To understand the African slave trade we must understand slavery as an institution-an

institution almost as old as human society. Every people, at some time or another, have been

slaves. In fact, Europeans enslaved other Europeans for a much longer period than they enslaved

Africans. Slavery was a permanent feature of the ancient world, in Egypt, Kush, and Rome.

The African slave period is best known to us because it is the best-documented. However,

these documents are often confusing because they were created by people who were trying to

justify the slave trade. Most people, especially Europeans who created most of the documents on

the slave trade, write about the subject with the intent to make the victim of slavery feel guilty

and to vindicate the perpetrators of the slave trade.1

We refer to the European Slave Trade to describe the events that are currently most often

referred to as the Transatlantic Slave Trade or the Triangular Atlantic Slave Trade. But the

holocaust committed against African people during the period from the middle of the fifteenth

century to the nineteenth century, did not occur simply because of an ancient or geographical

location. Nor is the particular geometrical shape of the shipping routes of any essential

importance. Both terms tend to obscure the historical reality of a consciously-planned enterprise

ruthlessly carried out at the expense of a specific group of human beings, and which was

perpetrated primarily for the benefit of another specific group.2

There are attempts at diversion with comments like, “Everybody practiced slavery,” or

“Africans sold slaves too.” Some people may find it uncomfortable or disturbing to identify by

name or by denomination, national ethnicity, and racial origins those who planned, initiated, and

systematically carried out the practice of chattel enslavement imposed upon tens of millions of

Africans over a period of four centuries. The scale and scope of these horrific events is indeed
1
John Henrik Clarke, Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust, (New York: A&B Publishers Group
Brooklyn, 1998), 57.
2
Love Henry Welchel, The History and Heritage of African-American Churches: A Way Out of No Way, (St. Paul,
MN: Paragon House, 2011), 56.

1
astounding. Nevertheless, their feelings of embarrassment or discomfort pale in comparison to

what was felt by those Africans who were so abused. In consideration of the continuing

disastrous consequences of the European Slave Trade still experienced by the progeny of those

who were enslaved, we may dismiss such concerns. Far beyond merely assigning blame, we

must thoroughly understand the factors that facilitated such a monstrous deed should we ever

hope to fully transcend the negative behaviors endangered during the slave trade. We are most

likely to resolve problematic conditions if we are able to substantively describe them, accurately

identify contributing factors, or even acknowledge that the conditions exist.

For the first 1,000 years Christianity flourished almost exclusively on the European

continent. This has led to the misconception that has persisted even up to the present day that

Christianity is basically a “white man’s religion”.3 People began to identify Christianity with

Europe, not Africa, and this perception was purposely propagated by many European scholars

after the 1500s as they sought to rationalize Europe’s manifest destiny to dominate the rest of the

world. Thus Africans, the historical parents of Christianity, became the children. Western

Christianity had gained the world but in many ways lost its soul. The Africans’ roots were

forgotten or purposely erased along with the memory of a once much more inclusive church.

Without the African presence, Western Christianity adopted a decidedly more materialistic

gospel, the church became more intertwined in European politics, and things would not change

much for the better until the Protestant Reformation. In the 1500s, for the first time, Europeans

began to depict Christ in their own physical image as the Black Madonna, still venerated even

today throughout Europe, the woman who miraculously gave birth to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed

Jesus.4

3
Buell G. Gallagher, Color and Conscience: The Irresistible Conflict (New York: Harper and Brother Publishers,
1946), 52.
4
Ibid., 53-54.

2
 At the dawn of the European Slave Trade, European Christianity had lost contact with

African Christians for a millennium. When European Christians re-established contact with

Africans it would not be for the purpose of renewing Christian fellowship. In the first half of the

fifteenth century, Portugal led the way in the exploration of Africa. This should be no surprise

since the Iberian Peninsula, which includes Portugal and Spain, had been occupied for over 700

years by the Moors, including Africans who had converted to Islam. These black Moors

maintained the light of civilization in Europe during the Dark Ages by promoting learning and

grand architecture throughout Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese were determined to establish a

foothold in Africa. It took 80 years, but they were eventually able to erect the Elimina Castle,

which gave Portugal a head start in the slave trade.5

It is deeply ironic that the rationale for converting Africans to Christianity was used by

Europeans to defend the European Slave Trade. All of the major European powers from the

sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries were involved in the slave trade, which they defended

on the grounds that Africans must be converted from paganism and barbarianism in order to

become European-style Christians and “enlightened” by European civilization. If the African

churches had not been separated from Western Christianity, the Atlantic Slave Trade may still

have occurred, but the rationale used to support it would have surely been different.6

The European Slave Trade brought millions of Africans to the Americas, and left millions

more dead due to starvation, disease, and war.7 Africans who were brought to the Americas were
5
Lamin Sanneh, West African Christianity (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1983), 22-24.
6
All nations involved in the European Slave Trade embraced Christianity and they invoked God’s blessings on their
activities by giving holy names to the slave ships that transported enslaved Africans to America. (See for reference
George Francis Dow, Slave Ships and Slaving (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1969), 22.
7
Daniel P. Mannix, Black Cargoes: History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1518-1865 (New York: Penguin Books,
1962), viii. Estimating the devastating impact of the European enslavement of Africans both in the Diaspora and on
the Continent is challenging and contentious partly because the negative effects of slave trading continue to the pre-
sent day. W.E.B Dubois observed that the slave trade changed the face of African life and deprived the Black race of
hundreds of millions of human beings. See for reference Joseph E. Harris, The History of Africans and Their People.
New York: Penguin Group, 1972; John R. Spears. The American Slave Trade: Its Origins, Growth and Suppression.
Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publications, 1970; Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

3
mostly killed from the coast of West Africa, but there were also some taken from the regions of

northern, central, and eastern Africa. The captured blacks were forced to undergo a horrific

voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in chains. They were subjected to beatings, rapes, and wanton

murder during this Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas. It is estimated that more than

one third of those Africans captured died on the continent or during the 6-10 week voyage across

the Atlantic. Stories abound of how captured Africans would grab handfuls of dirt to swallow

prior to being forced onto slave ships. It was way to have part of their homelands inside of them.

Greed was the psychological motive behind European slavery, and once the economic

and political forces needed to sustain the endeavor were unleashed, they would prove to be

difficult to subdue. Religious rationalizations were also concocted in order to legitimize slavery.

Conquest, conversion, and slavery were inseparable factors of European colonial expansion from

the early 1500s, as Portugal and other European powers came together in pursuit of a policy

designated to break the Muslim monopoly of trading routes through the Red Sea and across the

Indian Ocean. The Europeans were highly motivated and determined to penetrate Africa as a

way of bypassing Muslim influence. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal began to formulate

a plan to outflank the Muslims by circumnavigating Africa. His plan was to buy into the African

trading routes and thereby avoid the high prices demanded by the Venetians who, at that time,

dominated European trade in the Mediterranean.8

The Portuguese built slave ports on the west coast of Africa that enabled European

nations to establish a colonial presence and allowed them to more efficiently engage in slave

trading.9 The European expansion and intrusion into Africa had the blessings and support of the

church and the royal governments. The missionaries and military commanders coordinated their
Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1982; Basil Davidson, The African Slave Trade. Boston: Little Brown,
and Company, 1980.
8
Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 153-155.
9
Ibid., 303-305.

4
activities in order to effectively penetrate Africa both physically and culturally. Conversion and

conquest went hand in hand. An early Portuguese slaver summed up the effort by relaying that

their mission was “to serve God and His Majesty, to give light to those in darkness, and to grow

rich as all men desire to do.”10

The practice of slavery in America has a European origin. The ancient and ubiquitous

practice of slavery would find its most extreme and intense expressions in the “New World”.

Before the arrival of Europeans, slavery had been practiced in Africa for centuries, but it was

qualitatively different from the much more brutal forms of slavery that would be imposed by

Arabs and, later, Europeans. Africans who refused to submit to Arabic culture were persecuted

and many were enslaved. Europeans were interested in the exploitation of Africa for slave labor.

Africans were easy targets because it was perceived they could adopt European cultural values

easily. The demand for black slaves was clearly articulated by the procurator-general of Lima,

when he wrote in 1646, “The shortage of blacks threatens the total ruin of the entire kingdom, for

the black slaves are the source of wealth which the realm produces.”11

European and American economic strength was built through conquest, colonization,

enslavement, and strict control of the markets. British plantation owners got legislation passed in

parliament to give them a monopoly over the exportation of sugar from the Caribbean. The

Europeans who settled in the Americas were motivated by many factors, including the desire for

religious and political freedom and to escape from the oppressive regimes of Europe. Many

Europeans were forced to come to early colonial America as punishment for crimes. Slavery as

10
Ibid., 128-149; Daniel P. Mannix, Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1518-1865 (New York:
Penguin Books, 1962), 19-20.
11
C.L.R. James, “The Atlantic Salve Trade and Slavery: Some Interpretations of Their Significance in the
Development of the United States and the Western World, “Floyd Hayes, ed., A Turbulent Voyage: Readings in
African American Studies, (Collegiate Press: San Diego, 2000), 59.

5
practiced in the region that became the United States would become the most inhuman form of

human bondage.12

A different strategy of White Supremacy and racial domination was applied in the United

States, as the number of blacks was only a fraction of the number of whites and there was not

much need for a racial “buff”. Slavery is inhuman wherever it is practiced, but the chattel slavery

developed by the North American colonists was unrivaled in the utter intensity of its brutality.

Slaves in North America were property, period. They had no recognized rights as human beings,

and consideration was given only to what they could produce economically. This form of slavery

was extreme when compared to slavery practiced in other countries, such as South America.

Enslaved Africans in North America could be raped, beaten, maimed, or murdered without even

the pretense of legal consequences for the whites who perpetrated such acts.13

In fact, the mainline white denominations offered Africans a degrading brand of

Christianity, contributing to the process of eradicating African culture and religion. The religion

that the colonial Christians offered the Africans did not allow them to openly integrate the

memory of their ancestors and native religions into their lives. After being stripped of their

heritage, they were denied their humanity as they were brutally forced into an animal-like

existence devoid of the respect of their ancestry or cultural heritage.

Although they had come from many different cultural groups from across the African

continent with distinct and complex social hierarchies and elaborate ritual systems, they were

now thrown together into the same wretched condition without any respect for their previous

social identities. There was an attempt made to obliterate the African cultural identity and

completely dissolve the sense of community that the Africans brought with them from their

12
Richard Klugar. Simple Justice (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 27.
13
Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), 317-319.

6
homeland. They were forbidden to speak their native languages, use their African names, and

practice their customs to initiate their children into their ritual systems, or preserve their native

beliefs and values.14 The impact of this historically unparalleled cultural and spiritual holocaust

on African people, which lasted for the better part of four centuries, is unfathomable. For

Africans, history and culture were in the blood.

It is a basic precept of traditional African beliefs that a people who do not express love

and appreciation for their ancestors will surely die. But, how can the ancestors be honored if the

people are not allowed to learn who they were? Expressing faith and love for someone else’s

cultural heritage, while rejecting one’s own, is effectively an act of cultural and spiritual suicide.

Yet the Christianity offered to the Africans was intentionally designated to make them reject and

forget the memory of their African ancestors and to accept the gods of those who had enslaved

and colonized them. Converting Africans to the practice of American Christianity was an effort

to coerce and co-opt them into embracing the gods and religion of their enemies and, in effect, to

worship their enemies.15

Europeans began the process of enslaving Africans prior to their colonization of

continental America. Thus, in early colonial America the enslavement of Africans met with only

slight opposition. Even the minimal opposition offered was mostly silenced as the slave holders

and their supporters developed the rationale that the slave trade was a means of bringing

civilization and Christianity to the heathens of the Dark Continent. The conversion motif crafted

by the religious authorities “sanitized” the activities of the slave holders and provided a moral

basis for the slave trade. However, the excuse of enslaving Africans for religious means created

unforeseen problems. The conversions and baptisms of Africans compelled colonial Christian
14
Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1969), 103-15.
15
Mechal Sobel, Trabelin’ on the Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1988), 22-56

7
America to face the question of the humanity of their black slaves. If the blacks could be

baptized and converted, were they not them also created in the image of God? It was wide spread

English belief that there was a common need for conversion expressed in the saying “all men are

sinners before God and need salvation.”16

The Old English custom that prohibited one Christian from holding another in bondage

had devastating economic implications for the slaveholders. The colonial governments were

faced with contradictory theological and economic imperatives. To deny the conversion and

baptism of the slaves would be to undermine the rationale for the slave trade. Yet to embrace the

manumissions of slaves after conversion and baptism would destroy the slaveholders and wreak

financial havoc on the ruling classes of the colonies. Consequently, the colonial authorities began

to develop a conversion motif that would accommodate the interests of both the church and the

slave holding establishment.

Initially, conversion justified religious involvement in slavery on the grounds that

Africans needed to be converted and civilized. Once enslaved Africans became Christians, a

further rationale was required to justify their continued bondage. This new rationale was supplied

by the religious authorities and scholars of the church claimed that Africans, already barbaric and

heathen, had souls doomed to eternal perdition and destruction. Black skin color thus became a

stigma, an inherent mark of slavery, inferiority, and godlessness. And baptism did not change the

inferior status of Africans as it was deemed an insufficient reason for emancipation. The slave

status would remain with the blacks, despite their conversion status.17

In 1664, Maryland became the first colony to enact laws explicitly denying slaves

freedom based on their conversion to Christianity. Three years later, Virginia enacted a similar
16
Welchel, Hell Without Fire: Conversion in Slave Religion, 31.
17
Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: “The Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1978), 152. See H. Shelton Smith, In His Image But…Racism in Southern Religion, 1780-1910.
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1972), 129-165.

8
measure, which held that the freedom of the slave’s soul after conversion did not also apply to

his body. At first, the Virginia Assembly had protected Africans who were Christians prior to

arriving in America as it also protected whites who were indentured servants. However, that

legislation was repealed in 1682 and replaced so that after importation would not alter the status

of slavery.18

The colonial establishment devised a particular language for slave conversion-

differentiating the soul salvation from the freedom of the body-to give establishments of slavery

the veneer of civilization and legality. Attempting to justify the evil of slavery, the colonists

rhetorically separated the slave’s soul from his body. The justification for the continued

enslavement of the African’s body was accomplished by the invention of the idea of the racial

inferiority of the African. This doctrine posited that the biological, social, cultural and linguistic

differences made it impossible for an African to ever be the equal of European Americans. This

new language of conversion was custom-made for the peculiar institution of America slavery. It

met both the economic and political needs of colonial America and was supported by civil and

religious authorities. To the satisfaction of the American colonists, this had answered the

question: How can a Christian nation condone and conduct the institution of human slavery?19

It is seldom recognized or acknowledged that the religious instruction by the Colonial

Christians given to the African Americans contributed to the suppression of their indigenous

spirituality and piety as expressed in traditional African religion and culture. European

Americans regarded African beliefs and practices, such as ancestor veneration, holy dancing and

shouting, deity possessions, and drumming as expressions of paganism and barbarity.

Nevertheless, African Americans clung tenaciously too many of their natural beliefs and

18
Archives of Maryland, I: Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, January 1637, September
1664 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1883), 527-27.
19
Whelchel, Hell Without Fire: Conversion in Slave Religion, 32-33

9
practices, often expressing them in secret as they adapted and integrated these customs into the

version of Christianity now being imposed upon them. During the early colonial period, few

Africans were attracted to American Christianity. The first generation of Africans did not

embrace it. However, later generations, particularly those Africans born in America, began to

accept Christianity as they saw some educational, social, and economic benefits in converting.

Also, they soon learned how to alter the version of Christianity they were given to make it more

spiritually compatible with their reality. In time, the vitality, imagination and creativity that the

Africans brought to the practice of Christianity produced a unique religiosity that helped to shape

American Christianity.20

It was not until the Great Awakening (1730-1780) that a significant number of African

Americans accepted Protestant Christianity. It is perhaps ironic that the African-inspired pietism

and holiness that the European Americans had had suppressed and attempted to destroy for more

than a century sparked a transnational spiritual revival in both Europe and America. Prior to the

Great Awakening, African Americas practiced a clandestine holiness while, at the same time,

worshipping publicly in white churches under the supervision of the slaveholders. The religious

services and teachings were conducted by white preachers who emphasized a heavenly reward

for good slaves who were obedient to their masters. More important to the blacks, however, was

the “Invisible Institution,” in which practices of holy dancing, shouting, spirit possessions,

spirited testimonies, and exhortations were practiced in secret bush harbors away from the prying

eyes of the overseers. Despite threats and punishments, African Americans persisted in holding

20
Eugene D. Genovese, Roll Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), 1183-
1184: Whelchel Hell Without Fire: Conversion in Slave Religion, 35. The communal nature of African people
permeates the inclusive spirit of their churches. See for reference Peter Paris, The Social Teachings of the Black
Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 12; Cornel West, Prophecy Deliverance: An Afro-American
Revolutionary Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminister Press), 1982; C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya, The
Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992), 11. For further
discussion see for reference Harry S. Stout and D.G Hart New Direction in American Religious History (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997, 423-427.

10
secret praise services, usually at night in the midst of thickets and bushes or down by the

riverside, “where you couldn’t hear nobody pray.”21

Albert Raboteau gives a more definitive view of the impact of white supremacy

domination of Christianity. Maryland was the only British colony with significant presence of

the Catholic settlers, and therefore, slaves in the north of America were unlikely to come across

the errors of the Romish Church if they did not live in Maryland. Catholic settlers in this part of

America, including Jesuits, owned slaves. In 1785, John Carroll who was the superior of

American missions, came up with an estimate number of Catholic slaves. In his report to Rome

on the state of the Church in

the United States, Carroll related that there were about 15,800 Catholics in Maryland. Of this

number, more than 3,000 were slaves from Africa, called Negroes, and Pennsylvania had about

7,000 Catholics of which the Negroes were very few. The efforts of the Catholic Church to

convert slaves were thwarted by difficulties such the lack of clergy and the attitude of

slaveholders, dominated by the Protestants. At the time of Carroll’s report, the Catholic clergy in

the U.S was constituted by twenty four priests, five in Pennsylvania and 19 in Maryland. Out of

twenty four clergies, two were more than seventy years of age and three were nearing the age of

seventy years. Carroll was informed of Catholics in other states who had been deprived of the

religious ministry. Later, the Catholic laity was criticized for failure to instruct slaves. There was

increased abuse from Catholics as a result of unavoidable interactions with non-Catholics, and

the example thence derived namely among other things, the lack of care in guiding and

instructing children and Negro slaves in the catholic religion since they were always engaged in

various tasks, denying them the opportunity to get instructions from the Catholic priests, unless

21
Susan Hill Lindley, “You Have Stepped out of Your Place”: A History of Women in Religion in America
(Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 1996), 174. See for reference also Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture: Naturalist
Theory and the Foundations of Black America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 10, 12.

11
they found time to spend with one. But most of the slaves had low moral standards and

consequently, dull in faith. Barely can anyone believe the trouble and care they exposed the

Catholic pastor of souls to.22

Conversely, some Louisiana planters cooperated with Catholic missionaries and did not

object that baptism was necessary for emancipation. By no means was it uncommon to find salve

baptisms being sponsored by their masters and mistresses. The registers of the parish churches

indicated that there were frequent baptisms of Negroes and mulattoes. Large groups of slaves

were baptized during annual occasions such as the Vigil of Pentecost, Holy Saturday, and the

Capuchin missions. According to John Gillard, records of the St. Louis parish church indicate

that 75-100 blacks were baptized on a day. But baptism was one thing and instruction another.

The very method of large-scale group baptism compromised a thorough instruction, especially in

remote rural areas with little access to churches and priests. An order was issued by the Spanish

government in 1789 for planters to contribute towards chaplains whose one of the function

would be instructing slaves in plantations. However, the planters objected the push since the

number of clergymen in the parishes was limited that they could not support all established

chaplains. Furthermore, plantations were located far apart that a single clergyman to serve all of

them. Later in 1823, twenty years after Louisiana was acquired by the America, Father John

Mary Odin, who later became the archbishop of New Orleans, the French colonials in Lower

Louisiana did not wish for their slaves to be instructed, or be given sacraments of matrimony,

and they were not permitted to attend church. For a long time, religious instructions for slaves

were more feasible in urban settlements than in the plantations. Even though in small numbers,

22
John Carroll, “Report for the Eminent Cardinal Antonelli Concerning the State of Religion in the United States of
America,” in Documents of America Catholic History, John Tracy Ellis, ed., 2 vols. (Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, Logos paperback edition, 1967), 1:148-49.

12
the presence of clergy and existence of churches provided greater opportunities for urban slaves

to acquire formal religious instruction. In New Orleans, the Ursuline nuns, who

arrived in the city in 1727 increased the efforts by the priests to catechize slaves and other free

blacks. It thus, appeared that under the leadership of the sisters, the Ursuline convent provided

the central ground for instructing black Catholics between 1730 and 1824 in New Orleans.23

While some clergymen reprimanded the owners of plantations for neglecting efforts to

save the souls of their servants, and tried to evangelize slaves whenever it was possible, it was

until the capitalization of Society Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was achieved that

an attempt was made to institutionalize slave conversion in colonials controlled by the English in

America. The society was found as a missionary wing of the Church of England in 1701 to

minister to American colonialists and instruct the Negroes and Indians. Headed by the Bishop of

London, tracts and sermons were published, and funds solicited from England by the society to

support missionaries and catechists who were sent out for missions in America. The society also

had a plantation in Barbados, with over 300 slaves. Nevertheless, missionaries were able to win

some slaveholders and find some time to catechize the slaves, especially children, but with small

success.24

There was a slow progress in baptizing slaves, not just because of objection from

slaveholders, but also because of how the Christianisation process was being carried out by the

missionaries. It its efforts to get slaves converted, the Church of England emphasized on

religious instruction. A good example is the catechetical method that was described in 1710 by

Francis Le Jau: since it has pleased God the Almighty to bless me with health I have upon

23
John T. Gillard, Colored Catholics in the United States (Baltimore, MD: The Josephine Press, 1941), 64-67; V.
Alton Moody, “Slavery on Louisiana Sugar Plantations;” reprinted from The Louisiana Historical Quarterly (April
1924): 90-92.
24
Frank J. Klingberg, Appraisal of the Negro in Colonial South Carolina (Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1975), 68

13
Sundays After our divine service, invited the negroes and Indian slaves to stay for half an Hour

we begin and end our particular assembly with the collection Prevent us O Lord etc. I teach them

the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Commandments. I explain to them portions of catechism

and grant them liberty to ask questions. I offer my effort to proportion my answers and my

instructions within their needs and capacity.25

The Anglican missionaries admitted slaves to baptism with carefulness that was

epitomized by Je Jaus explanation: “I could easily multiply the number of slaves proselyted to

Christianity but I put off their baptism and the receiving some persons to the holy table till we

have a good testimony of proof of their life and conversion.”26 The Anglican missionaries

believed that religious instructions should include teaching the slaves how to read. Samuel

Thomas of Goose Creek was one of the first S.P.G missionaries that was sent to the colonies and

who assumed that a connection existed between Christian instruction and slave literacy. Since his

arrival in 1702, he successfully taught twenty slaves to read while providing them with

instruction based on Christian faith.27

This was in line with what had been thought by the Church of England – that conversion

of slaves as a process of religious nurturing involved teaching. Colonial

Protestants, whether Anglican, Puritan, Baptist, or Quaker, were convinced that the Catholic

sacrament was magical and mechanistic. The reformed prominence on an individual’s relativity

to God, on the scriptures, and on discerning the grace upon one’s life tended to understate the

meditative function of sacraments. Religious learning was elevated by the scriptural words and

sermons that explicated the sacraments. It was until the Great Awakening wave of revival that

25
Le Jau to the Sec., S.P.G, June 13, 1710, Carolina Chronicle, p. 76.
26
Klingberg, Appraisal of the Negro, 12.
27
Charles Colcock Jones, The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States (Savannah, Ga., 1842), p. 10.

14
the American Protestants recognized the great significance of the conversion experience, that

becoming Christian was as a process of

careful nurture and slow growth.28

There were three parties involved in the religious instruction of slaves: planters,

missionaries, and the slaves. The slaves had a varied response to evangelism, but this was

conditioned by the circumstances under the slaves. African slaves in America were evangelized

in a peculiar manner. Traditionally, the spread of the gospel to nations the Christian discipline

was reluctant on emphasizing on religious instructions. The irony of the situation had practical

implications for interactions between missionaries, slave masters, and the enslaved.

It is clear from the reports of S.P.G. missionaries that little success was achieved with

slaves born in Africa. Sharp distinctions were drawn between imported, or Guinea Negroes and

American, or native-born slaves. More often, the former learned little English to enable them

understand catechesis. In his 1727 pastoral letter, the Bishop of London presented his

lamentations stating that the slaves were strangers to the English language as they (missionaries)

are to their African languages; and the gift of tongues being ceased, no means are left to issue

religious instruction and doctrines. The Bishop encouraged the missionaries to remain hopeful,

for he was informed that majority of the slaves were grown-up and can attain so much of the

English language, sufficient for them to understand and be understood concerning things of day-

to-day life. However, the Bishop failed to recognize that the degree of language fluency required

by a slave in the plantations was not sufficient to guarantee an understanding of Christian

28
Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black; American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Baltimore, Md.:
Penguin Books, 1969), 210-11. James Gignillat, a Huguenot minister in Santee, S.C., “said that the Roman Catholic
Priests Christened all the Negroes that went into their midst” and “that he was willing to do the same,” a policy
which the S.P.G. did not adopt. For reference See Klingberg, Appraisal of the Negro, p. 24n; Peter H. Wood, Black
Majority: Negro in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: Alfred A. Knoph,
1974), p. 143.

15
doctrine. One catechist in New York experienced difficulties with slaves who had very poor

pronunciation of the English language.29

Some slaves understood religious instructions, but not all were ready to accept Christian

doctrines. William Tibbs, of St. Pauls Parish, Baltimore County, Maryland,

reported in 1724 that after teaching and baptizing slaves, some refused to follow religious

instruction. Some slave masters in Santee, South Carolina, revealed that other slaves laughed at

and mocked other slaves who got converted to Christianity. During the first one and a half

century in the United States, there was only a small number of slaves who received religious

instruction. There were many factors that ensured that slaves encountered Christianity indirectly,

if at all. These factors included: objection from slave masters; the status of unsettled religion in

the southern parts which had the greatest population of slave; the paucity the missionaries had in

catechizing slaves; language and cultural barriers; and the very way in which conversions was

generally perceived-as catechesis, a time-consuming process. However, a few slave accepted the

conversion into Christianity and received baptism under Anglican, Puritan, Baptist, Quaker, and

Moravian auspices. Some slaves were committed to full communion, like other white Christians.

[30: Klingberg, Appraisal of the Negro, p. 24n.].

Irrespective of poor numerical effectiveness, there was still a significant impact on the

lives of slave masters, missionaries, and slaves as a result of religious instruction during the

colonial era. What was involved in the slaves’acceptance of Christianity, as all three parties to

the interchange- missionaries, slaveholders, and slaves-dimly realized, was the slow pace of

Africans becoming new Negroes. A generational process, analogous other groups of immigrants

involved a complex socio-psychological adaptation by both slaves and colonialists. To Africans,

adapting to a foreign European culture did not mean abandoning their own culture, but rather the
29
Edward Gibson, A Letter of the Lord Bishop of Loudon (Loudon, 1727), 17-18

16
process of integrating new culture onto the old one, and interpreting the unfamiliar with

reference to familiar. Catechists taught the slaves about prayers and Christian doctrines. But over

time, the missionaries realized that before merely parroting religious instruction, the slaves

needed to understand what Christianity is: its belief and rituals. And here the whites had only

limited control since the slaves brought their culture in translating and interpreting the doctrines

and ritual gestures of Christianity.

On a general ground, it is important to observe that Christian Protestants, Catholics, as

well as African religions shared some religion beliefs. One basic doctrine was the belief God the

Father, the Supreme creator of the world and all within it. The divinity of Jesus Christ and the

Holy Spirit did not also seem foreign to many Africans who were accustomed to many divinities.

That only three divines exist, and Jesus Christ was the son of God seemed a limited pantheon to

a section of Africans. The belief that the evil suffers anger and punishment and the

good are rewarded were also common in most African societies. Though the doctrine of man’s

depravity due to original sin was repugnant to many African cultures. That man owes to God all

the prayer and adoration was obvious to most Africans whom were conversant with propitiating

their gods and ancestors. Being away from their Christian ritual of drums, dances, sacrifices, and

processions would have been felt by the Africans. There were more important differences

between the African religious beliefs and Protestant Christianity, but there were also significant

similarities to enable slaves to find a common ground between the Protestant white Christians

and what their ancestors believed in. Thus, there is a need to modify the theory and view that

acceptance of Christianity by Africans required that Africans adopt to an alien world.30

30
For interesting suggestions on the acculturation of slaves, see Chapters 2, 3 and 5 in Gerald W. Mullins, Flight
and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Virginia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), and
Melvin J. Herskovits, Introduction to Accultruation in the Americas, edited by Sol Tax (New York: Cooper Square
Publishers, Inc., 1967), 55-57; see also Chapter 2 of this nook.

17
 The Great awakening was a dawning of a new day that presented a new history in the

conversion of African slaves to Christianity.31 Jonathan Edwards recognized that the 1734-1736

revival in Northampton, Massachusetts was affecting both black and white church goers, in what

could be termed as preliminary showers of grace just before the deluge of the Great Awakening.

It was seen that most Negroes appeared to have been born again during the remarkable season. 32

In the beginning of 1740, the colonies experienced a full tide of the Great Awakening which saw

some blacks lifted to new heights. Whitefield, Tennent was one among other revivalist who

recognized with satisfaction that there were many blacks in congregations ready to hear the

message of salvation. Whitefield reports on a 1970 occasion in Philadelphia where nearly

Negroes came to give me thanks for what God had done to their souls.”33

The Methodists and the Separate Baptists repeated the revival harvest of both blacks and

whites in the South, in which the surpassed the Presbyterians. By the end of the 17th century, the

two denominations were in the ascendency in the South. Many slaves and blacks swelled the

Methodist and Baptist ranks. Methodist frequently recognized the presence of black people in

their congregations. Joseph Pilmore wrote to Wesley in 1770 saying that the number of blacks

attending church services affected him. Between 1773 and 1776, Devereux Jarratt carried out a

revival that swept through 16 counties from Virginia and North Carolina. The revival was

attended by hundreds of Negroes who had tears on their faces. An evangelist reported that blacks

and whites filled the entire chapel. Moved by Freeborn Garretsons preaching in Maryland,

hundreds of blacks and whites expressed their love for Jesus Christ. According to Thomas

31
Carter G. Woodson, “The Dawn of the New Day” is the title of Woodson’s second chapter in The History of the
Negro Church Woodson’s second chapter in the History of the Negro Church (Washington, D.C.: Associated
Publishers, 1945).
32
Quoted by Jones, Religious Instruction, 34.
33
Cited in Jordan, 213.

18
Rankin, Methodists in the colonial jurisdictions included hundreds of Negroes convinced by sin

in 1777, and many of them happy in the love of God.34

The year 1786 was the first time that Methodists distinguish whites and blacks from a

total of 18, 791 members. By 1790, the number of black members had increased to 11, 682. This

number increased to 12,215 by 1797 which represented close to a fourth of the total Methodist

membership. Majority of these black Methodist members were in in three states: Maryland, with

5,106; Virginia, with 2,490; and North Carolina, with 2,071. South Carolina followed with 890,

while Georgia had 148.35

Unlike, the Methodists, Baptists kept sparse records during their early times of

expansion, making it difficult to accurately gauge the number of their black membership. It is

estimated that by 1793, the black membership in the Baptist church was about a fourth out of the

total membership of 73, 471, which is a figure between 18, 000 and 19,000. According to

William Warren Sweet, the South had 17,644 black Baptists in 1795. Charles Colcock Jones

stated that the black membership in Baptist church increased from 18,000 in 1793 to

approximately 40,500 in 1813.36 While these figures are probably inflated, there is no doubt that

the growth in black as well as white memberships in both Methodist and Baptist was astounding.

This growth was mainly spurred by the religious favour of renewal. For example, through

extensive revivals in 1812, Baptists in Georgia, particularly in the Savannah region received over

fifteen hundred members. 37

34
Edwin Scott Gaustad, Historial Atlans of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 9-13, 74-75;
Jones, Religious Instruction, 39-40; Joseph B. Earnest, The Religious Development of the Negro Virginia
(Charlottesville, VA.: The Michie Company, 1914), 48.
35
Jones, Religious Instruction, pp. 40, 53; W.E.B Dubois, The Negro Church (Atlanta, Ga.: Atlanta University
Press, 1903), pp. 19-20.
36
Jones, Religious Instruction, p. 53; William Warren Sweet, Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper,
1930), 420; William Warren Sweet, Religion in the Development of American Culture, 1765-1840 (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952), 279.
37
David Benedict, A general History of the Baptist Denomination in America (New York, 1848), p. 739.

19
 The accessibility of Christianity by illiterate slaves and slave masters a like was made

possible by emphasizing on the conversion experience, rather than the process of religious

instruction. Both Evangelicals and Anglicans were keen on observing the rules of Christianity

after conversion, but the Anglicans were more occupied by the experience of conviction,

repentance, and regeneration. The Anglicans taught the slaves about the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten

Commandments, and the Apostles Creed; the revivals helped them to recognize the weight of

sin upon their lives, to imagine the threats of Hell, and to accept Christ as their only Saviour.

The enthusiasm and excessiveness of camp meetings as they looked to clergymen

was largely triggered personal and emotional appeal by the evangelist and supported by

an overwhelming response from members of the congregation. The heavy revival

sermons and plain doctrine appealed to the black slaves and white farmers alike. John

Thompson, born in 1812 in Maryland as a slave illustrates his experience as having an

Episcopalian mistress and the closest church to the plantation was five miles away. The

closest Methodist church was about ten miles away. So, the family attended the Episcopal

Church, but always came home since the slaves could hardly comprehend the preaching.

“Soon, the Methodist came and preached in a manner so plain for us to understand. This

new doctrine caused a great consternation among slave masters as they could not

understand. It brought glad tidings to the poor bondman; it bound up the broken-hearted;

it opened the prison doors to them that were bound, and let the captive go free. As soon

as it got among the slaves, it spread to all plantations, including ours, where only few had

experienced religion.38

38
John Thompson, The life of John Thompson, A Fugitive Slave (Worcester, Mass., 1856), 18-19. For example of
the influence of conversion upon a planter’s attitude toward his slaves’ religious life, see Louis Morton, Robert
Carter of Nomini Hall (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Inc., 1941), pp. 239-42.

20
 In Conclusion, African American Baptist Churches were formed by separation from

white congregations. Originally, the Gillfield Baptist Church of Petersburg in Virginia was part

of a black and white congregation with a black majority.39 In the South, black churches and their

ministers had limited independence threatened by restrictions, not only from civil authorities, but

also from officers of the Baptist Church in Cedar Spring, South Carolina, who for example,

decided in 1804 to allow brother Titus, “to sing, pray and exhort in public, openly appoint

meetings, with due understanding that all his actions are subordinate to his master who could

council him in specific cases as may be dictated by his prudence. A few months later, Titus was

suspended for behaving in a manner contrary to the expectations of the committees. The

religious authority of the Southern blacks continually encountered the realities of slavery,

whether slaves or free blacks.40

39
For the story of several other African Baptist Churches, see for reference only to help understand more in depth
Luther P. Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia, From 1760 to 1860” Journal of Negro History,
Vol. 16, No 2 ( April 1931): 188-92, accessed October 8, 2017.
40
Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670-1805 (Florence, S.C.: The Florence Printing Company, 1935),
258.

21
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24