Religion and Slavery By Helena Paice

Accept for the society of friends all religious groups in America supported slavery. In the south black people were not permitted to go to church, and if they did they were segregated from white people. Slaves were forbidden from continuing their own African religious rituals, where spirits are everywhere and ensure morality.

Slave masters did not encourage Christianity because of the Bible. Many of the teachings in the New Testament include equality! Many slave masters didn’t encourage or even tried to prevent their slaves from learning to read. Traditional African drums were also banned as the masters feared that messages could be signalled and a slave uprising organised.

Black people in the north were more likely to attend church. In 1794 Richard Allen set up the first church for black people in Philadelphia, closely followed by Peter Williams in 1796, a tobacco merchant who felt unwelcome in his local Methodist church in New York.

In 1816, Richard Allen lead a group of churchmen to form the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Allen became the first Bishop.

“I can not see why the more favoured class should enslave the other. True, God has given to the African a darker complexion than to his white brother: still, each have the same desires and aspirations. The food required for the sustenance of one is equally necessary for the other.” Austin Steward, slave 22 years – 1857.