Religion In Albert Raboteau's Slave Religion

European slaveowners forced the African slaves to practice a new religion and a new way of life, they also gave slaves Christian names. I find this very wrong because African Americans were civil they were just different from others and it was not right for the whites to treat them that way. The positive thing that came out of the spreading of religion especially Christianity was that the Africans learned a new religion as well as culture and traditions that were different from their own. The Bible and God came to be very vital in many African American lives because it gave them hope in times of struggle and need as well as bring new cultures, rituals, and even languages that the black community was able to incorporate in their everyday

Slavery: Effective on Slaves and Slaveholders In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Douglass recounts his life in slavery to reveal to his readers the horrors of the American slave system. To effectively inform his readers of the corrupt system, he publicizes the slaveholders’ hypocritical practice of Christianity. Although he himself is a Christian, Douglass’s narrative is a scathing commentary on the ironic role of Christian religion in the Southern slaveholding culture. Throughout his book, the author expresses and exemplifies his perspective on religion by illustrating the falseness and hypocrisy of the Southern people. To start off, Frederick Douglass suggests that the Southern people’s religion is false and insincere.

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

Allen Dwight Callahan’s The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible connects biblical stories and images to the politics, music and, religion, the book shows how important the Bible is to black culture. African Americans first came to know the Bible because of slavery and at that time the religious groups would read it to them instead of teaching them by letting them encounter it for themselves. Later the Bibles stories became the source of spirituals and songs, and after the Civil War motivation for learning to read. Allen Callahan traces the Bible culture that developed during and following enslavement. He identifies the most important biblical images for African Americans, Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel and discusses their recurrence and the relationship they have with African Americans and African American culture.

When people started converting to Christianity the Africans realized that “none of them [were men] of title” (Achebe 119). The Igbo people put men of achievement on a societal pedestal and give them respect only because of their accomplishments, which also means that there are outcasts. The people that have not achieved much are looked down upon in society and are seen as subordinate. Another example of Christianity’s acceptance is how they “educated their converts” (Source C). In the novel, Christianity’s customs contrasts to the Igbo in that the Christians accept individuals as they are and not by what they have accomplished.

Christianity was, to the slaves of America, (something with a double meaning). In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Frederick Douglass, the author, argues about how Christianity can mean one thing to a free white man and something completely different to a black slave. The slave owners follow the ‘Christianity of the Land’ while the slaves follow the ‘Christianity of Christ.’ Frederick begins to build his credibility to a, white, northern, audience by including documents from trustworthy writers and by getting into personal experiences through his writing. Throughout the narrative, he is articulate in how he writes, and it shows the reader that he is well educated.

In his autobiography, former slave turned abolitionist and writer, Frederick Douglass, makes a rather bold statement about the relationship between religion and slavery. He goes so far as to say that the most zealous religious practitioners made the cruelest masters and “found religious sanction and support for [their] slaveholding cruelty” (Douglass 32). However, this raises the question of how radical this idea truly is. Is it really so hard to believe that people would be more likely to dig out and stress religious beliefs that coincide with their own actions?

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

In addition to establishing himself as a credible narrator and using anecdotes with repetitive diction and imagery, Douglass also highlights how religion was enforced in slavery. Every slave owner that Douglass belonged to was hypocritical and deceival towards their faith. This is frequently used through all his anecdotes to persuade the reader that slavery is full of non-sense and that the “devoted, peaceful, just, and kind owners” were full of lies. “He seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the Almighty. He would make a short prayer in the morning, and a long prayer at night; and, strange as it may seem, few men would at times appear more devotional than he…

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. The first being from one of his slaveholders Master Thomas, he whipped a young woman while reading a quote from the scripture to explain his reason for whipping her. The next example was with his other Master Mr.Covey, he would go to church and preach the word but come back beating slaves and going against the almighty God. The example that is shown is again shown with Mr.Covey, he was guilty of compelling his woman slave to commit the sin of adultery. These are examples shown through Frederick Douglass that religious slaveholders are indeed the worst.

This excerpt is extremely important because it makes us better understand the status of African people, subdued by the European nations, and how the concept of slavery was perceived and addressed by

Here, Douglass exposes the Christian attempt to wash their hands of any guilt or wrong doing. Overall, Douglass exposes the truth behind this hypocrisy; when these slaveholders use God as a

Auld’s misinterpretation of the passage emphasizes slave owners use of religion to reinforce their power over their slaves. Christianity rationalized the concept of buying and selling human beings, and that God approved this too. In addition, Douglass used religion as a way to fuel his abolition movement. Under Master Hugh’s, Douglass began to learn how to read and write. Once

Douglass is relentless when attacking the church, he states, “The American Church is Guilty” (Douglass 1039). This has a slightly taste of irony, because here Douglass, a colored man, is calling out the most “sacred” body of people. It almost as if he was the master and they were the slave now. Next, the main theme expressed by

Many tried to destroy them, but slaves stayed strong and found ways to escape their injustices. The first Africans to reach America landed in Jamestown, the first English settlement in North America. For 250 years, many Africans and African-Americans found ways to resist slavery, ranging from hindrances to violent outbreaks. Resistance to slavery came in many forms. On Southern plantations, some slaves executed small passive acts of resistance, while others ran away. Slaves also showed resistance in the form of religious practices in order to find comfort in the face of oppression. Violent rebellions were less common and mostly unsuccessful, but open defiance brought terror upon Southern whites. Slaves resisted the oppressive rule of their masters through aggressive acts like fighting overseers, revolts, and suicide,