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The Role Of Slavery In African American Religion

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Religion, Slavery, and Knowledge Religion was used to justify slavery in the antebellum south. America is made up of immigrants who left oppression and persecution hoping for a new life, one free of “enslavement”. Upon arrival the colonist established their own religions in different part of the colonies, the Anglicans in north, the Catholics in the middle, and a cluster of Christians in the south .The newly free colonists practiced their beliefs, while they search for” workers”, leading to the enslavement of African Americans, who were even neglected of the basic idea of freedom. Ironic as it is the colonist quickly fell in to a lust for power as they enslaved a whole race with out hesitation. From the very beginning of the slave’s, life within a year of their birth, they are separated from their families “before the child has reached its twelfth …show more content…

Not being able to make their own decisions, the slaves were forced to do and follow certain beliefs. The colonist believed that all slave had to be Christians and if not the slaves were forced to convert to Christianity. The life of a slave was terrible, form horrific living conditions, to abuse both physical and mental for example “ A slave should know nothing but to obey his master” (Douglass, 41). Slaves were being brainwashed into believing that their soul purpose in life was to obey their masters. Slave masters prohibited the slaves from learning how to read and write because the slave masters knew that knowledge was key to success. Most slave owners insisted that a slave master must enforce an embargo of knowledge on slaves. The owners feared that the slaves would become aware

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During the time when Douglass wrote this book, there were several myths which were used to justify slavery. The slaveholder during his time justified this inhuman practice using different arguments. The first argument they used was the religion. From the narrative, Douglass says that slaveholders called themselves Christians which was the dominant religion by then.

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1049 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout his narrative, Douglass’s descriptions of the white slaveholders expose the Christian hypocrisy found in the American slave system. Douglass first does so by exposing how the lesson taught by Christians to help those in need is contradicted by the experiences Douglass has especially with hunger. Douglass reflects on these experiences when he states that for the “first time during a space of more than seven years” feeling the effects of the “painful gnawing’s of hunger…” (54). This event shows the Christians’ lessons of selflessness and kindness is hypocritical as they treat their fellow humans as subhuman. The Christians at the time rely on scripture to make a case for slavery in America.

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Douglass managed to overcome the maltreatment of his wretched slave owners through the eventual attainment of freedom. The injustice imposed upon the African-American slaves by their owners was the crux of Douglass’s motivation to escape this inhumane life. Adolescents in today’s society could use Frederick’s determination as an example of moving forward to better oneself or one’s situation regardless of

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1642 Words | 7 Pages

From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race of people. To create a group of individuals known for their extreme oppression derived from slavery, required plantation owner’s of the South to constantly embedded certain values into the lives of their slaves. To talk back means to be whipped.

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that Negroes . . . could be disciplined, even punished, [without regrets] since they were not Christians; and that the supply [seemed to be without end]. Black labor was precisely what Virginia needed in order to speed up the clearing of the forests and the [growing] of larger and better tobacco crops.” Slavery was extremely inhumane and cruel. Slave codes denied slaves basic human rights and treated them as property.

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488 Words | 2 Pages

Africans who were already enslaved saw conversion to Christianity as a road to freedom, and many others who were not already enslaved believed conversion would protect them from becoming

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973 Words | 4 Pages

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light

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Human slavery requires ignorance, just as an individual’s freedom, from oppression, requires knowledge attained by education. To maintain order and control over slaves, slavery demands ignorant slaves; thus, keeping slaves ignorant prevents slaves from recognizing the empowering value of education and education’s ability to liberate slaves from the effects of ignorance. Frederick Douglass’s pursuit of education helped him discover the dark, hidden truths of slavery in his article, “How I Learned to Read and Write.” Thus, the pursuit of education inspires a desire for freedom. The desire to learn generates determination and motivation.

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One of those things was slave codes. Which gave more power to the slave owners and even less power to the slaves on page 434, it says "in existence since the 1700's slave codes were written to prevent the event white southerners dreaded most-became more severe. This shows that the slaves had absolutely no access to freedom to the slave codes another way that the slaves resisted was that they faked an illness, so they can get revenge to their masters on page 437 it gives a specific explanation on how they faked their illness. It says "For the most part enslaved people resisted slavery by working slowly or pretending to be ill. Occasionally resistance took more active forms, such as setting fire to a plantation building or breaking tools.

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958 Words | 4 Pages

Douglass states “the practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system” (Douglass, 24). In other words, the children that were being separated from their family by the system, was not worth being with their family. Slave owners thought that they are not worth being human themselves. Meaning, they are more like animals and cargo instead of a human being. The slaves were stripped from their identity.

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Being enslaved was not an easy job for African Americans. African Americans survived slavery through their connection with their culture. They then went on to contribute to the economic and social development of the South and America. African Americans survived the institution of slavery and Africanized the American South. They helped free themselves by sticking together as a family, resisting, as well as wanting slavery to change.

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Slaves were forbidden to learn how to read and write because slave owners wanted to keep slaves ignorant and dependent upon them. Likewise slave owners thought that educating the slaves would harm the system of slavery. For instance laws were created in several states illegally forbidding slaves to learn to read and write. I believe slave owners took such a hard stance on educating slave because they felt that slaves would start to want more (i.e. freedom) and that education of slaves would be what ended slavery.

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Frederick Douglass had multiple masters over the course of his life. Half of his masters were good and some were bad. The worst and cruelest were religious slaveholders who used religious scripture to explain why they beat and whipped the slaves. In reality they were hypocrites. Douglass gives multiple examples of how religious slaveholders showed hypocrisy.

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Religion and its relationship to slavery is a contradictive subject, whether it was forced upon slaves or was a form of hope and freedom is still commonly debated about to this day. However, these individuals were devoted Christians in the abolitionist movement who all

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By using this reference, it illustrated the severity of the alienation of blacks in the Southern United States. In 1619, a Dutch ship “introduced the first captured Africans to America, planting the seeds of a slavery system that evolved into a nightmare of abuse and cruelty that would ultimately divide the nation”. The Africans were not treated humanely, but were treated as workers with no rights. Originally, they were to work for poor white families for seven years and receive land and freedom in return. As the colonies prospered, the colonists did not want to give up their workers and in 1641, slavery was legalized.

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