Christianity and Slavery

while discussing the Frederick Douglas reading Wednesday i think it was both Kelsey and Marquis brought up the point that Christianity and Slavery are connected in many different ways. This is something that has always interested me. When the slave trade was started the justification for Slavery was the fact that the Africans they were enslaving were not christian. In the many slave narratives we have now read none of the men and women were actually Christans when they were brought over, they were converted. People would justify slavery with passages from the Bible, like the "curse of Ham" where God curses one of Noah's sons... who I think was darker than the others, justifying the enslavement of Africans (I discussed this in another class so I might not be right).

It was only later that Christianity was used as a "civilizing" tool for slaves. It was used as a tool to show that maybe slaves didn't have it so bad, that they were in fact human and the owners acknowledge that. This brings to mind one of the more striking passages from the Frederick Douglas reading, when he is describing Mr. Covey as believing himself to be a devout man. all of his slaves were allowed to attend services, and they did not work on Sundays. Covey wouldn't even strike Douglas on a Sunday after he had run away. When on any other day of the week Covey would treat Douglas as an animal, on Sunday he would treat him like a human, even making him lead off in singing hymns. the relationship of Christianity and the justification of Slavery has always stuck me as odd.