Paper

Riana Cain

Intro to African American Studies

TR 8:10

@02660212

How did Africans preserve and affirm their ways of life and use their cultures as means to resist enslavement?

Mainland slaves drew on their heritage to affirm themselves. West African “feast and burials” were common. After watching a slave funeral in colonial Virginia, one Briton observed: “They sing and dance and drink to the dead his new home, which some believe to be in Guinea”. At the solemn ritual, they could share memories of home, plan to flee and hide among the Amerindians, or conspire to rise. In any case, black gatherings troubled whites. As soon as 1644, the Virginia assembly passed a resolution “concerning the riotous and rebellion conduct.. of Negroes.” It resolved in 1680 that “ the frequent meeting of considerable numbers of negro slaves under pretense of feasts and burials is judged of dangerous consequences .”

Fried blacks meantime aspired to get ahead. On Virginia’s Eastern Shore some prospered as artisans, buying tracts of farmland and servants of both races. They were parties on contracts and lawsuits. Anthony Johnson owned 250 acres and therewith qualified to vote.

Christianity was a vital source of affirmation and inspiration. Hundreds of slaves converted during the southern sweep of the “Second Great Awakening “ a revival beginning in the 1790s. Methodists and Baptists, who welcomed poor folk, attracted large numbers of slave converts. Slave worshiped in “hush harbors,” secluded clearings in gullies, ravines, and woods.

In towns they congregated in church houses. Revivals and Sunday services were “occasions for socializing , new gathering , and preachers told the faithful about a gospel if liberty. Worship featured testifying , ring shouts,a nd spiritual;