This was one of the more enjoyable sections to read in the additional reading this week. Again, I am left somewhat speechless over the amount of information about African American life and realities that we are not taught in school regardless of our race. It is new to learn that slave owners did not want to convert their slaves on the grounds of dehumanizing them. However, what is not traditionally expressed within our educational system is this rather ironic reality. We are all familiar with the creation story. It is because of the impulse of Eve, that humans to understand the concept of free-will. By disobeying the word of God, man then became self-aware (i.e. being naked 27/4 is not really the coolest thing.) Take this concept and apply it to the minds of slave-owners. Raboteau notes how slaveholders were also motivated not to Christianize their salves, because it would change the chain of power. By allowing their slaves to be religiously educated, they would then have a higher self-respect for themselves. And their free-will would also be heightened. We educated throughout high school that slaves had no deeper purpose then to work. We have it drilled into us that all masters hated their slaves. As we have seen, the reality was literally not so black and white. There is a famous quote that goes something like this, “Knowledge is power.” By denying education, slave holders were set on the idea that if slaves were kept in the dark, they would to some degree be dumber. This mindset implied that slaves were not born with average intelligence, they were too far gone to even be considered for religious education. This brings up an old debate. Are we born with basic intelligence, or is everything we know instructed? Do we all have a set limit of capacity for all things in life, or is everything constantly evolving?

Ps. This  made me think in a different light. Maybe you will too.

In terms of other people’s views, I’m usually fairly tolerant but Jupiter Hammon in chapter 4 of African American Religious History had an ideology that I simply couldn’t agree with. I understand that he took a passive, forgiving approach(which isn’t wrong at all) but it seems quite skewed from my perspective. He speaks on his “brethren”, stated on page 35, as if they are unable to survive without the cruel mistreatment of their oppressors. Hammon also states that a slave’s master is only cruel and abusive if the servant doesn’t freely obey them which triggered me the most. First, it’s difficult for enslaved people to freely(oxymoron) obey someone who stripped them of everything they have. Second, his thought process is like saying victims of domestic violence wouldn’t be beaten if they simply complied with their partner.

As I was reading Jupiter Hammon’s “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York,” I began to feel as if I was reading work by Booker T.  Washington. Hammon’s ideas of slaves obeying their masters are critically what Washington stood for. Washington urged slaves to accept discrimination and focus on improving their education rather than their political status. Hammon urged slaves to be grateful for the situation they were in, making the accusation that it was God’s will. How are men’s vacuous, intolerant ways doings of God? I understand the concept of what Hammon was trying to illustrate, but the manner in which it was proclaimed was an offense to God; the same goes for Washington. The idea that slaves obeying the masters to eventually make them feel wrong is a long stretch that has no guarantee of occurring. The fault with the demeanor of both Washington and Hammon is that it empowered the white population to continue mistreating enslaved individuals and did not take the feelings of slaves into consideration.  I personally was disgusted and appalled by the writing of Jupiter Hammon, as I was when I first learned about Booker T. Washington.

I won’t lie, I found this week’s reading just a little dry. In comparison to last week’s readings in Sernett, there was a lot of repetition and the same underlying idea in every chapter. That’s to be expected I guess, but reading three accounts of people telling slaves the exact same things: that they are sinners, must repent, and serve god in order to be free in heaven, wasn’t all that interesting.

However, one connection that I made early on was that it seemed that the black preachers were more successful in converting and christianizing slaves. This was later on confirmed in Catechesis and Conversion, and was especially noticeable during The Great Awakening. It seems pretty obvious that slaves were more likely to be converted by people that they shared at least basic commonality with, but it’s something I’ve never learned or heard about.

A part of Raboteau’s reading was quite thought-provoking. He wrote that the “history of religious instruction of slaves involved three parties: planters, missionaries, and slaves” (Raboteau, 120). The missionaries seem explanatory enough, though later in the same paragraph he remarked that “pagan slaves” were brought to “Christian disciples,” an unusual change from the traditional “disciple sent out with the gospel to the pagans.” While Christians had been instructed to spread the Word to all by Jesus in Mark 16:15, these New World, American Christians put their fear of “different” people over their fear of God. Some would consider that a failure. Cotton Mather, famed Puritan theologian, claimed that people who didn’t see Africans and African-Americans as neighbors and brothers were ignorant. Africans and African-Americans had humanity, and he daringly said they had an “equal right with other men” (Raboteau, 101). Mather authored The Negro Christianized.

I suppose the part that strikes me is the idea that the planter–essentially a slave’s master and boss–had such a role in the religious life of a slave. Today a boss having a say in what religion you practice, or how you practice, is almost unheard of. It goes against the United States Constitution and the First Amendment. I understand that in this era of American history, Africans and African-Americans were not seen as citizens, and in some parts, not even considered human beings. But a majority of the colonists had left Europe to escape religious persecution and the overbearing hands of kings and queens who were considered to be forcing their religious beliefs onto their subjects. But white slave-owning planters had turned around and were doing the same thing, in a country espousing religious toleration and pluralism (on paper, at least).

So how can, ethically, someone who feared persecution of their own religious beliefs, attack the beliefs of another? Someone who didn’t want to be forced to follow the religion of their socio-politic-economic leader (the king) force a religion onto another? Or even yet, as a Christian tasked with spreading the Word of Jesus, deny someone the Word based on their appearance, race, or gender? All of these questions have answers just as complicated, and eventually the Great Awakening created a new era of conversion and a new interpretation and translation of Christianity (Raboteau, 127). Africans and African-Americans, slave or free, began to have more influence in their religious lives. They were learning about Jesus, the Bible, and organizing themselves into congregations. But some congregations were still controlled by those in power, as the emphasis was placed on conversion, not on explaining doctrines. It just seems as though people became too caught up in the politics of religion, and forgot about the theology they claimed to believe.

Reading through A History of African American Christianity it was interesting to see how interwoven perceptions of religion were with race. The Europeans view of the African religions were so dismissive that, unlike Islam, they did not even consider to be a competition or a threat with their attempt to spread Christian beliefs. I was also incredibly surprised and interested by the idea that many whites were unsure about whether African Americans could be real Christians because they were not considered to be fully human.

The part of the reading that I found most intriguing was the account by Francis Le Jau, in chapter three of Milton C. Sernett’s African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness. His account of his church and of his efforts to convert various members of his community was eye-opening as to the difficulties posed by the resistance of society and by the planters within the society (Sernett 25). Francis Le Jau struggled to convert more members to his church despite the resistance, though he faced great trepidation throughout society regarding the effect of educating the slaves. He did manage to convert and baptize a few, a success he recorded with pride in his letters. It was also interesting to read the measures that Francis Le Jau put in place in order to satisfy the reservations of society, such as requiring the consent of the planter who owned the slave, as well as ensuring that he clarified the purpose of baptism before proceeding to baptize the converted new member of the congregation (Sernett 26).

Le Jau’s account stood out from the other readings for this week due to his focus on his religion and spreading it despite the resistance from those around him. The other accounts we read this week involved accounts of native religious practices, as well as the adaptations and changes that happened within those practices, but it was interesting to read of Le Jau’s lack of focus on native religions but rather on the best methods of converting as many people as possible to his church. His clear focus and sense of purpose, which prevailed even over the obstacles before him, provided a fascinating contrast to the perspectives of the other readings.

I found a picture of Francis Le Jau’s church: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/csas200803881/.

When slavery came to America, the slave owners main goal was to dehumanize the enslaved person to get them easily under their control. The African people were stolen from their homes and forced into spaces with people from different cultures and who had different religions and rituals. Even though they had different beliefs, the enslaved people were able to find many similarities with in their own religions to bond together and continues those rituals. Most tribes had a common belief that the “God” figure was a far off and distant one and had control over smaller gods who inhabited earth in different places.

One of the parts I found most interesting about the reading was what they believed about the afterlife.  The common belief was that after you died, you became a spirit and you continued to interact with humans and human life (pg.14). Most religions I have knowledge about in the afterlife you go to a separate area, like heaven, and those who have passed watch over the living but do not get involved with it themselves. There is something comforting with the idea that your ancestors are still with you and looking out for you and your other relatives. Especially when you are put in a situation where you are stripped away from your family and dehumanized. That balancing of the spirit world could work as a reminder of hope for the people that the spirits are trying to work in their favor.

The resilience with the enslaved people was amazing. They lived in a place where they were designed to be oppressed and dehumanized but yet they still found ways to continue their traditions. Even with owners trying to force the enslaved into following their religions because they found a way to use it to support slavery, African Americans found a way to follow their beliefs while making it their own and something they could actually believe in. A good example of this is in the African American History and Culture Museum in Washington D.C. where on display they have a bible that is translated into Gullah-Geechee which was the language used by descendants  of Africans in the south.

African Diaspora was an interesting excerpt to read and I learned a few things from this reading. There were times where I struggled to understand the concepts of certain parts of the reading. Sometimes I would have to go back over sections and analyze the text to make sure that I was grasping the ideas that the author was trying to express. One section that really stood out to me was the African Religious Traditions. I was both intrigued and confused by this particular section. Reading about the  Portuguese-African children who were the very few Africans that were “converted” from Islam to Christianity was interesting. One thing that confused me was the time line of the next portion of this section. The author talks about the small success Portuguese missionaries had with converting West Africans during 1682. Then the author states that Christianity became widespread among Africans more so enslaved Africans around the nineteenth century. However I thought that the Atlantic slave trade began around the 1600’s so I did some research and found this website. It was a very detailed website that offered a lot of information about the Atlantic slave trade.

Traditional beliefs and practices of African people are highly diverse and include various ethnic religions. They were largely Orisha religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural, include belief in a supreme creator, belief in spirits, and the veneration of the dead. They also include the use of traditional medicine.The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonising nature with the supernatural.