“Nevertheless, it would be simplistic to interpret the role of religion in the slave South solely in terms of an opiate for the masses, a device used by the master class as an agent of social control. In the final analysis it was indeed just that, and there is abundant evidence that the master class cynically devised a theology of slavery in a crude attempt to rationalize the system. But as recent studies have shown, slaves quickly recognized the crude ideological strategy of their masters. Olli Alhos detailed analyses of the slave narratives indicate that the carefully constructed theology of slavery built up by the whites became in many plantations nothing more than a joke among the slaves.” “The slaves found in fundamentalist Christianity paths to the satisfaction of their own needs, creating the strong commitment to Christianity that has persisted to this day. In so doing they created an institutional base that provided release and relief from the agonies of thralldom, and even offered some room for a sense of dignity before God and before each other. Having said all this, I must emphasize that the religion they experienced was the same as that of their masters in all its essential doctrinal and cultic aspects; that while the spirituals they sang may have had a double meaning with secular implications, it is grossly distorting of the historical facts to claim that they were covertly revolutionary in their intent; and, most important of all, it is irresponsible to deny that however well religion may have served the slaves, in the final analysis it did entail a form of accommodation to the system.” “In all of this I am in complete agreement with Genoveses penetrating interpretation of the role of religion in the slave South. Where I differ from him, and from others such as Lawrence W. Levine and Albert J. Raboteau who with equal skill and persuasion have emphasized the creative and positive side of religion for the slave, is in my interpretation of the specific means by which fundamentalist Christianity became at one and the same time a spiritual and social salvation for the slaves and an institutional support for the order of slavery.” Orlando Patterson “Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study” Page 73
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 08:17:50 +0000
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