Hannah Craft uses knowledge of the Bible as a marker of a dangerous education for slaves, not connected to their ability to read or write, but due to the content of the material. The knowledge gained by slaves through the reading of the Bibles allows for slaves to find themselves within the narratives and put them up against the ideologies peddled by the religious white class that owns them. This dangerous education is seen as a disadvantage to Hannah within the narrative when she is in unsavory predicaments but is seen as a sign of good virtue when surrounded by those less cruel or opportunistic.
When being traded to the slave trader, Saddler, Trappe remarks of Hannah’s knowledge of the Bible assuming that it would be a positive trait to those who would want to own her. Instead, Saddler responds to him with “Bah: I hardly think that religion will do her much good, or make her more subservient to the wishes of my employers. On the whole I should prefer that she wasn’t religious because religion is so apt to make people stubborn; it gives them such notions of duty and that one thing is right and another thing wrong; it sets them up, so you’ll hear them telling that all mankind are made of one blood, and equal in the sight of God” (p.108). This is an observation of religious as a whole, that is then hyper focused on the danger it poses when possessed by slaves. Aside from the final comment of equality in the sight of God, the description of religion in this quote too applies to the white population. To Saddler the notion of right or wrong and stubbornness is not unique to slaves, but rather religiosity. In the hands of a slave, it can foster a personality that is less subservient, but it is because that is the effect of religion on all who are exposed.
To this it seems that Craft is pointing to the danger of religion as not only an educational advantage for slaves once they accomplish the reading and understanding of the Bible, but rather an equalizer between slave and master in temperament and ideology. You can know the bible without having acquired the skill to read, therefore it is not this sort of education that is threatening nor is it mentioned in the text by Craft when Trappe is describing the good qualities of Hannah. Rather it is the religion itself that offers a particular insight on humanity and its relationship to God that threatens the system of slavery by potentially making slaves more “stubborn” and aware or “right and wrong.”
What is the difference between how religious knowledge by slaves is treated in Craft in comparison to Stowe?
Why do you think slave owners used religion to justify their owning of slaves to their own slaves if the knowledge of religion itself was dangerous?
I think that the quote you pulled here is an interesting one, as I think we can also see the impact of religion in this fashion on present-day society. We often see people championing religion to justify discriminatory beliefs, as we have historically seen through the rhetoric of staunch followers of the Bible regarding homosexuality. I see Craft’s notion of stubbornness in this context, in the sense that people read the Bible and take their interpretation of it as law, failing to realize the many ways in which stories of the Bible can be read and how religion can evolve with time. These types of people are originalists, rather than believers in a living document, and I think that these are the types of people that Craft is referring to in this quoted statement. The inflexibility that is characteristic of originalists allows them to anchor discriminatory tactics in an extremely old and revered document in the Bible. The reverence of the Bible functions to assist justification of these acts, whether against Black people or against people that identify as homosexual.
Throughout history, we have seen the Bible leveraged against groups that are discriminated against, constituting people to be stuck in their ways and justify their immoral actions because they believe that this omnipresent text is engaging them to uphold these beliefs, giving them “notions of duty.” Therefore, as you have asserted, this stubbornness and this belief in a greater sense of right and wrong that is supplied by the Bible is characteristic of followers of religion as a whole, not just slaves.
I think the contrast between the system of slavery and the line “so you’ll hear them telling that all mankind are made of one blood, and equal in the sight of God” is striking. It is challenging to think how staunch followers of religion can wholeheartedly believe these things, while simultaneously justifying the subordination and enslavement of Black people. This points to the idea that I raised earlier, in that people read the Bible in a certain, biased way that serves their interests, and then hold their interpretation of the text up as law, unable to see that there are different ways to read the text. I think that white people of this time used the Bible as a “concrete” way to justify their actions, citing that they cannot argue with the Bible but failing to realize that their own biases are injected into their reading of it. How white people could take this sentiment that all are equal in the sight of God and are all of one blood and then turn around and perpetuate slavery is beyond me.
In regards to your second question, I don’t have an entirely clear answer. But, even though you address that the danger of religion is not about the education, perhaps the slave owners thought that because slaves were not educated in the traditional sense, they could not know religion. Perhaps slave owners thought that because slaves could not read and write, they could have no way of knowing the Bible other than what slave owners told them about it. They may have thought that if the slave owners justified slavery to slaves by using the Bible, which they thought they could not know outside of what the slave owners were telling them, then slaves would just come to accept their place in society, assuming that that is what God wanted for them, based on what slave owners tell them. Slave owners could have been leveraging their education and underestimating the education/power of word of mouth that plays a role in the preaching of the Bible amongst slaves in order to justify their actions. It is also a very egocentric view, as noted, to think that the slave owners’ interpretation of the Bible is the only way for the religion to be read. If they read it in a way that justifies slavery, then they think this sentiment must ring true amongst all followers of the religion, and assume that slaves will accept their place if the slave owners tell them that the Bible says this is the way it is meant to be.
I agree with your thesis that Craft is framing religion as an “equalizer” between master and slave. Once an enslaved person reads the Bible or learns its true teachings some other way, they will know that all are equal in the eyes of the lord. This is a universal maxim of Christian theology. Puzzlingly, slaveowners would convert their slaves to Christianity, thus “saving” them, to justify owning slaves. This creates what is known as the paradox of slavery. As I mentioned in class, Phyllis Wheatley alludes to this paradox in her 1773 poem, “On Being Brought From Africa to America”;
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refined and join the angelic train.
Slaveowner may claim they are acting as Christians by introducing their slaves to religion, but anyone with knowledge of the life of Christ would be well aware of slavery’s abhorrence. I believe the slaveholders themselves were well aware of this and lied to themselves and their slaves by presenting a highly censored version of Christianity, as we saw in “Incidents” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Perverting the teachings of Christianity was not only an act of pure evil but also one of arrogance. Slaveowners were so confident in their actions and so tied to the wickedness of the “peculiar institution” of slavery that it never occurred to many of them that enslaved people would discover the truth about Christ’s love for them. For us, and of course for Craft, it is easy to see that they would discover a sense of “right and wrong,” as we recognize the humanity of enslaved people. Slaveowners did not recognize the humanity of their slaves, who were in turn far more human than any plantation owner.
https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/
This article had some great information on how slaveowners tried to justify slavery with carefully selected Bible verses. It also had this Fredrick Douglas quote:
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. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…”
I think the discussion that you brought up regarding religion and its odd place in slavery is very interesting. From my understanding, Christianity, as it’s understood in contemporary society, was not the religion that was taught to slaves (due to the concerns that you mentioned above). Instead, a watered down version of Christianity was taught that especially emphasized the subservient/non-violent aspects of Christianity. Honestly, this seems kind of crappy but sensical; I’ve had to read the bible (as part of BC’s core curriculum) and I can understand why slave-owners would not want slaves’s to read; a passage like Exodus might just cause a rebellion.