Upon arrival, the slaves were taught religious precepts, baptized
The idea behind keeping the slave’s faith in the Lord was that the Lord allows slavery because white people are better than the blacks. Basically, any slave who disobeyed their owner was disobeying the Lord, resulting in an eternity in hell, “To be good children of the Lord, the slaves must beware of Satan who created their cunning wicked master of Hell – for it was Satan who created their desires for freedom and tempted them to run away” (Oates
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
Instead he began to propagate the belief that sharing religion with the slaves would “lay them under stronger obligations to perform the greatest diligence and fidelity”. Though a number of protestant religions moved throughout at the time the Baptist church eventually took ahold of the south to become the most practiced religion. Frey discusses briefly the African culture that made some influence on the lifestyle of the African slaves. Most of the African cultural practices were bogged down or destroyed by the slave owners and American society.
Slaves often sang songs and played music to restore their morality after a long a harsh day of work, they also practiced this to ease one’s sorrow. Slave families were often divided amongst plantations, therefore slaves had no choice but to bond with extended family members. Broomstick weddings were held because African slave matrimony was prohibited. The couple would simply jump over a broomstick, ultimately demonstrating their union to one another. These drives for some sort of dignity were seen as forms of resistance or rebellion (South Carolina Journey pg: 124).
Whether the slaves were followers of Catholic beliefs is a factor that historians seemingly put emphasis on. Mark E. Smith, in his essay Time, Religion, Rebellion, makes the most significant arguments about the relevance of the rebel’s religious and geographical originations as contributing factors. To back this ideology up, Smith states, “Stono’s timing and religious geography expose the short-comings of an older debate on the extent to which transplanted slaves retained elements of their African culture” (Smith, 108). Importance of the date of the insurrection and the nativity of the Virgin Mary is believed to be a major contributing factor to the “why” question (Smith, 110). Some historians consider these slaves may have chosen this date as an affirmation to Catholicism and the Catholic calendar which was restrained after their forced captivity in a mostly Protestant society (Smith, 110).
The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe is about a vengeful, manipulative person named Montresor who is plotting to take the life of his friend Fortunato. This story is good for different reasons, one being the plot construction that hooks the reader from the beginning. Another is the three different types of irony he uses: verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Edgar Allan Poe has a way of writing that pulls the reader in from the beginning. The first few lines of the story “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed my revenge.”
They were forced to endure the harsher philosophies presented in bible that gave the slave owner’s their religious backing to treat their slaves in any manner that they found fitting. They only selected the passages in the bible that promoted the continuance of slavery and demanded obedience from their slaves, “ʺHe that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Douglass 1207). The slaves were taught the Christian doctrine to reiterate their sole purpose in live was to be obedient to their owners. It was apparent to Douglass, however, that his masters hid behind their religion to secure their superiority and be reaffirm that a higher power sanctioned the atrocious acts of humiliation and cruelty, “I have said my master found religious sanction for his cruelty” (1207). This highlights the duality of the Christian doctrine where they preach kindness to all, yet still condone treating slaves as subhuman chattel.
The slaves in South Carolina wanted to follow their own religion, which was Christianity, and the Spanish had offered freedom to any slave who came St. Augustine which included the freedom of religion. The “Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina” (Document 6) tells us that “Sometime since there was a Proclamation published at Augustine, in which the King of Spain promised Protection and Freedom to all Negroes Slaves that would resort thither.” The slaves would try to escape from South Carolina and go to St. Augustine. The King of Kongo, Don Alvarez, had converted the Kongolese to Christianity. Don Alvarez was not interested in Christianity itself, but the power that came with it.
Slaveholders are using religion to keep their slaves in check. Jacobs explains that “Many of the slaves believe such stories, and think it is not worthwhile to exchange slavery for such a hard kind of freedom. It is difficult to persuade such that freedom could make them useful men and enable them to protect their wives and children. If those heathens in our Christian land had as much teaching as some Hindoos, they would think otherwise. They would know that liberty is more valuable than life.
Religion, which performed the function of communion, seems to have been a particularly fruitful area for the creation of slave culture. Africans perceived misfortunes, including enslavement, as the result of sorcery, and their religious practices and beliefs, were formulated as a way of coping with it. Myalism was the
Of these, 427,000 slaves were sent to the colonies” (Colonial America, Unit 3, Lecture 5). With these shipments of slaves came their religions and rituals that they held dear to them as they were sent off to a new world governed by the white men. Eventually, the white men would try to get these slaves to conform to their religious rituals and give up their previous rituals and religious ways of life. These rituals that were being cast out by the white man included folklore and music to which they would dance for their deceased in order to properly honor them and the life they lived while on Earth. As the colonists began to see that they had differing views of religion, they began to drastically change their ways of life by converting them to Protestantism or Catholicism in order to “overcome African culture” (Colonial America, Unit 3, Lecture 5).
Detaching from slavery through their diverse cultural foundations allowed for them to be able to connect with other slaves and hold onto their humanity. The assembly among slaves kept the diversity between slave and master. After a long day of being beaten and working under extreme conditions slaves found a way to disconnect from their danger. They used songs to get through a tough work day out in the fields. By singing they would connect with other slaves and find a way to make a terrible situation better.
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
After exploring the hidden truths behind the culture, I have discovered this: The cultural identity of the Brazilian community is far more diverse and dynamic than what is portrayed in society and the media. One of the most important contributing aspects to a community’s culture is its history. Brazil was discovered by Pedro Álvares Cabral on April 22,1500. From that point on, the Portuguese ruled over this land, focusing greatly on its vast sugar-cane plantations.
