The collection of readings in section two of Sernett covered a variety of ways that slaves in the south used religion. I found it extremely interesting how slave owners would punish slaves if they would pray to the Lord while they were being whipped. This shows that owners did take the power of prayer incredibly seriously, and were afraid of slaves using it as a weapon. This was not even an incident of organized religion. This would be an act of a slave simply acting as an individual. The fear and concern that owners had about this situation might mean they had even an iota of a belief that God would assist them and their acts of slavery went against his will.

“You got to know something ’bout the lord to git along anywhere. You don’t know nothing ’bout him? Well you better know him; better learn ’bout him, that’s what’ll help you.” (70) When I first started reading this chapter I found it very interesting that at 12/13 years old it was clear to Sister Kelly that in order to make it through life and all the adversity sacked up against her merely based on the color of her skin she needed to trust and believe in God. Due to this it wasn’t hard for me to believe that the connection she felt with God was as strong as it was especially at that age because I felt a very similar connection myself.  Being raised in the church has taught me that anything is possible when it comes to God and all that He is capable of. I was taught to never put limitations on Him and how much of an impact He can have. Although, throughout this chapter I felt like Sister Kelly did not recognize the “voices” she was hearing or “spirits” that were surrounding her as godly ones. However, her experience is completely understandable due to the fact that the human brain does not have the ability to comprehend religious experiences without questioning them.

The reading I wanted to focus on most for this blog post was chapter 9 from Sernett, Conjuration and Witchcraft. Something that really jumped out at me was how witchcraft and Christianity seemed to sit at such opposite ends of the spectrum. Based on our previous readings and discussions Christianity was often used to justify slavery, even among the enslaved. Witchcraft and conjuration on the other hand was a rebellion against their enslavement, not only as an attempt to protect themselves but also to give themselves power over their captors.

In the narrative, however Henry Dibb to me seemed to argue that Christianity offered more to slaves as a means of rebellion. The beginning of the passage talks about how the slave masters did not educate their slaves on the bible, even shutting down ways in which slaves could learn about the bible and cherry picking the parts that supported their claims. Witchcraft on the other hand is argued to be harmful to the slaves as it gives them a false sense of security, wastes their money and doesn’t work as advertised.

Though it is a topic that I know we will explore later in the course, the prevalence of women in the Harvey and Sernett chapters were especially striking to me this week. From black women who held prominent positions in African-American churches, to apathetic, well meaning, or even downright malicious white women, women continued to make their niches in the religious world, even despite the patriarchal tendencies of both the surrounding social and religious atmospheres.Though it is a topic that I know we will explore later in the course, the prevalence of women in the Harvey and Sernett chapters were especially striking to me this week. From black women who held prominent positions in African-American churches, to apathetic, well meaning, or even downright malicious white women, women continued to make their niches in the religious world, even despite the patriarchal tendencies of both the surrounding social and religious atmospheres.

In the Harvey reading, there was a distinct section devoted to the efforts of black women in the AME Church to gain leadership positions within the church. Though women like Jarena Lee, Julia Foote, and Amanda Smith felt “the call to preach the gospel” (Harvey 43), they were not allowed to do anything more than “exhort” their faith, rather than become ordained ministers. Despite being put down time and time again for not being educated enough, or being too spirited in their preachings, the women of the AME Church managed to challenge the ideals of the faith. It is, in my opinion, rather hypocritical that the male leaders of the church would base their church on “education, propriety, respectability, and decorum” (Harvey 43), and thus exclude women from ministry, while their oppressors would likely use the same language to keep black men from taking on leadership positions in white churches.

One of the most striking examples of women in the church was the primary source from Sister Kelly, an ex-slave. To hear how she realized her own faith was heart-warming as well as eye-opening, as her account describes the almost entirely different experiences slave women had, as well as female role models that were present in Kelly’s life. Kelly begins with the white woman who owned her for a time. Though she describes her as “the best white woman that ever broke bread”(Sernett 70), she also adds that “that wasn’t much, ’cause they all hated the po’ nigger” (Sernett 70). Extrapolating from this, though one might expect some sympathy from white women compared to white men, it seems that white women were equally cruel in their treatment of black people, especially slaves. A glimpse into the matriarchs of Kelly’s life are also found in her account; she briefly mentions an “Aunt July”, who affirms her religious inclinations and sends Sister Kelly onto the path of a believer.

Apart from these examples, there are few examples of women during this time with any real agency. Henry Bibb mentions a “poor white girl, who offered to teach a Sabbath School for the slaves” (Sernett 76), and whose school was quickly shut down, showing a possible attempt to aid slaves in religion and literacy. The women mentioned in future passages are little more than symbols– a girl is the impetus to turn Bibb to turn to some superstitious remedies; Nat Turner recollects the murder of several women without remorse; Frederick Douglass laments the whippings of women and uses these as examples of the cruelty of slaveowners.

An excellent resource which I found invaluable in my research of the intersectionality of gender, race, and religion was: A TRIPLE-TWINED RE-APPROPRIATION: WOMANIST THEOLOGY AND GENDERED-RACIAL PROTEST IN THE WRITINGS OF JARENA LEE, FRANCES E.W. HARPER, AND HARRIET JACOBS.

I think the caps really convey the urgency of the article, so I’m keeping them.

Although this is by no means a new correlation, I think that it is important to bring up once more. Last week, we got to discuss the rather madding views of Jupiter Hammon. His views on slavery rested on this key concept; “obey thy master”, or your experience as a slave will be ten times worse. As we discussed, a part of this mantra stems from how were religion (their work was distributed to the masses via white slave owners.) Keeping this concept in mind, Douglas’s views as recorded in Sernett’s work really struck me. Again, we see the same platform being used, but the total opposite side of the scale. As cliché as it may seem practically in the case of slave experience and treatment, I do to a degree, believe that events and experiences are influenced greatly upon personal experience. Recall that Hammon grew up on the kinder side of slavery, as a result, he stands on the grounds that slaves owe their master’s obedience based on all that has been provided for them. In contrast, Douglas points the sickening hypocrisy that sees in slave owners on a daily bases, claiming that the same men who would preach love of God on Sunday, would also beat their slaves bloody that coming Monday. Another important thing that I took of, was how Douglas attempted to clarify his point in the concluding paragraphs. He goes on to state that his dislike of Christians only applies to slaveholders. Both Hammon and Douglas proclaimed themselves to be of the Christian faith, but manipulate scripture and belief to their own personal advantage. Further, take the infamous Tuner rebellion into account. This was more or less a planned slaughter to get back at white slave-owners. From the compilations that we had to read this week, I took away one focal point; cruelty breeds cruelty, and compassion works on the same platform. We define things by our personal experiences at the time. This does not mean this is the way things were 27/4. It is important in the issue of slavery and slave experience to not simply rely on generalized experiences and proclaim these grouped experieces were e v e r y o n e ‘ s reality.

Religion and the making of Nat Turner’s Virginia provides a new interpretation of the rise of evangelical Christianity in the early American South by reconstructing the complex, biracial history of the Baptist movement in southeastern Virginia. To me, this region and its religious history became a subject of intense national scrutiny in the wake of the 1831 revolt led by the enslaved preacher and prophet Nat Turner. By the time Virginia’s religious landscape had already been shaped by the conflict about the implications of evangelical faith for the evolving cluster of interrelated ideas about race, slavery, household, family, and patriarchy that constituted the state’s social order. For black Virginians, evangelical discourses of authority, community, and meaning provided the material for a wide variety of interpretations of Christianity’s social and spiritual message during the eras. The trend toward separation and segregation of black and religion in the antebellum period and had powerful, lasting effects on race relations and religious culture in America.

On particular section that caught my attention in this week’s reading was from Chapter Nine of Sernett’s book. It was written by Henry Bibb, who was an escaped slave. Henry wrote about how many slaves turned to a practice known as conjuration for religious fulfillment, rather than to the Catholic Church. He cited three or four incidents from his younger days, saying that he believed that conjuration made him powerful enough to do whatever he wanted and still avoid consequence. He found this to be false when he came back late one Monday and was whipped for his misbehavior. Not allowing this incident to dampen his belief that conjuration would make him invincible, he went to a different old slave who practiced conjuration. The slave told him to sprinkle a substance over his master’s hat and boots to stop him from ever abusing Bibb again. This method did not work either. He tried again to use conjuration after this, this time in a different situation. A conjurer told him a way to make any girl he wanted fall in love with him by scratching her with the bone of a frog. Bibb attempted to use this charm on a girl that he knew to be with another man, to no avail. Even after this third failure, Bibb simply went to a different conjurer. The fourth conjurer told him to obtain a lock of hair from the girl he desired and put it into his shoes in order to make someone fall in love with him. He tried this on a different girl, but yet again the conjuration does not work-or, rather, he never got a chance to test it because the girl would not give him a lock of her hair. His stubbornness and unflinching belief in conjuration, despite its many, many flaws-mainly the fact that it never actually worked for him-displays how desperate slaves were for anything at all that would give them even a little bit go hope.

The most emotion-inducing reading this week was the reading about Nat Turner. The account of the uprising was honestly rather difficult to read, mainly because of the unfeeling way the violence was described. Nat Turner clearly felt very strongly about his need to make a change, but the way he and his followers went about it is shocking. The chapter gave an account of the attack on a family, including an infant, and it was heart wrenching to read the cold detachment with which such horrible actions were described (Sernett 94).

In sharp contrast, Frederick Douglass’s chapter was filled with incredibly heartfelt words. He describes eloquently and passionately what the difference is between true Christianity and the religion of the slaveholders. He describes what he calls “horrible inconsistencies”, as the people in power around him display one thing when practicing religion, and an entirely different persona the rest of the time (Sernett 106). Douglass speaks of this two-sided existence as “the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels” (Sernett 106). It is incredible to read how fervently Douglass speaks of this difference between true religion, which he speaks of with devotion, and the hypocritical actions of the people around him.

The difference between these two accounts makes each even more unique. The chapter about Nat Turner is very stark, with little emotion save for the devotion felt throughout the entire account. The chapter about Frederick Douglass is quite emotional, and his sincere words make his point even more memorable.

In chapter 8, I see some ideas from Sister Kelly’s writings that the church I grew up in still believes today. One quote that stuck out to me was when she writes, “honey, right now, you young folks is blind, deaf and dumb to the knowledge of God’s name; that can’t last, you gonna change do you hear me? We can’t do no good unless we got God in our heart, and our heads, too.” This is something that I have heard reiterated over and over again. Older people always think that that younger people are too wordly and full of sin and do not know God. Later on, Sister Kelly goes on to claim that young people in general are just awful. I wonder what she would have to say if she saw today’s current generation.

I found this narrative very interesting. While reading this section, I continually thought about the book Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County  by Kristen Green and I began comparing the two. In Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County, community leaders went to extreme lengths to fight integration. These leaders went as far as shutting down the public schools in the area and creating all white private schools to avoid integration anywhere in Prince Edward county. This portion of that book came to mind while I was reading the story of how one church pastor began working with a slave owner to preach the “gospel” to slaves. This pastor would tell slaves that the Devil was giving them the urge to run away and that remaining obedient and loyal to their owner would keep them in God’s graces. The ending of this narrative stood out to me as well. Reading about how slaves praying and/or calling out to God was prohibited but dancing and playing music was allowed and tolerated peaked my interests. I am strongly considering doing some outside research about this topic.