'A plantation of religion' and the enterprise culture in Africa: History, ex-slaves and religious inevitability

Journal of Religion in Africa

Volumn 27, Issue 1-4, 1997, Pages 15-49

  Sanneh, Lamin ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 84886627637     PISSN: 00224200     EISSN: 15700666     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157006697X00036     Document Type: Review

References (79)

1. Thus did Hugo Rahner argue that the imperial church established by Theodosius I (AD. 380) restricted the church's role to interceding with God for the state, thus confining the church to the sacristy rather than allowing it an active role in the public forum. See Hugo Rahner, Sj., Church and State in Eariy Christianity, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992.
2. Translated by Leo Donald Davis, Sj., from the German, ruc & und Stoat im Friihen Christentum, Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1961, 191.
3. Yet, however coextensive Catholicism might be with the territorial span of the Frankish kingdom, it was more than that, at least in the nature of its doctrine, thus commencing a struggle in which the church tried to maintain her freedom, 'a battle that lasted all through the Middle Ages.' Rahner, 1992, 244.
4. Christopher Dawson, Reltgson and the Rise of Western Culture, London: Sheed and Ward, 1950.
5. Also the same writer's The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the Histoy of European Unity, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1994.
6. For a discussion of the Puritan heritage in Arrserican history, see Perry Mifier & Thomas H. Johnson, eds., The Puritans: A Sourcebook of their Writings: vol. i.
7. The Theoy of the State and of Sociqy: ?7zis World and the Next, New York: Harper Torchbooks, revised edition, 1963, Introduction, pp. 1-79.
8. Michael Waizer has argued that the independent, commoner social roots of the English Puritans, in contrast to their aristocratic Huguenot counterparts in France, enabled them to become a force for change. Freed from feudal attachments, the Puritans 'anticipated in their own lives the politics of the revolution.' Their independence and self-reliance pointed them 'toward the overthrow of the traditional order.' Michael Waizer, The Revolution of the Saints, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965, 114, 118.
9. James Pennington says that he planned to effect his freedom on the day of the Sabbath for very good religious reasons, because it was 'the holy day which God in his infinite wisdom gave for the rest of both man and beast.' Pennington, 1849, p. 12.
10. James Pennington, formerly a slave in Maryland, stressed this point. 'You cannot,' he insisted, 'constitute slavery without the chattel principle-and with the chattel principle you cannot save it from these results. Talk not then about kind and christian masters. They are not masters of the system. The system is master of them; and the slaves are their vassals. . . . I beg our Anglo-Saxon brethren,' he pleaded, 'to accustom themselves to think that we need something more than kindness. We ask for justice, truth and honour as other men do.' Five Slave Narratives: A Compendium, New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1968, vii, xii (no author or editor listed). The testimony was published in London, 2nd edition: Charles Gilpin, 1849.
11. James Pennington spoke as much in these terms when he said, 'If you ask me jf I expected when I left home to gain my liberty by fabrications and untruths? I answer, no! my parents, slaves as they were, had always taught me, when they could, that "truth may be blamed but cannot be shamed;" so far as their example was concerned, I had no habits of untruth.' Five Slave .Ararratizies, New York, 1968, 30.
12. Not every one was ready for this new point of view, so that, for example, when they came to write a biography of their father, William Wilberforce, Robert and Samuel Wilberforce wrote a partisan account designed to make William Wilberforce the individual and independent architect of the anti-slavery movement in spite of Thomas Clarkson's instrumentality in recruiting Wilberforce for the cause. A similar distortion of the historical record occurred in studies of Clarkson himself with the omission of the names of Airican pioneers whose efforts preceded or overlapped with those of Clarkson. Even as late as 1996, the BBC World Service continued to give Clarkson sole credit for the anti-slavery cause in England without any reference to Olaudah Equiano and his efforts. BBC World Service Broadcast of September 23, 1996.
13. 'An Account of the Life of Mr. David George, from Sierra Leone in Africa; given by himself in a Conversation with Brother Rippon of London, and Brother Pearce of Birmingham,' The Annual Baptist Register for 1790, 1791, 1792 & Part of 1793, ed. John Rippon, p. 473.
14. For a discussion of George at Silver Bluff see also Walter H. Brooks, 'The Priority of the Silver Bluff Church and its Promoters,' The Journal of Negro Histoy, vol. vii, 1922, 172-196.
15. Annual Baptist Register, 475-76.
16. See also Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 109.
17. 'An Account of Several Baptist Churches, consisting chiefly of Negro Slaves: particularly of one at IGngston, in Jamaica; and another at Savannah in Georgia,' The Baptist Annual Register, 1790-1 793, 332-337.
18. Anthony Kirk-Greene, 'David George: The Nova Scotian Experience,' Sierra Leone Studies, New Series, December, 1960, no. 14, 93-120, PP. 110-111.
19. Kirk-Greene, 'David George,' p. 115.
20. Walzer, 1965, 117.
21. Seaver, Paul, The Puritan Lectureships: The Politics of Religious Dissent. 1560-i 662, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970, 144.
22. The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African: 1789, 2 vols., London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1969, vol. i, pp. 91-92.
23. Rabotean, Slove Religion, 1978, 181.
24. Raboteau, Slave Religion, 1978, 215.
25. Cited in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 1978, 218.
26. One writer speculates thus: 'One is entitled to wonder whether a washtub that "catches" sound, rather than producing it, may not represent some kind of religious symbolic inversion on the part of a religious group particularly since the suppresion of drumming by masters was a common feature of Afro-American history.' Sidney Mints, cited in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 1978, 216, 360. It should be pointed Out that the use of an inverted calabash in a basin of water where it creates a vacuum to produce muffled tones has long existed as part of the musical tradition of some West African ethnic groups, and might thus suggest one possible source for the custom, though not its poignant 'hush harbor' adaptation, among slaves. As a child growing up in the Gambia, the present writer participated in many such musical performances.
27. Richard Allen (1760-1831), the great African American preacher, remonstrated with a white objector, 'if you deny us your name, you cannot seal up the scriptures from us, and deny us a name in heaven. We believe heaven is free for all who worship in spirit and truth.'
28. Cited in Milton C. Sernett, ed., Afro-American Religious Histosy, Durham, 1985, 143.
29. Anderson Edwards, a slave preacher in Texas, said that although he could not read or write, he knew that his master's orders to preach to the slaves that if they obeyed their masters' instructions they would go to heaven could not be true because 'I knowed there's something better for them, but daren't tell them 'cept on the sly. That I done lots. I tell "em iffen they keeps prayin" the Lord will set 'em free.' Cited in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 1978, 232.
30. Clara Young, a slave woman, testified about Mathew Ewing, a slave preacher as follows: 'He was a comely nigger, black as night, and he sure could read out of his hand. He never learned no real readin' and writin' but he sure knowed his Bible and would hold his hand out make like he was readin' and preach de purtiest preachin' you ever heard.' Cited in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 1978, 234.
31. The Psalmist had written: 'Set a watch over my mouth, 0 Lord, keep watch over the door of my lips!' Ps. 141:3
32. cited by the African American female preacher, Jarena Lee (b. 1783) in Milton C. Sernett, editor, Afro-American Religious Histoiy: A Documentary Witness, Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, 160-179, p. 176.
33. Raboteau also treats black preaching as an art form. Albert J. Raboteau, A Fire in the Bones: Rfflections on African-American Religious Histoy, Boston: Beacon Press, 1995, 141ff.
34. Cited in Andrew F. Walls, 'A Christian Experiment: The Early Sierra Leone Colony,' in Gj. Cuming, ed., The Mission of the Church and the Propagation of the Faith, Studies in Church Histoy, vol. 6, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, 119. Another white witness in America, Mary Boykin Chesnut, described Jim Nelson, a black preacher, at prayer in similar vein. 'He clapped his hands at the end of every sentence, and his voice rose to the pitch of a shrill, yet was strangely clear and musical, occasionally in a plaintive minor key that went to your heart. Sometimes it rang out like a trumpet. I wept bitterly... The Negroes sobbed and shouted and swayed backward and forward, some with aprons to their eyes, most of them clapping their hands and responding in shrill tones.. . . Jim Nelson when he rose from his knees trembled and shook as one in a palsy, and from his eyes you could see the ecstasy had not left him yet.'
35. Cited in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 1978, 221-222.
36. Cited in Raboteau, Slime Religion, 1978, 236.
37. See Christopher Fyfe, A History of Sierra Leone, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962, 201-202.
38. Extracts of the Journal of George Lane, 17 February, 1822, no. 43, MMS archives, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
39. Walls, 'A Christian Experiment,' 1970, 118.
40. Whitefield had laid elaborate plans for Bethesda as 'the Princeton' of the South, but failed in his efforts to get the necessary backing for it from all the parties concerned. There is no indication in his plans that Whitefield saw Bethesda as in any way allied with the cause of abolition. In fact he used the offer of slaves working for Bethesda College as a recommendation for its viability. See Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatists George Whitefleld and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991, 257ff.
41. Edwin Welch, Spiritual Pilgrim: A reassessment of the L of the Countess of Huntingdon, Cardifiu University of Wales Press, 1995, 131.
42. For the poem in question see Stout, Divine Dramatist, 1991, 284.
43. See Journal of Negro History, 57, 1972, 212.
44. Welch, 1995, 146-47.
45. Welch, 1995, 147.
46. The Sierra Leone Mission Supported by the Churches of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexwn and the Free Church of England, report by Rev. Joseph Bainton, Hon. Secretary & Mr. T. Manly, Tunbridge Wells, Hon. Treasurer, p. 7, no date.
47. Lamont D. Thomas, Rise to be a People: A Biography of Paul Cwji, Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986, 37.
48. Henry Noble Sherwood, 'Paul Cuffe,' Journal of Negro History, vol. 8, April, 1923, 160.
49. Massachusetts Archives, vol. 186, 134-36. Cited also in Sherwood, 162. Blacks had used the petition in earlier times to call attention to their grievances. In 1675, for example, Phillip Corven, a black, addressed a petition to the Governor and state of Virginia, saying he had been denied the manumission to which he felt entitled. In 1726, Peter Vantrump, a free black, complained to the North Carolina authorities in similar terms. By the time of the revolution, the petition had become a familiar instrument in the campaign for abolition.
50. Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, vol. i: From the Colonial Times Through the Civil War, 1951, reprinted New York: Citadel Press Book of Carol Publishing Group, 1990, pp. 2ff.
51. One petition was unusual for being sponsored by whites in support of the slaves. It was drafted by the Baptist, Rev. E.H. Tucker, of Georgia, and addressed in 1863 to the Georgia legislature. The petition condemned slavery as a trespass on the rights of blacks and an infringement especially of their sacred right to preach, exhort or pray. The slave code which forbids granting of a religious license to blacks is in conflict with the law of God which makes that a necessity in given cases. The petition went on: 'Soul-liberty is the rightful heritage of all God's moral creatures. Not over the religion of the slave has civil authority any power, nor yet has it over that of the citizen.' The presumption of government to override the demands of religious conscience 'is its heaven- daring impiety.' The slave code that forbids obedience to God in this matter is an affront to the prerogative of God.
52. Cited in Raboteau, Slave Relijsn, 1978, 195-196.
53. The petitions of both of them can be found in the Methodist Missionay Archives at the School of Oriental & African Studies, London, Box 279.
54. Letter of James Wise to Rev. John Beecham, 17 May, 1833.
55. Sherwood, 1923, journal entries of Paul Cuffee, 174-181.
56. Sherwood, 1923, 204.
57. Sherwood, 1923, 184.
58. Sherwood, 1923, 189.
59. Sherwood, 1923, 190.
60. Sherwood, 1923, 192.
61. Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Sociey, 153.
62. First Annual Report of the American Colonization Sociey, 5.
63. George Washington was one of the largest slave owners in 18th century colonial America, and at his death he owned 317 slaves. Walter H. Mazyck, George Wo.shington and the J'fegro, Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, 1932. The descendants of these slaves now gather annually at Mount Vernon.
64. Fyfe, Histoiy, 1962, 55-56.
65. Fyfe, Histmy, 1962, 202.
66. George Liele, for example, wrote about how he worked and otherwise offered his services without pay from the church. '1 receive rothing for my services; I preach, baptize, administer the Lord's Supper, and travel from one place to another to publish the gospel, and to settle church affairs, all freely... and I promoted a FREE SCHOOL for the instruction of the children . . .' An Account of Baptized .Negro Churches, 1791, Annual Baptist Register, 1790 etc., p. 335.
67. Andrew F. Wails, 'The Nova Scotian Settlers and their Religion,' The Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, no. 1, June, 1959, 19-31, pp. 21-22.
68. Nash, 'Thomas Peters,' 1981, 82.
69. Letter of Samuel Brown, 27 February, 1819, no. 43, MMS Archives, SOAS, London.
70. Letter of John Baker and J. Gillison, 24 June, 1819, no. 50, MMS Archives.
71. Milton alluded to this once when he exulted: 'Let them chant while they will of prerogatives, we shall tell them of Scripture; of custom, we of Scripture; of acts and statutes, still of Scripture.' Cited in Walzer, 1965, 130.
72. An Account of Baptized Negro Churches, 1791
73. Christopher Fyfe, 'The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion in Nineteenth Century Sierra Leone,' The Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, vol. 4, no. 2, December, 1962, 53-72, pp. 56-57.
74. Christopher Fyfe, 'The Baptist Churches in Sierra Leone,' The Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, vol. 5, no. 2, December, 1963, 55-60, pp. 56-57.
75. Baptized Negro Churches, 1791, 336.
76. Pennington, Pastor of a Presbyterian Church, Ji r, Formerly a Slave in the State of Masyland, United States, second edition, London: Charles Gilpin, 1849, in Five Slave .JVarratives: A Compendium, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968, 7, 21.
77. Christopher Fyfe, 'The West African Methodists in the Nineteenth Century,' 77w Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, vol. 3, no. 1, June, 1961, 22-28, pp. 23-24.
78. Cited in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 1978, 199.
79. Baptized .Negro Churches, 1791, 336. The reference to being entangled in the affairs of the world concerns Liele's conscription in Jamaica as a trumpeter to the Kingston militia and 'in carrying all the cannon that could be found lying about this part of the country.'