Interactions between African American Religious Traditions and the Institution of Slavery

According to Rodney (1974), the Europeans captured and transported between forty to one hundred million Africans to the Americas in a period spanning over four hundred years (Mitchell). In the United States, especially in the South, enslaved Africans lived and worked in cruel and inhumane conditions in a society that was determined to take away essentially all elements of their heritage, ethnic identity, and culture (Mitchell). Therefore, aspects that define a people such as family, kinship, traditions, language, customs, as well as religion, were greatly affected, if not eliminated entirely.

Some Africans that originated from the Gold Coast and Senegambia were evidently practicing Muslims, judging from public notices of runaway slaves who had Islamic names (Middleton). Nevertheless, most Africans believed in a Supreme Being, under whom there existed lesser gods, often associated with natural phenomena such as thunder, rain, lightening, earth, fertility, spring, fall, and summer (Middleton). All these gods had the power to impose good or band on the land, and it was important to appease them through offerings of magic, even charms and talismans (Middleton).

Understanding the gravity of the slave trade and subsequent oppression would require extensive studies and analyses of Europe’s global efforts to capture, trade in, and exploit Africans in the West (Mitchell). In the wake of the slave trade, entrenchment of systematic methods of exploitation and legalization of the practices gave rise to a racist and repressive American Society (Mitchell). For example, In October 3 of 1670, the Virginia Assembly ruled that all servants that were not Christians who had been imported into the country would be slaves for their entire lives (Mitchell).

However, since many Africans converted to Christianity in the West Indies after being exposed to Catholicism, the previous ruling was reviewed in 1682 and Christianity excluded as an exemption criteria (Mitchell). Consequently, by the seventeenth century, racial decent solely determined who became a slave in America.

In colonial Louisiana, the Roman Catholic Church played a role in the lives of all residents, whether native or settler, free or enslaved (Renee).  During the eighteenth century the French missionaries baptized everyone without discriminating on the basis of race, and even sanctioned interracial unions in a bid to foster a Catholic colony made up of natives and settlers (Renee). Although some French leaders were against the extension of sacramental rights to African American slaves, and even French Indian unions, many members of the clergy allowed universal access to sacraments and officiated the marriages as a way of ensuring peaceful integration between natives and settlers (Renee). In rural parishes of Southeast Louisiana, particularly, Roman Catholicism not only provided an avenue for religious opportunities, but also economic and social opportunities for both the enslaved and the newly free African Americans (Renee).

Religious education in Louisiana played a significant role in establishing and sustaining a Catholic worldview across races and genders, so that Jesuit priests, Capuchin priests, and Ursuline nuns encouraged Catholicism in the colony and taught all indiscriminately (Renee). Catholicism offered a common religious background for Europeans and converted Indians, and later for subsequent generations of the French, Spanish, West Indian, as well as African settlers (Renee). The predominant Catholic religion became a unifying force, giving rise to a community of people with similar beliefs and attitudes on the subjects of suffering and pain, as well as salvation and sinfulness (Renee).

Debate over the support of slavery within the Catholic hierarchy and the achievements of Catholic plantation owners in Louisiana, as well as an influx in Protestants, further complicated the relationship between the church and its non white members (Renee). Nevertheless, the church continued to compel Catholic owned slaves to get baptized, and demanded proper burial of all baptized individuals, while also reiterating that marriage between slaves was an unbreakable bond, despite the lack of a civil backing (Renee). Some slaves adopted Catholicism while others readily preferred black preachers or converted to Protestant factions, for example, the Baptist and the African Methodist-Episcopal churches (Renee). For the most part, priests in rural areas were too few to enforce requirements, and slaveholders were not too keen on encouraging or discouraging a particular religion among their subjects (Renee).

Nevertheless, not all converted to Catholic, and neither did the Catholics exhibit similar degree of devotion. All the same, slaves owned by Catholics in the colonial period were nominally Catholic according to the Siete Partidas and the Code Noir, and had little say in the matter (Renee). Therefore, most adapted the Catholic faith to fit their native African belief systems (Renee). The varying levels of devotion and belief in each Catholic, whether European master of African slave, meant that not all Catholics in Louisiana held dear the same tenets or took part in certain religious activities; on the other hand, religion was a system of self-identification, an avenue for constructing realities and understanding the ways of life of different communities  (Renee).

Many slave owners hardly worried about the possibility of slaves having an organized religion until the mid-eighteenth century, ignoring the spiritual activities of their slaves for the most part (Harvey). Initially, independent religious organizations fronted by African Americans emphasized the idea of a ‘just and impartial God,’ later evolving into exhortations claiming ‘victory in the face of insurmountable odds,’ complete with biblical examples of triumph and anticipated deliverance; assertions that unified and mobilized African Americans in the pursuit of social change (Harvey). Human properties encountered and cultivated in the church reassured the members consistently, inspiring and motivating escapes, sit-ins, while also mitigating fears of lynching, job termination and even death (Barne).

The black church had various roles. One, it was a foundation for movements and organizations that subsequently emerged in towns and cities (Harvey). In more expansive localities, additional institutions emerged to cater for specific needs of black urban population, and in small rural isolated communities, churches remained central to the survival of African Americans (Harvey). In addition to providing spiritual guidance, churches offered opportunities for formal education, serving as classrooms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and later contributing to the setting up of black colleges (Harvey). Access to formal education was a significant step, from which one could launch even greater campaigns championing social justice.

While African slaves did not have a great variety of religions to choose from in the West, they did arrive with a variety of belief systems and traditions. (Middleton) points out that before 1750, European Americans only made superficial attempts at converting their slaves to Christianity. European slave owners feared that conversion might translate into a call for emancipation, and therefore, for the better part of the colonial period, slaves were left to their own devices as far as religion was concerned, especially in the expansive cotton plantations in the South where contact was minimal (Middleton).

Converting African slaves was very controversial, with some whites simply adopting an apathetic attitude, and some sharply differing in opinion on what conversion would mean for the institution of slavery (Middleton)

Some scholars contend that slavery as an institution created a high propensity for weak and fatherless African American families, so that the multifocal family became a typical feature, both in the course of slavery and after emancipation, a feature that has remained widespread to date (Tolman). On the other hand, others vehemently disagree, maintaining that African Americans promptly adapted to their difficult circumstances and adapted creative means of preserving familial ties (Tolman). In the wake of Emancipation, in spite of challenges brought about by economic hardship and other conditions, African American families became stable and strong (Tolman). Newly freed African Americans reaffirmed their devotion to religion and God by organizing strong church communities that became synonymous with the South (Tolman).

Slavery came with great suffering, and loss of cultural and ethnic identity, as well as severing of familial ties. Exposure to religions fronted by Western missionaries, however, turned out to be a source of strength and hope for African American slaves. Western religion served to bridge divides that were brought about by racism. Western religion also promised emancipation and ultimate deliverance from the oppressor. In addition, religion in the West was a stepping stone to greater opportunities through education, and the subsequent ability to mount social change and justice campaigns. Therefore, while conversion to Western religions might be part of the interventions that contributed to loss of a heritage, it also served as a unifying factor, not only for slaves from different regions of Africa, but also the different races that practiced the same faith.

References

Barne, Sarah L. "Black Church Culture and Community Action." Social Forces 2.972 (2005).

Harvey, C B. "African-American Religious Organizations and Institutions in Pennsylvania 1644-1965." 2007. 37-73.

Middleton, Richard. Colonial America: A History. Malden: Blackwell, 1992.

Mitchell, Anthony B. "Self Emancipation and Slavery: An Examination of the African American's Quest for Literacy and Freedom." Penn State University , 2008.

Renee, Lori P. "Black Catholicicsm: Religion and Slavery in Antebellum Louisiana." Masters Thesis. Louisiana State University, 2005.

Tolman, Tristan L. "The Effects of Slavery and Emancipation on African-American Families and Family History Research." African-American Research (2011): 6-17.