BACK TO VOODOOISM
The average master and mistress of the old South were missionaries without
the name. Religious instruction was a feature of the negro quarters on the
Southern plantation--the social settlements for Africans in America.
Masters and mistresses, if themselves religious, usually held Sabbath
services and Sunday schools for blacks. Some delegated this task,
employing preachers and teachers. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was the
first rice planter to introduce systematic religious instruction among
negroes on the Santee, influenced thereto by Bishop Capers. He subscribed
to the Methodist Episcopal Mission for them, and a minister came every
week to catechise the children and every Sabbath to preach at the negro
church which Mr. Pinckney, with the assistance of his neighbours,
established for the blacks on his own and neighbouring plantations. Soon
fifty chapels on his model sprang up along the seaboard. In the Methodist
churchyard in Columbia, a modest monument marks the grave of Bishop
Capers, "Founder of the Mission to the Slaves." Nearby sleeps Rev. William
Martin, who was a distinguished preacher to whites and a faithful
missionary to blacks. In Zion Presbyterian Church, Charleston, built
largely through the efforts of Mr. Robert Adger, no less a preacher than
Rev. Dr. Girardeau ministered to negroes. The South entrusted the
spiritual care of her negroes to her best and ablest, and what she did for
them is interwoven with all her history. You will hear to-day how the
great clock on top of the church on Mr. Plowden Weston's plantation kept
time for plantations up and down the Waccamaw. In that chapel, Rev. Mr.
Glenrie and an English catechist diligently taught the blacks. After
Sherman's visit to Columbia, Trinity (Episcopal) Church had no Communion
service; the sacred vessels of precious metals belonging to the negro
chapel on the Hampton place were borrowed for Trinity's white
congregation.
The rule where negroes were not so numerous as to require separate
churches was for both races to worship in one building. Slavery usages
were modelled on manorial customs in England, where a section of church or
chapel is set apart for the peasantry, another for gentry and nobility.
The gallery, or some other section of our churches, was reserved for
servants, who thus had the same religious teaching we had; there being
more of them, they were often in larger evidence than whites at worship.
After whites communed, they received the Sacrament from the same hands at
the same altar. Their names were on our church rolls. Our pastors often
officiated at their funerals; sometimes an old "exhorter" of their own
colour did this; sometimes our pastors married them, but this ceremony was
not infrequently performed by their masters.
The Old African Church, of Richmond, was once that city's largest
auditorium. In it great meetings were held by whites, and famous speakers
and artists (Adelina Patti for one) were heard. One of Mr. Davis' last
addresses as President was made there. The regular congregation was black
and their pastor was Rev. Robert Ryland, D. D., President of Richmond
College; "Brother Ryland," they called him. He taught them with utmost
conscientiousness; they loved him and he them. When called upon for the
marriage ceremony, he would go to the home of their owners, and marry them
in the "white folks' house" or on the lawn before a company of whites and
blacks. Then, as fee, a large iced cake would be presented to him by a
groomsman with great pomp.
After the war, the old church was pulled down, and a new one erected by
the negroes with assistance of whites North and South. Then they wrote Dr.
Ryland, who had gone to Kentucky, asking him to return and dedicate it. He
answered affectionately, saying he appreciated greatly this evidence of
their regard and that nothing would give him greater pleasure, but he was
too poor to come; he would be with them in spirit. They replied that the
question of expense was none of his business; it was theirs. He wrote that
they must apply the sum thus set aside to current expenses, to meet which
it would be needed. They answered that they would be hurt if he did not
come; they wanted no one else to dedicate their church. So he came,
stopping at Mr. Maury's.
He was greatly touched when he met his old friends, the congregation
receiving him standing. So much feeling was displayed on their part, such
deep emotion experienced on his, that he had to retire to the study before
he could command himself sufficiently to preach.
In religious life, after the war, the negro's and the white man's path
parted quickly. Negro galleries in white churches soon stood empty.
Negroes were being taught that they ought to sit cheek by jowl in the same
pews with whites or stay away from white churches.
With freedom, the negro, _en masse_, relapsed promptly into the voodooism
of Africa. Emotional extravaganzas, which for the sake of his health and
sanity, if for nothing else, had been held in check by his owners, were
indulged without restraint. It was as if a force long repressed burst
forth. "Moans," "shouts" and "trance meetings" could be heard for miles.
It was weird. I have sat many a night in the window of our house on the
big plantation and listened to shouting, jumping, stamping, dancing, in a
cabin over a mile distant; in the gray dawn, negroes would come creeping
back, exhausted, and unfit for duty.
In some localities, devil-dancing, as imported from Africa centuries ago,
still continues. I have heard of one place in South Carolina where
worshippers throw the trance-smitten into a creek, as the only measure
sufficiently heroic to bring them out of coma. Devil-worship was rife in
Louisiana just after the war.
One of my negro friends tells me: "Soon atter de war, dar wuz a
trance-meetin' in dis neighbourhood dat lasted a week. De cook at
marster's would git a answer jes befo' dinner dat ef he didn' bring a part
uv evvything he cooked to de meetin', 'de Lawd would snatch de breath
outen his body.' He brung it. Young gals dee'd be layin' 'roun' in
trances. A gal would come to meetin' w'arin' a jacket a white lady gin
'er. One uh de gals in a trance would say: 'De Lawd say if sich an' sich a
one don' pull dat jacket off, he gwi snatch de breath out dar body.' One
ole man broke dat meetin' up. Two uv his gran'sons was lyin' out in a
trance. He come down dar, wid a han'-full uh hickory switches an' laid de
licks on dem gran'chillun. Evvybody took out an' run. Dat broke de meetin'
up.
"Endurin' slavery, dar marsters wouldn' 'low niggers tuh do all dat
foolishness. When freedom come, dee lis'n to bad advice an' lef' de white
folks' chu'ches an' go to doin' all sorts uh nawnsense. Now dee done
learnt better again. Dee goin' back sorter to de white folks' chu'ches.
Heap uh Pristopals lak dar use tuh be. In Furginny, Bishop Randolph come
'roun' an' confirm all our classes. An' de Baptis'es dee talk 'bout takin'
de cullud Baptis'es under dar watch-keer. An' all our folks dee done
learnt heap better an' all what I been tellin' you. I don' want you tuh
put dat in no book lessen you say we-all done improved."
Southern men who stand at the head of educational movements for negroes,
state that they have advanced greatly in a religious sense, their own
educated ministry contributing to this end. Among those old half-voodoo
shouters and dreamers of dreams were negroes of exalted Christian
character and true piety, and, industrially, of far more worth to society
than the average educated product. I have known sensible negroes who
believed that they "travelled" to heaven and to hell.[15]
It has been urged that darkness would have been quickly turned to light
had Southern masters and mistresses performed their full duty in the
spiritual instruction of their slaves. To change the fibre of a race is
not a thing quickly done even where undivided and intense effort is bent
in this direction. The negro, as he came here from Africa, changed much
more quickly for the better in every respect than under freedom he could
have done. It has been charged that we had laws against teaching negroes
to read. I never heard of them until after the war. All of us tried to
teach darkeys to read, and nothing was ever done to anybody about it. If
there were such laws, we paid no attention to them, and they were framed
for the negroes' and our protection against fanatics.[16]
I have treated this subject to show the swing back to savagery the instant
the master-hand was removed; one cause of demoralisation in field and
kitchen; the superstitious, volatile, inflammable material upon which
political sharpers played without scruple.
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