by Jemar Tisby
Southern states, particularly Georgia and South Carolina, threatened to reject any constitution that did not protect the practice of slavery. In what became known as the “dirty compromise,” delegates agreed to include a clause that allowed for the continuation of the slave trade for another twenty years. Slavery was not open for debate again in the United States until 1808.
In 1808, Congress decided to cease the Atlantic slave trade, but the institution of slavery remained. In a preview of the growing divide between northern and southern states, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This agreement admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state to preserve the balance of power between slave and free states. The Missouri Compromise effectively guaranteed that slavery would remain an American institution for the next several decades.
All of this demonstrates that early legislation in the United States protected, or at least did not dismantle, race-based chattel slavery. The nation’s political leaders used black lives as bargaining chips to preserve the union of states and to gain leverage for other policy issues. Although the abolition movement started gaining momentum during this time, America made its peace with slavery for the next several decades.
What about the church? The American church made similar compromises at critical junctures to preserve the status of slaveholders and to justify the uniquely American manifestation of slavery. The tragedy of the church’s compromise with slavery cannot be understood apart from a close examination of the day-to-day lives of slaves.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE AND SLAVERY
If there is one concept that helps unlock the twisted logic of American slavery better than almost any other, it is the chattel principle. The chattel principle is the social alchemy that transformed a human being made in the image of God into a piece of property. African American minister and abolitionist James W. C. Pennington spoke of it this way: “The being of slavery, its soul and its body, lives and moves in the chattel principle, the property principle, the bill of sale principle: the cart whip, starvation, and nakedness are its inevitable consequences.”4
In the book Soul by Soul, Walter Johnson looks at the slave market, the point of sale for human beings, the place that most tangibly illustrates the chattel principle and the way human beings were reduced to the personal property of slave owners. Johnson writes, “The entire economy of the antebellum South was constructed on the idea that the bodies of enslaved people had a measurable monetary value.”5 As property, enslaved people were valued for their physical aptitude and obedient attitudes. Prices increased based on height, skin color, perceived intelligence, and a reputation for following orders. Slaves could be used as collateral for loans and were often sold as part of the estate when an enslaver died.
Tragically, the economic value associated with an enslaved person was of more value than their family ties. According to Johnson, of the more than 600,000 interstate sales that occurred in the decades prior to the Civil War, 25 percent destroyed a first marriage, and 50 percent broke up a nuclear family. Oftentimes, children younger than thirteen years old were separated from their parents and sold, never to be reunited. “Under the chattel principle, every advance into enslaved society—every reliance on another, every child, friend, or lover, every social relation—held within it the threat of its own dissolution.”6
Olaudah Equiano wrote about his separation from his sister as the most traumatic event of his enslavement. After their initial separation, Equiano and his sister experienced a brief, joyous moment of reunification. Upon meeting they “clung to each other in mutual embraces, unable to do anything but weep.” Yet just as abruptly as they had been reunited, they were sold to different masters: “Scarcely had the fatal morning appeared, when she was again torn from me forever! I was now more miserable, if possible, than before.”7
The suffering of black women was especially acute under the institution of slavery because women were valued both for their productive ability and their reproductive ability. In contrast to white women, who were viewed as delicate and in need of protection, black women were perceived as strong and durable. Even when they were pregnant, it was expected that they should work in the fields, often up until the very moment of birth. After delivery, women were allotted scant time for recovery and were soon forced back to work. Black women also bore the primary responsibility to care for their own families. Even as they had their own children to look after, many enslaved women were also responsible for raising the children of their enslavers.
Rape was an inevitable aspect of slave life for many black women, who had no social or legal power to resist the lascivious behavior of their white slaveowners. The mistresses of the plantation, from whom black women might have anticipated some empathy because of their shared gender, instead treated enslaved black women with contempt and jealousy.8 Deprived of any recourse, black women had to resort to their own solutions to survive under harsh circumstances.
Harriet Jacobs, in her autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, relates the moral agony of choosing between being raped by her enslaver or a more willing but no less unequal sexual relationship with a free white man. Raised by a Christian grandmother who exhibited constant concern for Jacobs’s safety and sexual virtue, the young slave girl agonized over her decision, unsure of how to respond to her sexual partners. For years she had done her best to avoid the lecherous tentacles of the man who had enslaved her, Doctor Flint. To her white female readers, she implored, “But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law. Do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely!”9 In the end, Jacobs decided to partner with a free white man in the hopes that if they had children together, he would set them free. These were the types of impossible choices that characterized the life of black women under slavery.
Rather than defending the dignity of black people, American Christians at this time chose to turn a blind eye to the separation of families, the scarring of bodies, the starvation of stomachs, and the generational trauma of slavery. Some deliberately chose to shield themselves from the atrocities occurring in their own country, state, and community. Others witnessed slavery in action but chose not to confront it, preferring the political and financial advantages that came with human bondage instead of decrying the dehumanization they saw. Whether some Christians felt conflicted or remorseful about their support of slavery matters little. The practice continued, as did the suffering. While many Americans were complicit in the continuation of slavery, Christian support stands apart because the Bible clearly and frequently instructs believers in how they should treat others. In later chapters, we’ll take a closer look at several Christian theological justifications for slavery. It was during this antebellum period that the American church truly made its uneasy peace with the enslavement of black people.
SLAVE RESISTANCE AND REBELLION
Black people in America recognized that the evil they suffered was imposed on them, not a result of their own actions. The enslaved recognized this injustice because they lived it every day. But they did not let the harm they endured hinder their hopes for a better future or extinguish their attempts at resistance. Enslaved blacks did not passively suffer abuse. Christianity, in fact, became a source of strength and survival, bringing hope to thousands of enslaved people. And they found other ways, both subtle and spectacular, to resist oppression.
Black resistance to enslavement took multiple forms. Some slaves deliberately broke tools to delay their work. Others would set fires or pretend to be sick. Denmark Vesey, for instance, faked epileptic seizures so effectively that the white man who bought him returned Vesey to the slave trader who sold him. Enslaved blacks feigned mental slowness to make their enslavers think they were less capable than they really were. They sometimes stole food or other items as compensation for their years of unpaid labor. Even learning to read was a form of resistance.
Of course, escape
was also a form of resistance. But fleeing the plantation meant increased risk, punishment, and possibly death if recaptured. Plans had to be devised with the utmost secrecy. To hide their plans for running away, enslaved blacks embedded hidden messages into their songs. A well-known example is the song “Steal Away,” which includes the line “Steal away home to Jesus.” That double entendre could also serve as notification to indicate when slaves could escape or “steal away” from the plantation. Similarly, the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd” refers to a constellation in the night sky that slaves were supposed to follow to freedom. The words of the song pass along specific directions and give the time of day to execute the plan:
When the sun comes up and the first quail calls
Follow the drinking gourd.
A later couplet instructs the listener to follow the river and to look for dead tree branches arranged to point toward freedom in the north:
The riverbank is a mighty good road
The dead trees show you the way
The riskiest and most ambitious form of resistance was a slave rebellion. In Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti, the black slaves of this Caribbean island accomplished the first successful slave revolution of the modern Atlantic world. From 1781 to 1804, enslaved blacks in France’s richest colony rebelled against their enslavers, who were vastly outnumbered, and took the island from their European oppressors. News of the revolution spread across the globe and caused constant consternation for white colonizers. No specter cast a longer shadow in the minds of North American enslavers than the Haitian Revolution. Nightmares of a massive domestic rebellion of enslaved black people haunted the enslavers and those who relied on slave labor. Their fears were not unfounded.
From the moment the shackles clamped around the wrists or ankles of an enslaved black person, getting free became a dream and, for some, an obsession. Occasionally, those trapped in bondage organized and armed themselves in a campaign for liberation. In 1800, Gabriel, an enslaved man on the Prosser Plantation, attempted a revolution that might have involved up to a thousand other slaves. Gabriel stood over six feet tall, was a skilled blacksmith, and was one of the few enslaved people who could read and write. Inspired by the Haitian Revolution, he planned an uprising to take control of the armory in Richmond and hold Governor James Monroe as a hostage until their demands were met. But on the eve before the planned rebellion, a torrential thunderstorm struck the area and delayed the plans. A slave named Pharaoh reportedly divulged the plans to white men. Gabriel and his coconspirators’ revolution was thwarted, and the would-be rebels were hanged.10
Denmark Vesey literally won the lottery when he became a freedman. Born into slavery and living in Charleston, South Carolina, with his slaveowner, Vesey won the city lottery and bought his freedom for $600. He could not, however, purchase freedom for his wife and children, a fact that served as a source of perpetual frustration for him. Vesey joined the new Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, or “Mother Emanuel,” in 1817 and became a leader in the congregation. Even in an all-black church, members faced constant monitoring from local whites, who feared that their preaching and teaching would lead to insubordination and insurrection. They were right to be concerned. Like Gabriel, Vesey knew how to read and drew inspiration from the success of the Haitian Revolution and from biblical passages on the exodus. In 1822, he planned a massive slave revolt, but again, a few timid enslaved persons gave away the plans to some white people, who began rounding up the ring-leaders. Vesey himself was captured and executed along with thirty-four others. As news of Vesey’s revolutionary plans spread, the white population of the city of Charleston burned the church, Emanuel AME, to the ground.
Less than ten years later, in February 1831, the moon eclipsed the sun, and an enslaved man named Nat Turner looked at the sky. Turner believed the eclipse to be a spiritual message. Turner was a deeply committed Christian, and in 1828, three years earlier, he wrote that God had revealed to him “by signs in the heavens that he would make known to me when I should commence the great work, and . . . I should arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies with their own weapons.”11 Turner planned what became one of the most infamous rebellions of enslaved people in American history. Unlike Gabriel and Denmark Vesey’s aborted attempts, Nat Turner carried out his plans.
On the night of August 21, 1831, Turner and six of his followers entered the house of his slaveowner, Joseph Travis, and murdered the entire family in their sleep. Turner and his band moved on to other homes, killing whites along the way. At the end of two days, dozens of slaves had joined up with “Nat Turner’s Rebellion.” Around fifty-five white men, women, and children died by their hands. A hastily assembled militia dispersed Turner’s forces, killing many of them. Ironically, the militia encountered the rebels while marching toward the county seat, a town named Jerusalem. Turner himself evaded capture until October 30, when he was seized, tried, and convicted. While he sat in prison, he dictated his story to his lawyer, Thomas Gray, in what became known as The Confessions of Nat Turner. On November 11, state authorities executed Nat Turner. In a final act of macabre dehumanization, Turner’s body was given to scientists for study. According to lore, his decapitated skull circulated among many individuals for examination and entertainment.12
Nat Turner’s rebellion sparked paranoia across the South. In fear and retaliation, white people killed more than 100 enslaved blacks suspected of participating in or sympathizing with the rebellion. The insurrection led to harsher laws governing slave mobility and limiting their ability to assemble. White Christians used this as an opportunity to advocate for slavery reform so that masters did not aggravate enslaved people to the point of violent rebellion, pointing to Turner as an example.
PATERNALISM AND PROSLAVERY CHRISTIANITY
The gospel of Jesus Christ planted the seeds of resistance and liberation in the minds and hearts of oppressed black people, driving white enslavers to repress and regulate the religion of the enslaved. White slave owners sought to erase African religion and cultural customs and endeavored to control the Christianity they dispensed to their involuntary laborers. Although groups of white Christians had insisted on evangelizing indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans, their efforts never produced a church defined by racial equality. Instead, paternalistic attitudes toward black people defined much of American Christianity.
White evangelists compromised the Bible’s message of liberation to make Christianity compatible with slavery. They sought to allay the trepidation of enslavers by spiritualizing Christian equality—spiritual freedom did not change one’s status as slave or free. To reinforce these ideas, white leaders tried to ensure that black Christians never had too much autonomy. Prior to the Civil War, black and white Christians commonly worshiped together in the same congregations. As Charles F. Irons wrote in The Origins of Proslavery Christianity, “Sunday morning only became the most segregated time of the week after the Civil War. Before emancipation, black and white evangelicals typically prayed, sang, and worshiped together.”13 Yet this interracial interaction did not come from the egalitarian aspirations of white Christians; rather, interracial congregations were an expression of paternalism and a means of controlling slave beliefs and preventing slave insurrection.
Under paternalistic Christianity, the slave plantation was seen as a household, with the male enslaver as the benevolent patriarch of both his family and his “pseudofamily” of enslaved black people. Theoretically, a Christian slave owner would care for his enslaved property as a father cares for his own children. But enslaved blacks could never truly be part of the white master’s household, nor would they be considered full and equal human beings, let alone fellow Christians of equal status and dignity. George Fitzhugh, a lawyer from Virginia, clarified: “The negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition. Gradual, but certain, extermination would be their fate.”14 Slaveholder paternalism viewed the enslave
d as perpetual children incapable of adequately making their own decisions, dependent on white people for guidance and protection.
This paternalistic attitude led many white Christians to be remarkably openminded when it came to the activity of Black Christians—as long as the racial hierarchy remained unchanged. “So long as black evangelicals did not press for either civic privileges or equality within the biracial church, their white coreligionists were willing to open to them a relatively wide field of activity.”15 The American Colonization Society (ACS) vividly illustrates the paternalistic attitude of racially moderate white Christians. The organization, founded in 1816 by Presbyterian minister Robert Finley, sought to send freed black people in America back to Africa. Finley, like many other white Christians, believed that free black people could never effectively assimilate into American society. “Could they be sent to Africa, a three-fold benefit would arise,” he suggested. “We should be cleared of them; we should send to Africa a population partially civilized and christianized for its benefits; our blacks themselves would be put in better condition.”16 Inherent in this plan for colonization was the assumption that blacks, as American citizens, would never meet the demands of democracy. Organizations like the ACS believed that exporting black Americans back to Africa would “civilize” a dark and barbaric continent through gradual cultural changes and Christian evangelism. As a pleasant byproduct of relocating black Americans to Africa, white Americans would also rid themselves of the endlessly troublesome racial issue. Notably absent from this proposed solution was an acknowledgment of the high mortality rates of people who moved to Africa. Nor did the prospect of making room for black people in America gain a serious hearing. Many misguided Christians viewed the work of the American Colonization Society as an act of benevolence, a way of “helping” free black people find a better life.