Galaty Reflection Paper #2

Laurel Galaty

Prof. McKinney

History of Slavery in the US

10/15/2014

African-American Christianity

One of the most fascinating parts of the United State’s history of slavery is how a distinct “African-American” culture emerged and developed as slaves taken from Africa adapted European and American values and practices into their own traditions. One of the most important elements of this new culture was the appropriation of Christianity by the slaves into a source of information supporting abolition, as well as an opportunity to form a distinct social community in a way that would have been impossible without the presence of the church. The evolution of a new Christianity was vital to the development of African American culture, and furthered notions of freedom for slaves in a resolute and powerful way.

In his essay Believer I Know: The Emergence of African American Christianity, Charles Joiner describes the way that Christianity shaped and reflected the African American’s world view. He argues that exposing slaves to Christianity was not done delicately, for “[Masters] could not fail to realize that while Christianity promoted order among slaves, it also contained the seeds of disorder”. That disorder resulted from the tensions that Christian values inherently had with the institution of slavery, and slave owners were not unaware of this. Joiner mentions “They feared the slaves, by attending the meetings and listening to the preachers, may imbibe the morality they teach, the notions of equality and liberty, maintained in the gospel”. To counteract this, Masters often instructed slaves with a very narrow version of Christianity, with focus on obedience and not on equality, but these efforts did not succeed. Slaves developed their own worships with their own preachers, and these “slave preachers also sowed the seeds of discontent. The slaves spiritual life was largely hidden from white observation”. In their seclusion, slaves could freely discuss and interpret the areas of Christianity that promoted abolition, such as Exodus, and it was these stories that largely supported the fervent legitimacy of abolition and equality of all people. Even though the spread of Christianity by white masters was meant to teach slaves obedience, it actually hastened the movement towards freedom.

The religion that supported abolition was not identical to the “high church” Christianity that many white european descendants practiced. Rather, historians maintain that there was a complex divergence of traditional African faiths and traditional Christianity that created African American Christianity. Joiner maintains that “The story of the emergence of African-American Christianity is a story of an emergent African-American culture as well as of residual African Cultures”. This appeared in practice and worship, as Christianity took on a much more animated form than the Christianity it descended from. For instance “Just as in Africa, antiphony exemplified the solidarity of the community even as the sermon called forth the profoundest expression of the individual”. This was demonstrated in many ways, one way being the use of spirit possession. Joiner contends that “The phenomenon of spirit possession, one of the most significant features in African religion… was reinterpreted in Christian terms to become a central feature of expressive behavior in African-American Christianity”. In Sterling Stuckey’s essay How Africans Preserved their Culture: Culture as Spirit, the ring shout is cited as being a critical aspect of African influence in religion for slaves and it is asserted that “the retention of important features of the African cultural heritage provided a means by which the new reality could be interpreted and spiritual needs at least partially met… religion was more encompassing to the African in Slavery than before, the ring shout being a principal means by which physical and spiritual, emotional and rational, needs were fulfilled”. Ultimately, the embodiment of certain aspects of African spirituality into Christianity created the African American slave’s faith, and allowed for the combination of values to become practical religious practice.

The embodiment of the African American christian faith is indicated in The Journey of York, a modern book of poetry by Frank X Walker that serves to give a personal voice to York, the only slave to travel with the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific ocean. In the preface, Walker states that his goal was to write as “a vessel for his voice and his story”, meaning that his research and efforts were focused on portraying a realistic York with authenticity being the aim of every poem. With this goal in mind, it is interesting to note that in instances where York remarks upon religion, it is with Christianity in mind. For instance, in the poem Primer, York remarks that “the only book we ‘lowed to know is the bible”, and in later poems, uses biblical stories as context to explain his points. For instance, as he describes stumbling upon a large fish to eat on the beach, York states “the good Lord send us a monster to swallow rather than be swallowed like ol’ Jonah”, and he describes the Native American’s creation stories to be “stories so full they put Genesis to shame”. Walker’s use of Christianity in his poetry indicates that he is using the stories he knows York to be most familiar with to make points that will be accessible to all. He even continues to use Christianity as a way for York to express hatred of slavery. In the poem Cumulonimbus, York proclaims that to be a slave is a terrible life, but that there is a resilience in the “African” spirit that will help African Americans overcome slavery in the end. To conclude this poem York asserts “What some calls lightening an Thunder just be God trying to see what we choosing an us grumbling ‘bout being slaves”. In this instance York is referring directly to God in a moment where he directly opposes slavery, which is a clear demonstration of the use of Christianity as a means to protest and abolition.

These sources clearly demonstrate that religion was a critical component of slave’s lives. Whether by encouraging ideas of freedom and equality or by making African-American culture distinct, it’s clear that religion, specifically the reinterpreted Christianity that Slaves developed is an important piece of the history of slavery, and is an inextricable piece of the identity that slave’s created for themselves.