# Why did slaves believe the same religion as their masters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2013, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138 "2013-11-05T13:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/41 "2013-11-05T17:24:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Most likely, they became Christians because (1) their masters pushed it hard and forbade any other mode of worship, so Islam and paganism were gradually forgotten, and (2) Christianity offered them a hopeful Old-Testament narrative about God liberating an enslaved people (a very popular subject of Negro spirituals – “Go Down Moses,” etc.). Presumably the New Testament narrative of Paradise in the next world had a certain appeal as well. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/42 "2013-11-05T17:28:11Z")
I have little doubt that the church groups pushing their brand of Christianity onto the slaves also pushed the notion that any freedom for the slaves would come in the _next_ life. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/43 "2013-11-05T17:53:49Z")
> [@Oedipus](#): > > Even afterward, the tradition of Christianity ran (and runs) strong throughout the African American community, despite it being the exact same religion practiced by racist white supremacists who captured their ancestors, put them into slavery, fought to keep them slaves, and then continued to oppress them even to this day. Underlining added – there’s your problem. Christianity is not monolithic. Don’t be fooled by the label, there’s a lot of diversity in Christian theology and practice. The versions practiced by the slave masters, the slaves, and formerly enslaved people were not the same. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/44 "2013-11-05T18:12:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Yes on the former-see posts #17 and #19, and not so much on latter. I don’t think the white Christian movement that went around promoting Christianity to the slaves were doing so to convince them that they would soon be liberated. No, the slaves drew that message themselves, from the Bible stories. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/45 "2013-11-05T18:23:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, the slaves drew that message themselves, from the Bible stories. Do you mean the Bible stories that most of them couldn’t read? The type of Christianity pushed on and promoted by white religionists didn’t involve a whole lot self-reading of the Bible, I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/46 "2013-11-05T18:27:44Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > It wasn’t the religion of their masters. The “Christianity” taught to the slaves focused entirely on subservience and wasn’t intended to much more for the slaves than to reinforce the culture of slavery. One of the reasons it was illegal to teach slaves to read was so that they couldn’t read the bible for themselves. In “Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl”, a slave narrative by Harriet Jacobs published in the late 1850s, she makes it very clear that the slaves drew a clear distinction between the “Christianity” of the white masters, which was a tool of oppression, and “authentic” Christianity, which was redemptive. To parallel the above point, among slaves, a major motivation for learning to read was to read the bible. Jacobs goes into great detail about teaching an old slave to read in secret only and entirely so that he can read the bible. Slaves set up their own secret churches and had their own (secret) ministers, and this in a time period when slaves meeting secretly lead to the harshest possible punishments (as the assumption was that they were meeting to plan How To Kill Whites). In general, Christianity wasn’t seen as a white or European thing. It was seen as something perverted by white Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/47 "2013-11-05T19:08:25Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > In general, Christianity wasn’t seen as a white or European thing. It was seen as something perverted by white Europeans. Technically speaking… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/48 "2013-11-05T19:13:00Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > In general, Christianity wasn’t seen as a white or European thing. It was seen as something perverted by white Europeans. And that’s how Rastafarians and some other sects see it today. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/49 "2013-11-05T19:15:54Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Technically speaking… I know! That was my point, which I may not have made explicit enough. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/50 "2013-11-05T19:56:45Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Yes on the former-see posts #17 and #19, and not so much on latter. I don’t think the white Christian movement that went around promoting Christianity to the slaves were doing so to convince them that they would soon be liberated. Not sure where you are getting this from. Your own wiki citation says as follows: > [@](#): > > Prior to the American Revolution, masters and revivalists spread Christianity to slave communities, supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In the First Great Awakening, Baptists and Methodists from New England preached a message against slavery, encouraged masters to free their slaves, converted both slaves and free blacks, and gave them active roles in new congregations. The first black congregations were started in the South before the Revolution. > > Over the decades and with the growth of slavery throughout the South, Baptist and Methodist ministers gradually changed their messages to accommodate the institution. After 1830, white Southerners argued for the compatibility of Christianity and slavery, with a multitude of both Old and New Testament citations. [Emphasis added] In short, there was clearly an influential strand of anti-slavery associated very early with the conversion of slaves to Christianity. Later, white Christian congregations essentially rationalized their religion and the practice of slavery, but there is at least some evidence that the slaves themselves thought differently about it. As for not reading the Bible - it is true that literacy among slaves was discouraged, but it is complete nonsense to think that slaves did not know the Bible stories because of that limitation. There was a rich, shared oral culture - which shows up in the form of a disctinctive style of music - that is very much concerned with the theme of liberation. While for the masters’ consumption the slaves could plausibly state that all that was meant was liberation in a religious or spiritual sense, the slaves themselves often thought differently - the “promised land” being, not in Palestine, but in Canada. [http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/topic.cfm;jsessionid=f830584901383681281057?migration=2&topic=9&bhcp=1](http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/topic.cfm;jsessionid=f830584901383681281057?migration=2&topic=9&bhcp=1) > [@](#): > > The stage was set for the African-American migration into Canada in 1772, when England declared that any slave reaching Canadian soil was automatically free. Following the War of 1812, sizable numbers of runaways started to settle in Canada. People began to call it the “Promised Land,” a term that came into wider usage after slavery was banned in 1834 throughout the British colonies. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/51 "2013-11-05T20:26:03Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > In fact this leaves out a major reason that religion was relevant here: Christians believed it was wrong to enslave other Christians, but doing it to non-Christians was OK. Not so, at least among the Catholics during most of the relevant historical period. In 1435, Pope Eugene IV issued the Papal Bull _[Sicut Dudum](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Eugene04/eugene04sicut.htm)_ which called for a ban on slavery in the Canary Islands, which had just been discovered by explorers. After the discovery of the Americas there was a short period in which the papacy spoke on the issue as you described, but in 1537 Paul III issued _[Sublimus Dei](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm)_, taking a clear stance against slavery in the Americas. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/52 "2013-11-06T18:20:56Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Not so, at least among the Catholics during most of the relevant historical period. In 1435, Pope Eugene IV issued the Papal Bull _[Sicut Dudum](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Eugene04/eugene04sicut.htm)_ which called for a ban on slavery in the Canary Islands, which had just been discovered by explorers. After the discovery of the Americas there was a short period in which the papacy spoke on the issue as you described, but in 1537 Paul III issued _[Sublimus Dei](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm)_, taking a clear stance against slavery in the Americas. Interestingly, part of Pope Eugene IV’s thinking seems to have been that “if we enslave them, they’ll never want to convert to Christianity” – see the bolded part below: > [@](#): > > They have deprived the natives of the property, or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery, sold them to other persons, and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them, because of which **very many of those remaining on said islands, and condemning such slavery, have remained involved in their former errors, having drawn back their intention to receive Baptism** , thus offending the majesty of God, putting their souls in danger, and causing no little harm to the Christian religion… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/53 "2013-11-08T05:36:09Z")
Not all of the slaves became Christian. [Many](http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/4789.htm) [of](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Among_Slaves) [them](http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~roots/costa/bilali.html) [remained](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayuba_Suleiman_Diallo) [Muslim](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h16.html). ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138/54 "2013-11-08T05:57:08Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Really? A book filled to bursting about promised lands, persecuted chosen people and a god figure that dies like a criminal would seem to me very appealing to a persecuted populated. You’ll notice the African-American Christians in the 19th Century spent a lot more time talking about Moses and him leading his people out of slaver than White Christians of the time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-slaves-believe-the-same-religion-as-their-masters/673138.md?page=2)