Go to the menu portion of this (or any) blog and see a paper that I wrote on Revival. As a church, nation, and world, we are desperate for a new work of God. As you will read, the darker the night the more God’s people will be on their knees. And the more God’s people pray, the greater the hope of a fresh work of the Holy Spirit.
Month: September 2020
Learning about African American history… 2
The recent racial unrest in our country has given me a deep desire to understand the enslavement of the African people in U.S. and, among other things, why African Americans have been almost completely left out of the history of our nation, except for slavery. Most of us raised studying American history have gained little knowledge of the contributions African Americans have made to our nation. Over my next several blogs I would like to share some of what I’ve been learning about African American history. My goal is not to be controversial but informative and to recognize the African American as playing a vital role in the development of our country .
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Between 1500-1800, about 12 million slaves were brought to the New World in a system called “triangular trade.” The first line of this triangle consisted of bringing goods, textiles, and weapons to the African Coast to trade for kidnapped slaves. The second line was the transport of these slaves to the Americas—known as the “Middle Passage.” There, traders sold the slaves for sugar, tobacco, and other goods and headed back to England. The majority of slaves were sold in the Caribbean and Central and South America.
Both slaves and free people of color contributed to the development of culture in the Colonies. Jupiter Hammon, a slave on Long Island, published a book of religious poetry. Gustavus Vasa wrote a book about his life in Nigeria, his capture, and his slave life in Virginia. His book sold eight editions in America and England. He bought his freedom and presented a petition against the slave trade to the English Parliament. A South Carolina slave named Cesar developed cures for certain poisons that earned him his freedom and an yearly annuity of 100 pounds. James Derham was a slave in the post-Revolutionary War era and was sold to a New Orleans physician, who taught him to prepare drugs and gave him lessons in French and Spanish. At age 21, Derham began to practice in New Orleans and was highly praised for his medical knowledge and practice by Dr. Benjamin Rush, surgeon general of the Continental army and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Banneker, a freed slave, was chosen by George Washington to serve on the commission that planned the City of Washington DC. Phillis Wheatley, a poet, published a book of verse in 1773 with the encouragement of her Boston mistress, who also freed her. Her poetry received favorable reviews from Voltairs, Ben Franklin, John Hancock, and George Washiugton, who invited her to visit him at his Cambridge HQ’s in 1776.
The first known written protest against slavery was written by Pennsylvania Quakers in 1688…”have not these poor Negroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them slaves?” The first known written African American protest against slavery appeared in 1788, published by Othello, about whom we know nothing. “In you [whites] the superiority of power produces nothing but superiority of brutality and barbarism….Your fine political systems are sullied by the outrages committed against human nature and the divine majesty.”
On March 5, 1770, Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave became one of 5 Americans to become martyrs— killed at the Boston Massacre. Lemuel Haynes was among the first African American Minutemen who fought at Lexington and Concord and whose “shots were heard around the world.” He also became one of Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys who captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775. After the Revolutionary War, Haynes became the minister of an all white congregation in Vermont. James Armistead, while a slave, became a spy for General Lafayette during the Revolutionary War. In 1786, the Virginia legislature granted him his freedom because he aided the American cause. While not as famous as Lafayette, Von Stubben, Kosciusko, many African Americans fought for the cause of freedom against the British. In fact, two months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Massachusetts legislature declared that slavery was utterly inconsistent with the struggle for liberty and many towns in the state voted to abolish slavery.
Many of the Founding Fathers strongly opposed slavery and the slave trade. However, the men who gathered in Philadelphia to draft a Constitution were there to build a strong and unified country, not solve the slavery issue. And in order to gain and keep the loyalty of the slave owning states in the South. Sadly, concessions were made to protect slavery and not demand its immediate cessation. In a compromise, the Constitution granted the African slave trade 20 more years to exist—a period ending in 1808. However, the compromise also provided that all runaway slaves be returned to their owners and because slaveholders were to be taxed for their slaves as property, they were allowed 3 votes for every 5 slaves owned. Thus if there were a census taken in those days, an African American slave would be counted as only 3/5ths of a person! Most felt that slavery was a temporary arrangement that would soon run its course. However, no one could foresee the invention of the cotton gin (short for engine) just 6 yrs. later nor the wealth gained from the European demand for cotton which dramatically increased the need for labor provided by the slave trade.
James Beckwourth was one of the most famous frontiersman of the 19th century. He escaped slavery and headed west to live on the frontier. He was “adopted” into the Crow Indian tribe and became its chief. But his place in history rests in discovering a pass (1850) through the Sierra Nevada Mountains which became a gateway to California during the gold rush days. The pass still bears his name. The Crows wanted him back as their chief, but he turned them down. Legend has it that they invited him to a feast where he was poisoned. If the Crows could not have him as chief, at least they could have him to bury in the tribal cemetery as their former chief.
More to come…
Learning about African American History… 1
The recent racial unrest in our country has given me a deep desire to understand the enslavement of the African people in U.S. and, among other things, why African Americans have been almost completely left out of the history of our nation, except for slavery. Most of us raised studying American history have gained little knowledge of the contributions African Americans have made to our nation. Over my next several blogs I would like to share some of what I’ve been learning about African American history. My goal is not to be controversial but informative and to recognize the African American as playing a vital role in the development of our country .
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Europeans did not introduce Christianity to Africa. Christianity came to Africa through Egypt and Ethiopia as early as the third and fourth centuries AD. And it was Africans such as Augustine, Tertullian, and Athanasius who clarified for us the very basics of our faith. They were theological “rockstars” in the development of our understanding of the dual-nature of Christ and of Trinitarian theology. (Africans not only had their tribal religions but were also exposed to Islam in the 5th century.)
Slavery, as it developed in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of S. America, was different than the system that developed in N. America. This was due primarily to the Roman Catholic Church, which protected slaves from abuse and preached their treatment as human beings thereby keeping slavery from being infected by racial prejudice. In countries such as Brazil and Cuba, slaves could actually purchase their own freedom.
In the early days of European slave-contact with N. America, a racial caste system had not yet been established. This has led many to the conclusion that race is a social construct—an intentional choice that a society makes that skin color determines who is free and who is a slave. (Jimar Tisby) When slaves first arrived in N. America in 1619, they were treated as indentured servants; workers bound to an employer until they could pay off their debt. They could marry, save money, and pay for their freedom. Some Europeans and Indigenous people also served as indentured servants along with Africans. The movement toward slavery of the Africans happened gradually due to a number of factors: the desire by Virginians to cash in on the lucrative European market for tobacco which demanded more workers, and a declining population of Indigenous people and Europeans willing to work as indentured servants in contrast to a steady supply of workers from Africa through the slave trade. By the mid-1660’s, each of the Southern Colonies had enacted slaves codes or laws that established the rules of human bondage.
As the colonies depended more and more on African slaves, the Virginia Assembly enacted a new law (mid-17th century) stating that if a slave became a Christian and was baptized, it did not include their freedom. It was at this point (it seems) that the religious establishment became a part of a system that encouraged the slave to be content with their spiritual liberation and compliant to their masters.
Slavery in the American Colonial period was marked by a more tolerant attitude towards people of color than the pre-Civil War period. Schools were opened by slave owners to teach slaves to read and write (1740). The farther north one went in the colonies, the smaller the slave population. New England slaves never reached more than 2% of the population (compare the 65% of South Carolina) and their labor tended to be of a domestic kind rather than working in the field. Puritan pastor Cotton Mather insisted that slave owners treat slaves as persons with souls and not as beasts of burdens. He told ministers to preach, “Thy Negro is thy neighbor.” All of this said, slavery still existed in the North and most ministers had one or two household slaves. This included Cotton Mather, who was given a slave by his church as part of his benefit package, and Jonathan Edwards, who questioned the slave trade but did not find the concept of slavery itself inconsistent with the Bible.
It was easier for a New England slave to improve his/her condition than those in the South. Slave soldiers received the same pay as whites. Some slaves successfully sued their owners for freedom. Newport Gardiner of Rhode Island opened a music school for Blacks and Whites. His slave owner took lessons from him. However, a growing discrimination against people of color prevented them from rising in society as far as they could have.
More to come…
The Steadfast Love of the Lord…
A message I preached September 6, 2020 at the New Covenant Community Church, Naperville, IL
Just A Thought 