“I refer you in the first place to the children of Jacob, or of the Israel in Egypt, under Pharaoh and the Egyptians were-I know it to be a fact, that some of them take the Egyptians to have been a gang of devils, not knowing any better, and they (Egyptians) having got possession of the Lord’s people, treated them nearly as cruel as Christian Americans do us, at the present day.” (pg 183 Norton Anthology of African American Literature)
This was one of Walker’s numerous comparisons of coloureds to the Egyptians, of the Pharaoh to Master. Walker sees the impact on the children who are taken from their families and raised by women who are too old to work in the field, just as the orders from the Pharaoh took Moses away from his mother and placed him in the bosom of another woman. This weakened the bond between families and without family it makes controlling and maintaining power over another much easier. Egyptians and coloureds have another link because both of them believed in God, the Pharaoh didn’t and the white master said they were Christians. Masters believed in God but they didn’t practice the word of the Bible. These white masters are nominal Christians, in name only, a Sunday Christian, a person who doesn’t act as God would want.
An uneducated man can understand, can see the wrongs in the thought of owning another a person, an individual, a mind, a soul. “God made man to serve him alone, and that man should have no other Lord or Lords but Himself- that God almighty is the sole proprietor or master of the WHOLE HUMAN family.” (Norton 181-182) This belief is the same as natural law that just for being alive you are given certain rights and these rights can be tied into free will. The so-called educated Christian white man believed that he too could “own” a coloured because deep in his heart of hearts there was little difference between coloureds and brutes.
“My beloved brethren: - The Indians of North and South America- the Greeks-the Irish, subjected under the king of Great Britain- The Jews, the ancient people of the lord- the inhabitants of the islands of the sea- in fine all the in habitants of the earth, (except however, the sons of Africa) are called men, and of course are, and ought to be free. But we, (coulored people) and our children are brutes!!”(Norton 182)
Since coloureds where believed to be brutes and lacking soul the cruel treatment they received was justified and accepted. They were whipped till they passed out from the pain, they went hungry because they only received bread and water to eat and drink, they were raped by their masters and over seers, they could be killed if they broke a Slave Code without fear of retribution.
Maria Stewart wrote From Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build. Maria was ahead of her time she was a schoolteacher, the first black women writer and a lecturer. In her work she writes not solely about the feeling of a women but of a black women. She explores the difficulties and treatment of this status. Maria Stewart writes:
“Though black their skins as shades of night,
Their hearts are pure, their souls are white.” (Norton 204)
This stanza defines blacks as humans. It gives them a soul and this soul is no different than that of a white man or woman. It is obvious to me that she believes that internally we are the same and it is only the visible skin color that makes blacks different from whites. “Inferior race because of skin hue….God does not consider you as such.”(203, Norton) Her work also stresses that “God in whom I trust is able to protect me from the rage and malice of mine enemies.” (203, Norton) Maria is writing to all people stressing that everyone must fully understand and exercise their freedoms.
Christianity the excuse that holds the institution of slavery together in the South is same explanation used by Frederick Douglass to tare at every moral fibers of slavery.
“Slave holding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognized the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.” (Norton 365)
The slaveholder’s religion according to Douglass is that of a nominal Christian and because of this really isn’t Christian because a Real Christian could not and would not believe that one person could own another. Douglass believes he is a true Christian and that he practices what he preaches. It is impossible to believe in both Christianity of the land and the Christianity of God. Douglass realizes that there is a difference between the Christianity of the land and that, which would be of heaven. “ I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.”(Norton 365) Douglass asks how come man can be sold to help build churches and our women sold to support the gospel, and our children sold to purchase Bible for the poor whites, and they say that it is all for the glory of God and the good of souls? The only answer Douglass could come up with was “ here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes and hell presenting the semblance of paradise. Frederick Douglass questioned the beliefs of that of the white Christian. He stated “ How like a brute was he treated, even by those professing to have the same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus!”(Norton 305) How could people who said they are followers of the good Lord treat another human, a person created in the likeness of God himself, like an animal a brute?
To believe that a man of color is a brute lacking the ability to be anything more than property is a very hard concept to accept. It seems to me that the authors all understood the importance of God in their lives, that every man, woman, and child was loved by God for who they are not for their color, and that their soul could not be “owned”. The whites used religion as a way to control and the slaves used religion to help them escape, to be free. It’s ironic that the uneducated knew more than the educated.
