1. Introduction
Looking back on the history of the United States of America, it is undisputable that slavery has had a great impact on the political, economic as well as on the social development of the country. During the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade, close to two million blacks were brought to the American South from Africa and the West Indies. Most of them were lured into leaving their homeland with the promise of a better life on the other side of the Atlantic. But in reality they were exploited economically and physically as well as emotionally, often living under inhuman conditions in strict hierarchical systems ruled by the whites who considered them to be inferior human beings.
In 1865, the Civil War forced an official end to slavery, but neither the war nor time were able to end the discrimination and prejudices still existing against blacks in the USA. The shadows of slavery are still present today: Too often, Afro-Americans in the USA are faced with their past as slaves living under white supremacy.
Slave narratives can be seen as historical sources documenting slave life primarily in the American South from the invaluable perspective of first-hand experience. From the literary standpoint, the autobiographical narratives of former slaves comprise one of the most extensive and influential traditions in African American literature and culture.
Famous slave narratives like Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written by Himself were used to enlighten white readers about the realities of slavery and the humanity of black people as individuals deserving the same human rights as the whites. In these narratives, the aspect of religion plays an important role: The slaves suffering under white supremacy gather hope from their belief in God and seek salvation in various forms of religion and superstition. On the other hand, most slaveholders portrayed in slave narratives calling themselves believers of Christianity deform the pure and holy Christianity to a “slaveholders' religion” justifying their inhuman deeds towards their slaves. Many slaves openly rejected the deformed religion practised by the white population in the south of the USA. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs claims that “there is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south”. She ends the chapter in her narrative on church and slavery with reciting two lines of a popular slaves' song:
Ole Satan's church is here below;
Up to God's free church I hope to go.
These lines express the hatred many slaves felt towards the religion of the South.
The subject of religion is extensively delt with in the slave narrative The life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. This paper is to analyse the so-called slaveholders' religion in the narrative as it is seen through the eyes of Frederick Douglass and compare it to the Christianity described by him as the true Christianity. Among other denominations like the Episcopal and the Baptist Church, the southern states of the USA counted many votaries of the Methodist Church. As the slaveholders described in Douglass's narrative are all believers of the Methodist Church, the main focus will be on this particular denomination. In order to present a clear picture of the Methodist Church in the USA and her attitude towards slavery, the history of the church will be outlined in the first part of the analysis. The main part consists of the binary opposition between the so-called slaveholder's religion and true Christianity. In the last part, conclusions on the analysis are drawn.
2. The Methodist Church
2.1 History of the Church
Methodism has its roots in England, where a group of students at the University of Oxford started to assemble for worship, study and Christan service in 1729. The name “methodists” derives from the methodical manner in which the students performed the practices that their sense of Christian duty and church ritual required. Among this group of students was John Wesley, who brought about a spritual revolution in England. After his death in 1791, his followers began to divide into separate church bodies. During the 19th century many such separate Methodist denominations were formed, each with a different interpretation of the Wesleyan tradition. In 1881, an Ecumenical Methodist Conference
was held to coordinate Methodist groups throughout the world. Conferences have been held at regular intervals since then.
As for the USA, methodism was brought there before the American Revolution by emigrants from both Ireland and England. Francis Asbury, commissioned in 1771, was the most instrumental missionary in establishing the American Methodist church. At the Christmas Conference held in 1784 in Baltimore, Maryland, the Methodist Episcopal Church was formally organised as a body separate from the English Methodist structure. During the early 19th century the tolerant doctrinal positions of Methodism and its stress on personal religious experience, universal salvation, and practical ethics attracted converts in large numbers.
2.2 The Church and Slavery
John Wesley was an ardent opponent of slavery. But slavery and segregation soon became the two most controversial issues in the Methodist Church, which eventually led to important schisms within the church. At the end of the 18th century, free black members in Philadelphia and other cities along the Atlantic seaboard withdrew from the church as segregation had been forced upon them. They established an independent congregation and formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Another similar movement took place in New York later in the 19th century to form the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Radical abolitionist Methodists broke away from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1840s to establish the Wesleyan Methodist Church. As a result of a conflict at the General Conference in 1844, in which a bishop owning slaves was involved, the slaveholding states separated from the church to form the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Bitterness between northern and shouthern Methodists intensified in the years leading to Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 and then through the carnage of the Civil War.
The narrative was written in 1845, in a time when the Methodist Church in general held a very passive position towards slavery issues. Sometimes though it was actively proslavery, as when the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1836 voted at its General Conference to oppose abolitionism and to avoid interference in the relations between slaves and slave owners.
The binary opposition between slaveholders' religion and true Christianity
In his narrative Douglass not only condemns slavery but also the Christianity of the South practised by slaveholders. By juxtaposing true Christianity next to the so-called slaveholders' religion he intends to draw the readers' attention to the deformed religion.
He appeals to the white population of the free northern states to make them realize they are in communion united with the slaveholders who violate true Christianity. He skillfully weaves the binary into the body of the narrative by portraying on the one side sadistic, “pious” slaveholders throughout the narrative to exemplify False Christianity. On the other side he shows his devotion to true Christianity with his reference to Providence and the Almighty.
In the following, the religious slaveholders as seen through Douglass's eyes are portrayed and their anti-religious behavior is emphasized.
“Religious” Slaveholders in the Narrative
For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and besest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.
Using hard words like these, Douglass makes a clear statement about his opinion towards religious slaveholders. In the narrative, he describes his masters in details without failing to bring out the religious side of them. His words are full of anger and disbelief. Quite often, he employs irony to stress the wrong idea of Christianity slaveholders hold on to.
3.1.1 Thomas Auld
The first “religious” slaveholder Douglass gives a detailed description of is Thomas Auld. Auld is the brother of Master Hugh, whom Douglass is sent to live with in Baltimore at the age of about eight years. In 1832 Douglass has to return to St. Michael's after a fight between the two brothers. As a result, Douglass is to live with Thomas Auld. Auld was not born a slaveholder and had come into possession of his slaves by marriage. He is described as being cruel and cowardly.
In August 1832 Auld attends a Methodist camp meeting to experience religion there. Douglass hopes this meeting would change Auld to the better and that he would show a more human side towards his slaves. But as he states, his hopes are shattered: The camp meeting has if at all a negative effect on Auld. Now he finds “religious sanctions and support for his slaveholding cruelty”. He finds his deeds justified by the Bible and takes the opportunity to boast about the rightfulness of his terrible deeds by citing the Bible. For example, while lashing a young lame salve girl named Henny, he recites the Bible verse Luke, 12.47: “He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” This shows that he did not understand the Bible saying correctly, as it is used in a different context which shall be discussed later in 3.2.
Douglass condemns Auld's anti-religious behavior towards Henny when Auld “set her adrift to take care of herself” openly and vigorously:
Here was a recently-converted man, holding on upon the mother, and at the same time turning out her helpless child, to starve and die! Master Thomas was one of the many pious slaveholders who hold slaves for the very charitable purpose of taking care of them.
The irony here is obvious and intended to show the reader that religion did not succeed in Auld's case to make him a more human and caring person.
After his conversion Auld shows growing interest in the church and he is made a class leader. Many preachers start coming to his house to meet for prayer. Only one of them, Georg Cookman, a prominent English Methodist minister, takes notice of the slaves and allowes them to pray with him. When Douglass and other slaves living under the order of Auld are encouraged by a young white man to keep a Sabbath school for slaves they are violently stopped after the third meeting by two class leaders and many others and forbidden to meet again. This is a clear example of how the white Christian population claimed religion for themselves only and excluded their slaves who in their eyes where inferior human beings and thus not eligible to have the same faith as them. Many also feared that slaves might interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ as being in favour of equality. In general, slaves were not allowed to learn to read and write in order to prevent them from reading the holy scripture.
It should be mentioned though that some slaveholders did encourage their slaves to worship in the church. In several slave narratives it is mentioned that slaves were allowed to attend church in the evening while the whites went to church in the morning. Preachers frequently told slaves to be good to their masters and mistresses. In the narrative on her life Harriet Jacobs writes about the ritual of having a sermon for the slaves on Sunday evenings, though not in the church, but in the house of a free colored man. The fact slaveholders did allow slaves to worship in the church derived after Jacobs from the intention of giving them “enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters”. Slaveholders were especially worried right after the incident of the Nat Turner's insurrection who during his rebellion had killed several slaveholders.
3.1.2 Edward Covey
Douglass has quite a number of differences with Auld. After living with him for nine months, in January 1833 Douglass is sent to Edward Covey who is known as a reputated “nigger-breaker”. Covey is a poor farm-renter. Slaveholders sent their difficult slaves to live with him for one year for the purpose to have them broken. Douglass ironically states that besides the reputation as a nigger-breaker, Covey is also a “professor of religion, a pious soul - a member and a class-leader in the Methodist church.”
Strangely, he seems to be very devotional to his belief. He would pray twice a day and commence the exercises of his family devotions with singing. Very often, Douglass would have to raise the hymn for him as Covey himself is a bad singer. Covey believes he is “a sincere worshiper of the most high God.” He continuously deceives himself even knowing that he may be guilty of compelling his slave woman to commit the sin of adultery: Since Covey was a poor man, he could afford only one slave. The woman was bought to be a breeder. He hired a married male slave, whom he fastened up with his slave woman every night for one year. The result was that at the end of the year, the slave woman had twins, whom he regarded an enormous addition to his wealth.
After living with Covey for a few months, Douglass is finally broken in body, soul and spirit. His hopes and longing for freedom are expressed in the words spoken to himself while standing at the Chesapeake Bay watching the passing ships. In his desperate situation he questions the existence of God: “O God , save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave?”. But the next moment he is sure that if he would run away, God will help him. In these moments, he is consicous of his plight between accepting his lot and his urge to change his situation. Questioning his faith seems to be the natural result.
In August 1833 conflicts between Douglass and Covey reach their climax with the literal fight in which in Douglass's eyes he defeats all that threathens his well-being and growth: slavery, injustice, authority - all combined in one person, Covey.
In his mind, to be free means to defeat Covey. Implicitly with his victory over Covey, the holy and true Christianity wins over the wrong and cruel slaveholders' religion.
The fight is the result of Douglass's disobedience to Covey: On a very hot summer day, Douglass faints out in the fields and is not able to continue with his work. Covey's reaction is to whip him. Somehow Douglass gets the chance to steal away. Not minding about his bad condition, he walks seven miles to his master Auld's house to ask for protection. But his master sends him back justifiying that if Covey punished him he must have deserved it. After a second whipping from Covey Douglass manages to get away once more to hide at Sandy Jenkins's place, who is a black friend. It is him who gives Douglass a “magical” root which he believes would prevent Covey from whipping him again. When Douglass returns to Covey's premises, it is Sunday morning. To his surprise, Covey speaks to him very kindly before leaving to church. As Covey is said to be a “pious soul”, he is strict about resting on Sundays. The inconsistence in Covey's behavior is stricking: on the one hand, Covey obeys to the Christian custom to rest on the seventh day of the week but on the other hand finds his cruelty used against the slaves living under his order morally correct.
On the following Monday morning, the fight between Douglass and Covey takes place, in which Douglass shows resistance to his master in such a way that Covey never lays hands on him again. The fight therefore marks the turning point in their relationship and is considered to be the climax of the whole narrative. Douglass refers to the fight to be the cause for the transformation of a slave into a man.3.1.3 Other religious slaveholders
After his year with Covey Douglass is sent to live with William Freeland, who to Douglass is “an educated southern gentleman”. Douglass notices that Freeland is not religious, which he finds to be a great advantage. But in his community there are two slaveholders, who are described to be equally “religious” and cruel: One of them is Reverend Daniel Weeden, a minister in the Reformed Methodist Church. Weeden sees it as a duty of a master to occasionally whip a slave to remind him of his master's authority. A slave woman is whipped so hard and so often that her back “was kept literally raw for weeks, made so by the lash of this merciless, religious wretch”. Once more, Douglass stresses his opinion that religious slaveholders are the cruelest men on earth.
Another slaveholder living in the same community is Reverend Rigby Hopkins. He whips a slave every Monday morning to keep his slaves in constant fear of their master. He always finds a reason for whipping even if it is just a mere look or word. A look of dissatisfaction means the slave has the devil in him which must be whipped out. A broken plough is a sign of carelessness which also has to be punished. The same man would show highest devotion in his preaching meetings, prayers and love-feasts.
While living with Freeland, the second try of having a Sabbath school for the slaves owned by Freeland fails when two classleaders again violently break up the meeting. Douglass releases his anger by exclaiming “(...) all calling themselves Christians! Humble followers of the Lord Jesus Christ!” Again an urge to make the readers realize that these “religious” slaveholders even oppress slaves' will to practise religion which should be a free decision for everyone to make.
To sum up, Douglass describes in detail the cruelty of the religious slaveholders he has met and underlines his description with shocking examples. To him,
the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, a justifier of the most appaling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds and the dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.
By openly condemning the slaveholders' religion, Douglass manifests his standpoint as an opponent of both slavery and a deformed Christianity. The numerous portrays of his religious masters and other slaveholders are so unchristian that readers believing in Christianity are forced to reject slavery and to oppose a church tolerating slavery as an institution.
3.2 The Bible misused
Many religious slaveholders found justification for their cruelty towards their slaves in the Bible. The two most recited verses used almost exclusively as texts for sermons preached to slaves were Luke 12.47: “He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes” and Ephesians 6.5: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.” The verse of Luke 12.47 appears to be a particularly ironic misreading compared to most traditional interpretations. In the passage leading to the verse, Jesus tells a parable about a householder who is surprised by a thief, who is the steward in charge of the household. When asked, Jesus explains that the “faithful and wise steward whom his lord has made ruler over his household” are the disciples who have been giving responsibility for the kingdom of God. The steward should be “punished with many stripes” for his disobedience. Auld, who beats his slave Henny reciting Luke 12.47 ignores Jesus's reading that focuses on the responsibility of the church leaders and instead, puts himself in God's place to punish his disobedient slaves.
3.3 The Appendix
At the end of the narrative in the appendix, Douglass brings together the slaveholders' religion with true Christianity. He does not want readers to get the impression that he is “an opponent of all religion”. He dedicates six pages of his narrative to emphasize the existing gap between the deformed Christianity and the only true Christianity, of which he claims to be a believer of. To him, the differences between the two are “so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.” He compares the votaries of the “Christianity of America” with ancient scribes and Pharisees. He addresses them four times in a single paragraph by exclaiming “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He accuses them of showing only the outward forms of religion but at the same time neglecting law, judgement, mercy and faith. At the end of the paragraph, he recites the Bible: “Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
Douglass continues with accusing both the Church of the North and of the South who are both in union with the slaveholders, making clear that in his eyes the religion of the North is by communion and fellowship also the religion of the South. He ends his narrative with a parody on a hymn sung in many southern churches. Douglass changes the title “Heavenly Union” into “A Parody” and retexts the entire hymn making use of his sharp humor. To demonstrate his sarcasm, the first stanza of the hymn is recited in the following:
“Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell
How pious priests whip Jack and Nell,
And women buy and children sell,
And preach all sinners down to hell,
And sing of heavenly union.”
Every stanza ends with the wish for being united in “heavenly union”. Later in the third stanza the “heavenly union” is replaced by the “kidnapper's heavenly union”. Throughout the changed version of the Christian hymn Douglass describes the whites who on the outward seem pious believers of Christianity, but in reality are not more than cruel hypocrites.
4. Conclusions
Douglass's opinion towards the religion of the South practised by many slaveholders is unmistakably clear: He condems the deformed Christianity while embracing the true and holy Christianity. The opposition of the slaveholers' religion on the one hand and true Christianity on the other hand is well integrated within the whole narrative.
Throughout his book, Douglass talks about true Christianity as the one and only religion. Later in his life though he dissociated himself from Christian practises. His sceptical views towards Christianity were reflected in his following biographies and oratories. His liberal religious belief was later widely discussed. In 1886, Reverend Theophilus Gould Steward, a pastor of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, wrote a pastoral inquiry to Douglass after having heard that “he was not a believer in Christianity”. In his reply, Douglass outlined his liberal religious views, avoiding a clear yes or no on the question of his belief in Christianity.
Living under inhuman conditions, one can understand that many slaves eventually turned away from Christianity. Even after the Civil War free blacks had to fight with segregation within the Christian church.
It is therefore understandable that Douglass was disappointed by Christianity - a religion which not only the white population claimed for themselves only, but also deformed it in a way to justify their behavior towards their slaves. It is also natural in his situation to question the existence of God and his love for the black people. In the appendix, Douglass recites Jeremiah 5-9: “Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” Jeremiah asks of God's charges of the Israeli people. Blacks suffering under slavery often compared themselves as being in the same situation as the tortured Israeli people in the Old Testament. They asked themselves when God would free them from their bonds which were forced upon them. Douglass asks the same question. He doubts God and does not want to be in union with a church that does not consider the black people to have the same rights as whites.
Apart from his personal belief, Douglass nevertheless makes a very strong point in his first narrative by dealing openly with the particularly sensitive subject of religion. Readers are forced to think about the dark side of religion. With his narrative Douglass succeds in a literary provocative but realistic way to draw attention to a deformed Christianity in which all principles of our religion are questioned, especially the most important principle of all - that all men are equal before God.
Bibliography
A. Primary Literature
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