Making Jesus Black: The Historiographical Debate on the Roots of African-American Christianity

Abstract

The convergence of cultures which began with importation of West African slaves into British North American colonies has resulted in some of more poignant ironies in American history. Perhaps chief among these was widespread adoption of Christianity by African-Americans in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Though it was faith of master class and often used as justification for African enslavement, Christianity was embraced by many blacks with fervency that put most white believers to shame. The nature of this black slave Christianity has long been subject of speculation among theologians, folklorists, and, of course, historians. The central issue, for most researchers, has been what Lawrence Levine calls a questions of origins.(1) By uncovering degree to which black Christianity was rooted in African religions, historians (and others) hope to explain seemingly unreasonable behavior of slave converts. This essay will discuss several of more recent works on this subject, in particular as they relate to eighteenth century. This, however, brings up point which should be made at outset. The amount of work that has been done on black slave Christianity in eighteenth century is limited at best, and for seventeenth century it is even more meager. In large part, this is function of lack of widespread slave conversion prior to mid-1700's. However, knowledge of religious sensibilities of slaves (be they Christian or otherwise) during first century of their presence in colonies seems central to issue at hand. Excellent treatments have been made of African religious traditions and considerable material exists on antebellum slave Christianity (indeed, many of works touched upon herein devote themselves largely to nineteenth century) but an unacceptable vagueness still seems to prevade our knowledge of first-generation slave beliefs. A good place to begin an examination of some of more recent work on this topic is Albert J. Raboteau's Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in Antebellum South. After brief discussion of African religious traditions and somewhat misplaced examination of African-American religions in Latin American, Raboteau conveniently provides us with an overview of historiographical debate surrounding slave Christianity proceeding his own contribution. On one side, says Raboteau, are those historians who maintain that the African was almost totally stripped of his culture by process of enslavement and thus it had very little to do with development of black Christianity. On other side are those who claim the slave system did not destroy slaves' African culture and considerable number of Africanisms continue to define Afro-American culture in United States. As representative of these positions Raboteau singles out E. Franklin Frazier and Melville J. Herskovits.(2) In The Myth of Negro Past, Herskovits attacked apriori positions that primitive cultures, such as those in West Africa, could not possibly survive once transplanted into civilized milieu. He maintained that far from being childlike people drawn from lowest ranks of an underdeveloped society, African slaves left behind sophisticated social structure and carried with them their languages, world views, and values. Upon establishment in North America, these cultural elements were not simply swept aside by orientation, argues Herkovits, but were reinterpreted. words were translated into African speech patterns and European culture was translated into African value and behavior systems.(3) Frazier's response, in The Negro Church in America, to Herskovits' claims was polar opposite position. Raboteau discusses it as reaction to Herskovits' overstated case, but Frazier's position seems no less overstated. According to Raboteau, Frazier claimed that preponderance of young male slaves, mixing of tribes and kinship groups, Middle Passage, small, dispersed plantations and seasoning of slaves all contributed to deculturation process which destroyed African culture. …