The Religion of Slavery
A quick look at the Bible and slavery.
It is no secret that slaveholders and people of the slave-holding South wielded their Bibles as a spiritual whip against their slave counterparts, as a conscience-clearing tool for the atrocities they committed against their dark-skinned brothers, and as a guide chock-full of helpful tips in the ways of slave-owning.
Slavery has been practiced by the human race for thousands of years. However, the premise of this argument is hinged on, specifically, the slavery practiced in pre-Civil War America, rather than examples reaching as far, and even further, back as the Egyptian enslavement of Jews. A discussion about American slavery is remiss without at some point touching on the role that Christianity played in the most regretted institution in American history. Using evidence from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an autobiography by the late, freed slave Frederick Douglass, in addition to evidence from the Bible itself, this paper serves to detail how a religion can often be used to apologize for and even encourage the slave religion of the South, before the Northern aggression during the American Civil War set the Southern slave-masters straight and their slaves free.
As a religious text, the Christian Bible does little in the way of proving itself self-evident, objectively moral, or free of contradictions. Hardly a sermon will go on without some form of spin or interpretation being used by a pastor or preacher to explain select passages from the Old and New Testaments (which are typically from any one of the myriad translations of the Bible, rather than the original languages that they were written with). The Bible contains many internal contradictions and even more vaguely written stories. A number of these accounts go ignored by most Christians due to their obvious immorality or controversial subject matter. The Bible also contains so many different stories and vague morals that it can be used almost universally to argue any two ways about a topic. For instance, one reading of Genesis might suggest that the earth as we know it was created in a mere seven days -which is proven by modern science to scarcely be the case. Another reading, from a Christian-apologist lens, can (very, very roughly) be used to show that, given what science has shown us, the account of Genesis fits in line with what we have come to discover about our universe and planet’s origins.
Just as the Bible was used to promote slavery and its ideals, so, too, can the Bible be used to argue against the institution of slavery in the American South. Yet these arguments can prove to be weak in comparison to the pro-slavery passages. Take, for example, a commonly used verse that seems to denounce slavery, where the reader is told that “whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death” (English Standard Version, The Holy Bible, Exodus 21:16). At first glance, it seems that the Bible is commanding us to not hold any slaves, but a closer read will prove that is not exactly what is being said here. The verse clearly states that “whoever steals a man” (Exodus 21:16) will be punished by death, but it does not distinguish whether the same sentence will be given to someone who did not steal their slaves nor buy a slave from a stolen source. This ambiguity troubles the notion that the Bible is anti-slavery, and a proponent of Christianity who is also an opponent of slavery might argue that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) is anti-slavery in its rudiments. Again, a closer scrutiny will show that this is folly. This quote, instead of preaching against the practice of slavery, is stating things believed to divide people as inconsequential and that these differences will not keep you from Jesus (or whatever is meant by being one in Christ Jesus), as opposed to commanding man to not keep slaves. There are a few more verses from the Christian Bible that apologists often try in vain to use as anti-slavery, but none are remotely close to being as convincing (that’s not to say the two examples provided yield convincing arguments) as Exodus 21:16 or Galatians 3:28.
Now that the anti-slavery sentiments from the Bible have been put to bed, the pro-slavery aggrandizements from the Christian holy book, Douglass’ own thoughts on the employ of Christianity in pre-Civil War America, and some choice examples of the abuse of religion to promote slavery from the popular Quentin Tarantino film, D’Jango Unchained, will be addressed. The use of Christianity as an excuse to hold men as slaves has leaked into the mainstream eye, evident, among other slavery-centered films, in Tarantino’s film D’Jango Unchained. In the film, there is a scene where a recently freed slave, D’Jango, impersonates a valet for his bounty-hunting, German partner while visiting a plantation suspected of harboring fugitives of the law. One of the fugitives, Big John Brittle, is seen by D’Jango just before he begins whipping a female slave going by the name of Little Jody. Big John Brittle is a white man with what is believed to be pages taken from the Bible sewn onto his shirt, and D’Jango ultimately kills him by ironically shooting him through a page sewn over Brittle’s heart. Before this happens, Brittle is shown brandishing a whip in preparation for lashing Little Jody, saying “And the Lord said, ‘the fear of ye, and the dread of ye, shall be on every beast of the earth” (D’Jango Unchained) in efforts to justify his would-be actions. Big John Brittle is clearly depicted as a God-fearing white man, yet even in his religion he is cruel and immoral. His use of scripture and religious views is a small example of the larger problem that was caused by the use of Christianity against black slaves in America.
This argument does not claim that all Christians are inherently pro-slavery, nor that Tarantino or Douglass are anti-Christianity advocates (Douglass declares his belief in Christianity in his narrative, despite himself facing many atrocities in its name), but merely that the Bible excuses slavery and promotes its institution. Douglass, describing his parentage as coming from a white father and slave mother, believes that the class of slaves who are from a white father and black mother will surely lead to the eventual upheaval of slavery by the very fact that a white father would find it difficult to discipline his son-slave. At least, this will “do away with the force of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right” (Douglass 17) because these mixed-race slaves may be viewed no longer as descendants of Canaan, the father of Ham who was cursed by God to forever have slave progeny in Chapter 9 of the Book of Genesis. Douglass, in his appendix at the end of his narrative, talks about the cognitive dissonance he saw in many Christians of the South and explains that he hated the “slaveholding…partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land” (Douglass 101), and goes on to differentiate the Christianity he subscribes to from the Christianity of the South. Elaborating on the dissonance of slave-holding Christians, Douglass tells that “the man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus” (Douglass 101) to show, despite how deplorable a slaver’s actions outwardly appear, these same slave-holders believed themselves righteous disciples of God and that they reserved an eternal spot in Heaven for being such good men of Christ. They were only serving as God instructed, weren’t they?
The Bible, hardly a source for reliable information and more of a tool that lends itself well to interpretation, is one of the most egregious offenders when it comes to the promotion of slave-centrist ideals. Countless examples may be found in the Bible where slavery is all but commanded by God (except for the story of Canaan in Genesis, addressed earlier, where God does declare that certain people be slaves), but this argument will only include two of the more popular pro-slave verses. A clever, although not fully-informed or well-read, Christian might posit that any pro-slavery sentiment found in the holy book would come from the Old Testament, before Jesus’ story, in efforts to maintain their own piety. This is simply untrue, as will be shown by an exploration of one (among multitudes) example from the New Testament, and then a revisit to the Old Testament where slavery is explicitly condoned. If ever a slave was allowed to read, and then further allowed to read a Bible (both were very unlikely, each becoming more and more unlikely the further south one traveled), they would find that they are told to “obey [their] earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as [they] obey Christ” (Ephesians 6:5–6), meaning that slaves should simply submit to their enslavement as God himself was the one who willed it. Not only should they remain dutifully enslaved, but they should obey with fear and trembling, unless they are to choose to disobey their master and thus their God, jeopardizing the binary fate of their immortal souls. From the Old Testament, a slave-master would find themselves swimming comfortably in a sea of slave-advocacy, but these easy-pickings will be omitted from this argument. How would a slaver know if they are disciplining their slaves properly? A quick turn to the Old Testament will guide those unsure of how to proceed. If one is going to beat a slave, one must make sure that the slave does not die immediately, or risk holy reprisal, “but if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property” (Exodus 21:20–21) and can be beaten at the owner’s discretion. This more than promotes slavery, it goes so far as to treat slavery as a given and instead tries to aid a wayward slave-master who is unsure as to what degree of punishment is permissible for use on an insubordinate slave.
Slavery is a blemish that stands highest above the blemish-filled history of the United States of America and the Bible. Slavery is as American as apple-pies and war-crimes, and as Christian as the crucifix. A recount of slavery would be grossly under-represented without exploring its promotion through religion and Christian holy texts, troubling even the most moral of Christian observers. Christianity was a tool for slave-holders, a safety-net for their conscience, and was used to keep slaves subordinate and indoctrinated by the institution of slavery in the pre-Civil War American South.
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL, Crossway Bibles, 2001.
Tarantino, Quentin, director. D’Jango Unchained. The Weinstein Company and Columbia Pictures, 2012.
