Slavery has always had ties to Christianity, with Christians originally justifying slavery due to the fact that those who they enslaved were not Christian. However, in mid to late eighteenth-century America, religion began to change. The Great Awakening was a movement in which people became dissatisfied with the kind of Protestant Christianity most frequently practiced, and began to favor a more personal form of Evangelical Christianity. In this shift, the relationship Christians, Christianity, and enslaved black people had begun to change as well. While the nature of its impact on modern culture can be debated, Evangelical Christianity was undoubtedly appealing to enslaved African Americans.
Before this large cultural shift, a lack of care
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As time progressed, many churches were more welcoming toward black people. Some were less segregated, allowing black and white members to take communion together, and black people were able to have power in these churches, “being ordained as priests and ministers and-often while still enslaved-preached to white congregations” (Hines, Hines & Harold, 2011). There were also many beliefs and practices that could be what piqued the interest of enslaved African Americans. African American Christianity is said to have blended traditional African culture with Christianity, keeping some amount of traditional culture and cultural practices alive. Furthermore, Christianity helped masses cope with the horrors of being in slavery. In addition to cementing a group identity, there were many specific ideas that brought some amount of security. While slave owners brutally abused and exploited African Americans, and enslaved African Americans endured horribly inhumane conditions, Christianity preached not only the idea of salvation but of an ultimate judgement. A judgement day may indeed suggest a comeuppance for those who owned and brutalized enslaved people. Whether or not that is certain, the idea of salvation and eventual peace was unequivocally a major appeal. Jupiter Hammon, in one poem, “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penetential Cries,” writes “It is firmly fix his holy Word, Ye shall not cry in vain.” This notion specifically suggests that all the pain endured will eventually pay