Short Essay 2

Christianity has had many affects on societies around the world throughout the centuries.  It has been the source of many wars and it has given something for many people to believe in.  Anyone who wanted to be Christian could be.  Being Christian did not define which class a person would belong.  It did not necessarily mean being in a higher social class or in a lower class.  Being Christian only meant that a person had a certain set of beliefs in which they followed.  The only correlation between Christianity and social status among Africans, or any other race for that matter, was that one did not affect the other. 

A slave is a slave no matter their religious affiliation same as a freeman is a freeman.  Converting to Christianity did not give a slave or any other African any social status since Christianity was unbiased and only encouraged people to believe.  Europeans viewed Africans as inferiors regardless of whether or not they were baptized Christians.  Africans were, however, encouraged and sometimes forced to convert to Christianity and become baptized by their “masters.” 

In the article Forging the Link: Europe, Africa and the Americas, James Walvin talks mainly about the sugar industry and the use of slaves as workers and how “sugar was made possible by Africans” (Walvin, 10).  He does not mention religion among the slaves nor does he mention much about slaves lives outside of the sugar industry.  He made very strong arguments regarding the importance of slaves in the sugar industry, but he did not mention Christianity among slaves and therefore not a good source for this topic. 

Neither Sue Peabody’s article Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France nor Pierre H Boulle’s Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France discussed Christianity among Africans in depth.  The only mention of Christianity among Africans was how Africans were brought to France for two reasons, to learn a trade or for religious instruction.  These articles show the importance of religion, namely Christianity, among Europeans yet they do not show how Africans image or status was changed because of their knowledge of Christianity.  Africans were still seen as a lesser people and were not respected in the same sense as other Frenchmen or other Europeans.  France may have disagreed with the institution of slavery in all forms, but they did not see Africans as equals.  France discouraged Africans from even living in France and being a baptized Christian did not change anything.

In Christianity and the campaign against slavery and the slave trade by Christopher Leslie Brown, Brown discusses how Christianity was used to start and end the slave trade.  It was one of the most important factors and arguments that were used during the time of the slave trade.  He argued that in the beginning of the slave trade that slave traders and owners argued that the reason Africans were slaves was because of the “Curse of Ham, which decreed that the progeny of his son Canaan would be consigned to slavery in perpetuity” (Brown, 518).  This argument uses Christianity against Africans and validates American’s actions and participation in the slave trade.  In the minds of whites it makes it acceptable for Christians to enslave Christians.  So for an African to be Christian did not change the way they were viewed by whites, it did not have any affect on African’s social status.  Even when Brown discussed the arguments for ending slavery using Christianity, it did not change the view of Africans being a lesser people, it only argued that it was wrong to enslave another human being. 

Nicholas Hudson takes a similar stance as Brown in his article “Britons Never Will be Slaves”: National Myth, Conservatism, and the Beginnings of British Antislavery.  He briefly touches on the point that Britons used Christianity as an argument for ending the slave trade and the institution of slavery.  There was never any talk that enslaving Africans was wrong only that any form of slavery was wrong.  Africans were still not equals regardless of their religious affiliation.  The only place that Africans were treated as equals to Americans or Europeans was on the sea.  White sailors treated African sailors almost as equals, but they were still seen as the lowest class of citizens by other whites that were not sailors.  Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina touches on this topic in her article Mobility in Chains: Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic. 

Olaudah Equiano in his autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavas Vassa, The African discusses his experiences of being taken from his home in Africa and then after his conversion to Christianity how he was asked to become a missionary in Africa.  Equiano was never granted his missionary status nor was he ever able to return to Africa.  Equiano’s social status did not change after he was baptized as a Christian.  He was given an opportunity to become a missionary, but because he was African was still considered to belong to a lower class.

Europeans still thought of Africans as be barbarous and uncivilized even if they were Christian.  It wasn’t until a person was ordained as a priest or missionary or became a part of the clergy or ministry that social status began to slightly change, and very few Africans were given that opportunity.  All of these articles that have been discussed only talk about how Europeans viewed Africans and the African’s status among whites.  There is no discussion of how Africans viewed Africans and the views of Christian or non-Christian beliefs among Africans.  This is very important to mention because even in Equiano’s narrative he only mentions how he was viewed among the whites, not how he saw or was seen by other Africans.  These articles support the argument that Africans social status did not change whether or not they were Christians.  African’s were viewed as the lowest class citizen by whites whether they were free or slave and whether they were Christian or not.