One, No one and One Hundred Thousand - Esercitazione

Whether we consider religion as one for everybody, whether we are atheist or we believe

that the word of God should be expressed through Christ’ s answer “love thy neighbor”, we can say

that religion was born with the human being, as it expresses the possibility to overcome the body,

the hope and the faith in another life after death.

What is also true is that, many times in history, religion has been taken as a pretext to

commit atrocities such as the crusades, genocide, terrorism and slavery.

The Bible as a pretext for slavery

“For 150 years British ships laden with cheap cotton goods, trinkets and Bibles sailed from

Bristol and Liverpool for the west coast of Africa. They exchanged their cargo for a shipload of Black

slaves, who were then transported on the notorious Middle Passage, the second leg of the journey,

to the sugar-bowl of the Caribbean, where they were sold to plantation owners and set to work as

house servants or in the fields.”( McCrum, p. 210). “The Africans sold us because they loved money

more than their own sisters and brothers.” (Walker, p.79 )

For those African slaves the right to make choices about their life did not exist. They became the

property of someone else with no place to call their own.

At the beginning of the 10 Commandments it is mentioned “I am the Lord your God, who

brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods

before me” (Exodus 20:2-3 (NRSV)). We might think that God is against slavery but if we keep

reading the Bible we discover that God directly addresses the moral issues surrounding the owning

of people as property: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your

neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your

neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17 (NRSV)) , or “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is

from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. […] they may be your

property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as

property.”( Leviticus 25:44-46(NRSV)). [1] 1

These are only two of thousands verses of the Bible that refers to slavery as a usual custom in

the past.

That might be the reason why many slave-owners used the Bible as a pretext to justify the

institution of slavery.

“He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes”;

these words belong to a passage of the Holy Scriptures but they are also cited in The Narrative of

the Life of Frederick Douglass (p.99) by the main character’s master, Thomas Auld, as a justification

for whipping a young woman “with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm

red blood to drip”. After attending a Methodist camp-meeting where he experienced religion,

Captain Auld doesn’t appear to have been touched by the warmth of God. On the contrary “it made

him more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much worse man after

his conversion than before.” (F. Douglass, p. 97). In religion he finds justification and support for his

slaveholding meanness.

We notice the same religious support for cruelty against the slave in the words of a

clergyman in Uncle Tom’s Cabin: “It's undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the African race

should be servants, – kept in a low condition. […] ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he

be,' the scripture says.” (H. B. Stowe, p. 200). According to the clergyman the text means that “It

pleased Providence, for some inscrutable reason, to doom the race to bondage, ages ago; and we

must not set up our opinion against that”.

If for whites religion was that of the Bible, to Blacks it represented a ray of light in dark days,

a hope for a better afterlife.

False Christianity Vs. True Christianity

Blacks and whites perceived Christianity in a completely different way as Douglass shows us

in the appendix of his personal recollections and thoughts: “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick

Douglass”. According to him there are both real and false versions of religion and, generally, the

real or “true” form of Christianity is practiced by himself as well as some whites who are opposed

to slavery.

“[…] between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest

possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject

2

the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. […]I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of

Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and

hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for

calling the religion of this land Christianity.[...] We have men-stealers for ministers, women-

whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members.”

The shift from the true to false religion, or the Christian to non-Christian, happens as a

direct result of slavery. One of the best examples of this is the case of Mrs. Auld. When Douglass is

first introduced to her he is amazed at how kind she is, how unlike white women of his previous

experiences. It is most interesting to note how, without granting descriptions of her church or

religious activities, sheappears to him as angelic and holy and as a perfect model for a Christian

woman. He says of her, “Her face was made of heavenly smiles” (Douglass, p.77) which makes her

immediately angelic along with his discussions about how she did not judge and would allow slaves

to look her in the eye as an equal. With the coming of her instruction on how to treat slaves from

her male counterpart however, it is as if the true Christianity is no longer present or compatible

with slave owning. As she “learns” how to treat Douglass, she literally appears to turn into a devil

and becomes, in terms of imagery, the opposite of an angel. As Douglass puts it, “That cheerful eye,

under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice….that angelic face place to

that of a demon” (78). In this passage, she personifies the shift from true to false Christianity and

she literally turns from an angel into a devil with the simple introduction of slavery. [2]

Douglass holds quintessential Christian views and clearly does not detest or blame religion

for how it is used by people like Mr. Covey and other members of the Southern churches. For

Douglass, giving thanks to God and recognizing good deeds and moral behavior is important and is

part of what defines the “true” or “real” form of Christianity rather than the hypocritical slant taken

by slave-owning whites.

A powerful tool for Black slaves.

Some slave masters thought that teaching their slaves to be Christians would keep them

subjugated, but religion frequently became a powerful tool of slave resistance. Black slaves often

used the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt as a metaphor or point of comparison for their own

situation. God brought the Israelites up out of slavery; surely he might do the same for the slaves in

the U.S. . 3

For slaves, Christianity became a symbol of redemption in which they envisioned a future free

from bondage or a reward in the afterlife. Many of them turned to religion for comfort in their

darkest hour, to help them gain the strength to continue in their struggles and to hope that a day

would come when they would rise above their condition to a better place.

Tom made the decision to suffer rather than to fight or flee. It was not the result of cowardice but

just his moral choice. As practiced by Tom and little Eva, Christianity means love and forgiveness for

all people. Tom adds self-sacrifice to this formula. He is willing to be sold and eventually to die for

the good of others. According to Stowe blacks were superior to whites and their acceptance of

their oppression would earn them a place in heaven.

Slaves also used to meet in churches or in plantation “praise houses”, for singing and

dancing. But slaveholders did not allow dancing and playing drums, as usual in Africa. They also had

meetings at secret places (“camp meetings”, “bush meetings”): “Many would gather together to

hear from him (Uncle Tom) of Jesus. They would gladly have met to hear, and pray, and sing, in

some place, together”(Stowe, p.559).

They needed to meet one another and share their joys, pains and hopes: “[…]as they sung, some

laughed, and some cried, and some clapped hands[…]”(Stowe,p.78).

In rural meetings, thousand of slaves were gathered and listened to itinerant preachers,

and sang spirituals, for hours. The lyrics of Negro spirituals were tightly linked with the lives of their

authors: slaves; they were inspired by the message of Jesus Christ and his Good News (Gospel) of

the Bible, “You can be saved”. They are different from hymns and psalms, because they were a way

of sharing the hard condition of being a slave.

Many slaves in towns and on plantations tried to run to a “free country” that they called

“my home” or “Sweet Canaan, the Promised Land”:

“The chorus of one of them […] was sung with great energy and unction.[…] There were

others, which made incessant mention of “Jordan’s banks”, and “Canaan’s fields”, and the “New

Jerusalem;” for the negro mind, impassioned and imaginative, always attaches itself to hymns and

expressions of a vivid and pictorial nature.” (Stowe, p.77)

This country was on the northern side of the Ohio River, that they called “Jordan”. Some Negro

spirituals refer to the Underground Railroad, an organization for helping slaves to run away. [3]

4

A feminine view of God

Women, whether black or white, shared almost the same condition: they were considered

as inferior beings. Slave owners’ wives could express their own ideas, but had no influence in

making decisions. Black women, instead, even after the abolition of slavery were treated as animals

by males of their same ethnic group.

Mrs Shelby, a kind, religious, white woman tries to raise the family’s slaves with Christian

values. She attempts to convince her husband, Mr. Shelby, not to sell Tom and Harry, but it’s all

vain. The same women’s powerlessness is evident when Mr. Bird votes for the Fugitive Slave Law.

Mrs. Bird, too, tries to convince her husband that he is wrong, and that one must allow the heart to

guide the mind. But only when Eliza appears on their doorstep, does Mr. Bird realize that he isn’t

capable of turning in a fugitive.

Eliza considers as a religious duty that “I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be

a Christian”(Stowe, p. 61). But there are other women in American lit