Slave Religion

Slave Religion PDF Author: Albert J. Raboteau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195174135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Twenty-five years after its original publication, Slave Religion remains a classic in the study of African American history and religion. In a new chapter in this anniversary edition, author Albert J. Raboteau reflects upon the origins of the book, the reactions to it over the past twenty-five years, and how he would write it differently today. Using a variety of first and second-hand sources-- some objective, some personal, all riveting-- Raboteau analyzes the transformation of the African religions into evangelical Christianity. He presents the narratives of the slaves themselves, as well as missionary reports, travel accounts, folklore, black autobiographies, and the journals of white observers to describe the day-to-day religious life in the slave communities. Slave Religion is a must-read for anyone wanting a full picture of this "invisible institution."

Slave Religion

Slave Religion PDF Author: Albert J. Raboteau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195174135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Get Book

Book Description
Twenty-five years after its original publication, Slave Religion remains a classic in the study of African American history and religion. In a new chapter in this anniversary edition, author Albert J. Raboteau reflects upon the origins of the book, the reactions to it over the past twenty-five years, and how he would write it differently today. Using a variety of first and second-hand sources-- some objective, some personal, all riveting-- Raboteau analyzes the transformation of the African religions into evangelical Christianity. He presents the narratives of the slaves themselves, as well as missionary reports, travel accounts, folklore, black autobiographies, and the journals of white observers to describe the day-to-day religious life in the slave communities. Slave Religion is a must-read for anyone wanting a full picture of this "invisible institution."

Christian Slavery

Christian Slavery PDF Author: Katharine Gerbner
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812294904
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Could slaves become Christian? If so, did their conversion lead to freedom? If not, then how could perpetual enslavement be justified? In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world. Slave owners in the Caribbean and elsewhere established governments and legal codes based on an ideology of "Protestant Supremacy," which excluded the majority of enslaved men and women from Christian communities. For slaveholders, Christianity was a sign of freedom, and most believed that slaves should not be eligible for conversion. When Protestant missionaries arrived in the plantation colonies intending to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity in the 1670s, they were appalled that most slave owners rejected the prospect of slave conversion. Slaveholders regularly attacked missionaries, both verbally and physically, and blamed the evangelizing newcomers for slave rebellions. In response, Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries articulated a vision of "Christian Slavery," arguing that Christianity would make slaves hardworking and loyal. Over time, missionaries increasingly used the language of race to support their arguments for slave conversion. Enslaved Christians, meanwhile, developed an alternate vision of Protestantism that linked religious conversion to literacy and freedom. Christian Slavery shows how the contentions between slave owners, enslaved people, and missionaries transformed the practice of Protestantism and the language of race in the early modern Atlantic world.

Plantation Church

Plantation Church PDF Author: Noel Leo Erskine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195369149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
In Plantation Church, Noel Leo Erskine investigates the history of the Black Church as it developed both in the United States and the Caribbean after the arrival of enslaved Africans. Typically, when people talk about the "Black Church" they are referring to African-American churches in the U.S., but in fact, the majority of African slaves were brought to the Caribbean. It was there, Erskine argues, that the Black religious experience was born. The massive Afro-Caribbean population was able to establish a form of Christianity that preserved African Gods and practices, but fused them with Christian teachings, resulting in religions such as Cuba's SanterĂ­a. Despite their common ancestry, the Black religious experience in the U.S. was markedly different because African Americans were a political and cultural minority. The Plantation Church became a place of solace and resistance that provided its members with a sense of kinship, not only to each other but also to their ancestral past. Despite their common origins, the Caribbean and African American Church are almost never studied together. This book investigates the parallel histories of these two strands of the Black Church, showing where their historical ties remain strong and where different circumstances have led them down unexpectedly divergent paths. The result will be a work that illuminates the histories, theologies, politics, and practices of both branches of the Black Church. This project presses beyond the nation state framework and raises intercultural and interregional questions with implications for gender, race and class. Noel Leo Erskine employs a comparative method that opens up the possibility of rethinking the language and grammar of how Black churches have been understood in the Americas and extends the notion of church beyond the United States. The forging of a Black Christianity from sources African and European, allows for an examination of the meaning of church when people of African descent are culturally and politically in the majority. Erskine also asks the pertinent question of what meaning the church holds when the converse is true: when African Americans are a cultural and political minority.

African American Religion

African American Religion PDF Author: Eddie S. Glaude (Jr.)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195182898
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
African American Religion offers a provocative historical and philosophical treatment of the religious life of African Americans. Glaude argues that the phrase, African American religion, is meaningful only insofar as it singles out the distinctive ways religion has been leveraged by African Americans to respond to different racial regimes in the United States. If it does not do this, he argues, then it is time we got rid of the phrase.

Religion and the Antebellum Debate Over Slavery

Religion and the Antebellum Debate Over Slavery PDF Author: John R. McKivigan
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820320762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Essays discuss proslavery arguments in the churches, the urge toward compromise and unity, the coming of schisms in the various denominations, and the role of local conditions in determining policies

Down, Up, and Over

Down, Up, and Over PDF Author: Dwight N. Hopkins
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451407358
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
"First reconstructs the culutral matrix of African American religion, a total way of life formed by Protestantism, American culture, and the institution of slavery (1619-1865). Whites from Europe and Blacks from Africa arrived with specific, differing views of God, faith, and humanity. Hopkins recreates their worldviews and shows how white theology sought to remake African Americans into naturally inferior beings divinely ordained into subservience. The counter voice of enslaved blacks is the birth of the Spirit of liberation." -- Back cover.

The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas

The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas PDF Author: Robert L. Paquette
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198758815
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A series of penetrating, original, and authoritative essays on the history and historiography of the institution of slavery in the New World, written by a team of leading international contributors.

Slavery, Civil War, and Salvation

Slavery, Civil War, and Salvation PDF Author: Daniel L. Fountain
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807138069
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
During the Civil War, traditional history tells us, Afro-Christianity proved a strong force for slaves' perseverance and hope of deliverance. In Slavery, Civil War, and Salvation, however, Daniel Fountain raises the possibility that Afro-Christianity played a less significant role within the antebellum slave community than most scholars currently assert. Bolstering his argument with a quantitative survey of religious behavior and WPA slave narratives, Fountain presents a new timeline for the African American conversion experience. Both the survey and the narratives reveal that fewer than 40 percent of individuals who gave a datable conversion experience had become Christians prior to acquiring freedom. Fountain pairs the survey results with an in-depth examination of the obstacles within the slaves' religious landscape that made conversion more difficult if not altogether unlikely, including infrequent access to religious instruction, the inconsistent Christian message offered to slaves, and the slaves' evolving religious identity. Furthermore, he provides other possible explanations for beliefs that on the surface resembled Christianity but in fact adhered to traditional African religions. Fountain maintains that only after emancipation and the fulfillment of the predicted Christian deliverance did African Americans more consistently turn to Christianity. Freedom, Fountain contends, brought most former slaves into the Christian faith. Provocative and enlightening, Slavery, Civil War, and Salvation redefines the role of Christianity within the slave community.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Politics in the U.S.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Politics in the U.S. PDF Author: Barbara A. McGraw
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470657332
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Politics in the U.S. provides a broad, inclusive, and rich range of chapters, in the study of religion and politics. Arranged in their historical context, chapters address themes of history, law, social and religious movements, policy and political theory. Broadens the parameters of this timely subject, and includes the latest work in the field Draws together newly-commissioned essays by distinguished authors that are cogent for scholars, while also being in a style that is accessible to students. Provides a balanced and inclusive approach to religion and politics in the U.S. Engages diverse perspectives from various discourses about religion and politics across the political and disciplinary spectra, while placing them in their larger historical context

The Origins of Proslavery Christianity

The Origins of Proslavery Christianity PDF Author: Charles F. Irons
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807888893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
In the colonial and antebellum South, black and white evangelicals frequently prayed, sang, and worshipped together. Even though white evangelicals claimed spiritual fellowship with those of African descent, they nonetheless emerged as the most effective defenders of race-based slavery. As Charles Irons persuasively argues, white evangelicals' ideas about slavery grew directly out of their interactions with black evangelicals. Set in Virginia, the largest slaveholding state and the hearth of the southern evangelical movement, this book draws from church records, denominational newspapers, slave narratives, and private letters and diaries to illuminate the dynamic relationship between whites and blacks within the evangelical fold. Irons reveals that when whites theorized about their moral responsibilities toward slaves, they thought first of their relationships with bondmen in their own churches. Thus, African American evangelicals inadvertently shaped the nature of the proslavery argument. When they chose which churches to join, used the procedures set up for church discipline, rejected colonization, or built quasi-independent congregations, for example, black churchgoers spurred their white coreligionists to further develop the religious defense of slavery.