.
Much controversy arises when attempts are made to determine what African traditions have survived in the New World. Hundreds of words, such as “Banjo” and “Okra” are part of American discourse. Africans exercised their tastes over cuisine whenever possible. Song and dance traditions comparable to African custom were commonly seen in the American South. Folk Arts such as basket weaving followed the African model. Even marriage patterns tended to mirror those established overseas.
Phillis Wheatley’s poetry reflected the slavery experience on the cusp of the American Revolution. Much of African history is known through oral tradition. Folk tales passed down through the generations on the African continent were similarly dispatched in African American communities. Some did learn the written word. Poet and slave Phillis Wheatley is still studied. Her writings vividly depict the slave experience on the eve of the American Revolution.
Many devout British colonists saw conversion of slaves to Christianity as a divine duty. Consequently, the Christian religion was widely adopted by slaves. The practice of Christianity by slaves differed from white Christians. Musical traditions drew from rhythmic African and melodic European models. Spirituals demonstrate this merger.
Despite laws regulating slave literacy, African Americans learned many elements of the English language. Since the planters’ children were often raised by slaves, their dialects, values and customs were often transmitted back. This reflexive relationship is typical of cultural fusion throughout American history.
Source: A New African-American Culture. U.S. History: Pre-Columbian to the New Millenium. Retrieved from http://www.ushistory.org/us/6g.asp
Summary
Christian ministers succeeded in converting the vast majority of African American slaves to Christianity. However, these ministers could not control the evolution and development of Christianity in the enslaved community. African American slaves developed their own distinct beliefs and faith practices, often drawing upon traditions and customs from West Africa. While many white ministers preached that slavery was justified by Biblical texts, enslaved Christians rejected this and celebrated the Exodus narrative of Moses leading his people out of bondage in Egypt. Some enslaved persons found inspiration for rebellion and resistance through the Christian faith. One clear example of this is Nat Turner. Nat Turner believed that he had been chosen by God to lead a slave insurrection. Nat Turner organize the largest slave insurrection in the antebellum period in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia.
