Strategies for Survival: Recollections of Bondage in Antebellum Virginia

Chapter 9: Religion

121 9 Religion The slaves’ religion, as historians have convincingly demonstrated , moulded together African and Christian elements. African components were significant in this synthesis, both in early North America and—as late as the 1860s—in the Carolina Low Country.1 But the Low Country was an atypical region, because African-born slaves were still being legally imported there until 1808 (much later than to the Upper South) and because Low Country slaves so heavily outnumbered local white people that influences from whites were weaker than elsewhere in the South. Consequently, several questions remain unsettled: How far (in other parts of the American South) did the slaves’ religion actually differ from the orthodox evangelical Christianity of most Southern whites? Insofar as the slaves’ religion was distinctive, did its distinctive features arise mainly from African influences or from the black people’s experiences of bondage after they had been transported to America? Did Afro-Christianity really serve the interests of the slaves, or was its main effect to make life more comfortable for their white oppressors by subverting insurrectionary spirit among the bondpeople? Finally, have modern historians exaggerated the influence of religion in the slaves’ lives?2 At first sight, it might appear that the Christianity offered to Virginia slaves held little to attract them. When white clergymen preached to bondpeople, they normally presented an expurgated version of Christianity, which affirmed that obedience to masters would be rewarded in the afterlife. Slaves saw through this use of religion to serve the interests of white people. “In de church,” Charles Grandy recalled, “de white folks was on one side an’ de colored on de other. De preacher was a white man. He preach in 122 responses a way lak, ’Bey yo’ marser an’ missus’ an’ tell us don’ steal f’om yo’ marser an’ missus.” Beverly Jones characterized auditors’ typical response to this sort of message, and specified the key biblical text upon which it was based. “Niggers had to set an’ listen to the white man’s sermon,” he complained , “but they didn’ want to ’cause they knowed it by heart. Always took his text from Ephesians, the white preacher did, the part what said, ‘Obey your masters, be good servant.’ Can’ tell you how many times I done heard that text preached on. They always tell the slaves dat ef he be good, an’ worked hard fo’ his master, dat he would go to heaven, an’ dere he gonna live a life of ease. They ain’ never tell him he gonna be free in Heaven. You see, they didn’ want slaves to start thinkin’ ’bout freedom, even in Heaven” (Interviews, 116, 183). Althoughslavesweresometimesauthorizedtolistentoablackpreacher, the presence of a white man was legally required in order to ensure the delivery of a properly obeisant message. “Couldn’ no nigger preacher preach lessen a white man was present,” Beverly Jones grumbled. This was a principal grievance for Ellis Bennett, who was indignant that “[black] preachuhs couldn’t preach less white man say so.” Consequently, slaves often organized unauthorized religious meetings at night, where they could express their real feelings without white supervision. One interviewee after another confirmed the ubiquity of such gatherings. “Nigguhs used to go way off . . . an’ slip an’ have meetin’s,” Elizabeth Sparks remembered. “They called it ‘stealin’ the meetin’.” To attend such an assembly could be dangerous, because a principal function of the hated patrols was to break up such gatherings. The attachment slaves felt for these assemblies was proportionate to the dangers they incurred by attending. “Ol Harry Brown,” one interviewee enthused, “he wuz a kinda preachuh. He ustuh preach to us rite sma’t. Cose dey hada watch fe[r] de paddyrolluhs. . . . Dey come twixt eight an’ twelve at night. Ef dey ketch ye havin meetins, dey’d [arrest] ye. Yessuh! Dey had bloodhounds wid em” (Interviews, 183, 29, 276, 52–53). But this tale of white people’s expurgation of the Bible, and of black people’s stealing the meeting—while substantially true—does not tell the whole story. In Virginia the slaves’ version of Afro-Christianity, though marked by distinct African influences, was by 1860 a thoroughly Christian faith. This would have been an unlikely outcome had white people’s influ- Religion 123 ence on slaves’ beliefs been so slight as might at first seem to have been the case.3 Most of Virginia’s black Christians were Baptists or Methodists. These denominations recruited...