MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE SLAVES.
"Their depravity, their spiritual ignorance and destitution, are
amazingly and awfully great."--_Rev. C. C. Jones's Catechism_;
_preface_, p. 4.
"When the charge of the intellectual and moral degradation of the slaves
is preferred against us," says Mr. Jones[B] ("Religious Instruction," p.
107), "we are inclined to put the best face on affairs, knowing that
this is the darkest feature and the most vulnerable point."
"Their notions of the Supreme Being (ib. p. 125); of the character and
offices of Christ and of the Holy Ghost; of a future state; and of what
constitutes holiness of life, are indefinite and confused. Some brought
up in a Christian land, and in the vicinity of the house of God, have
heard of Jesus Christ; but who he is, and what he has done for a ruined
world, they cannot tell. The Mohammedan Africans remaining of the old
stock of importations, although accustomed to hear the gospel preached,
have been known to accommodate Christianity to Mohammedanism. 'God,'
say they, 'is Allah, and Jesus Christ is Mohammed: the religion is the
same; but different countries have different names.'"
"True religion they are inclined to place in profession, in forms and
ordinances, and in excited states of feeling; and true conversion, in
dreams, visions, trances, voices,--all bearing a perfect or striking
resemblance to some form or type which has been handed down for
generations, or which has been originated in the wild fancy of some
religious teacher among them." Page 126: "Sometimes principles of
conduct are adopted by _church members_ at so much variance with the
gospel that the 'grace of God is turned into lasciviousness.' For
example, that which would be an abominable sin, committed by a church
member with a worldly person, becomes no sin at all if committed with
another church member. The brethren must 'bear one another's burdens,
and so fulfil the law of Christ.'... To know the extent of their
ignorance, even where they have been accustomed to the sound of the
gospel in white churches, a man should make investigation for himself:
the result will frequently surprise and fill him with grief. They
scarcely feel shame for their ignorance on the subject of religion,
although they may have had abundant opportunity of becoming wiser.
Ignorance they seem to feel is their lot; and that feeling is intimately
associated with another, every way congenial to the natural man, namely,
a feeling of irresponsibility: ignorance is a cloak and excuse for
crime." Page 127: "He who carries the gospel to them encounters
depravity, intrenched in ignorance, both real and pretended. He beholds
the Scripture fulfilled, 'Having the understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,
because of the hardness of their hearts,' Eph. iv. 17-19. He discovers
deism (!), scepticism (!!), universalism (!!!)... 'They are wise to do
evil; but to do good they have no knowledge.'"
"Intimately connected with their ignorance is their superstition. They
believe in second sight, in apparitions, charms, witchcraft, and in a
kind of irresistible Satanic influence. The superstitions brought from
Africa have not been wholly laid aside (p. 128). Ignorance and
superstition render them easy dupes to their teachers, doctors,
prophets, conjurers; to artful, designing men. When fairly committed to
such leaders, they may be brought to the commission of almost any crime.
Facts in their history prove this. On certain occasions, they have been
made to believe, that, while they carried about their persons some charm
with which they had been furnished, they were _invulnerable_.[C] They
have, on certain other occasions, been made to believe that they were
under a protection that rendered them invincible.... They have been
known to be so perfectly and fearfully under the influence of some
leader or conjurer or minister, that they have not dared to disobey him
in the least particular; nor to disclose their own intended or
perpetrated crimes, in view of inevitable death itself; notwithstanding
all other influences brought to bear upon them."
"The discipline of colored members is involved, tedious, vexatious, and
_disgusting_" (p. 131). "_Excommunications and suspensions are of
perpetual occurrence, for crimes shocking in character_, and of
themselves sufficient to show the general state of morals; _such, for
example, as adultery, fornication, theft, lying, drunkenness,
quarrelling, and fighting_. The first three are their most common
vices." Page 135: "They are, proverbially, _thieves_. They bear this
character in Africa; they have borne it in all countries whither they
have been carried; it has been the character of slaves in all ages,
whatever their nation or color. They steal from each other, from their
masters, from anybody.... Their veracity is nominal." Page 136: "The
number, the variety, and ingenuity of falsehoods that can be told by
them in a few brief moments, is most astonishing.... Servants, however,
who will neither steal nor lie, may be found, and in no inconsiderable
numbers."
Other similar extracts, and touching other vices, might be given; but
these seem amply sufficient to justify the general conclusion to which
Mr. Jones arrives, p. 153, that "they are, intellectually and morally, a
degraded people, the most so of any in the United States; and while,
from their universal (?) profession of the Christian system, and their
attendance upon its ordinances of worship, and the absence of all fixed
forms of idolatry, they cannot _strictly_ be termed _heathen_, yet may
they with propriety be termed _the heathen of our land_." In a sermon
preached by him in Georgia, and published at Savannah in 1831, he calls
them "_a nation of heathen in our very midst_" ("Jay's Letter," p. 11).
Abundant confirmation of this conclusion exists. The Hon. Chas. C.
Pinckney, in his "Address before the Agricultural Society of South
Carolina" (Charleston, 1829, second edit. pp. 10-12; Jones's "Relig.
Inst." p. 141), says, "There needs no stronger illustration of the
doctrine of human depravity than the state of morals on plantations in
general." "Who would credit it," asks the Committee of the Synod of
South Carolina and Georgia in 1833, "that, in these years of revival and
benevolent effort, in this Christian republic, there are _over two
millions of human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some
respects in a worse condition_? From long-continued and close
observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such
that they may justly be considered the _heathen_ of this Christian
country." The Executive Committee of the Kentucky Union for the Moral
and Religious Improvement of the Colored Race, in their "Circular to the
Ministers of the Gospel in Kentucky," 1834 (Jones's "Relig. Inst." p.
143), say, "We desire not to represent that condition worse than it is.
Doubtless, the light that shines around them, more or less illuminates
their minds, and moralizes their characters. We hope and believe, that
some of them, though poor in this world's goods, will be found rich in
spiritual possessions in the day when the King of Zion shall make up his
jewels. We know that many of them are included in the visible church,
and frequently exhibit great zeal; but it is to be feared, that it is
often a zeal without knowledge; and of the majority it must be
confessed, that the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness
comprehendeth it not. After making all reasonable allowances, _our
colored population can be considered, at the most, but semi-heathen_."
In view of these statements, we cannot but be forced to the conclusion,
that the slaves, as a body, are in an extremely degraded moral and
religious condition. That they are _naturally_ thus, even Mr. Jones
denies ("Relig. Instruction," p. 124). He says, "As to moral and
religious character, the negroes are _naturally_ what other men are."
That they are so much more degraded than others must, then, be owing to
their education or their social condition. The inference, therefore, is
unavoidable that they have been thus degraded by others. The wrong rests
upon those who have denied them the means of education, and who have
kept them in slavery,--upon those who have thus degraded their minds and
souls, in order that their bodies might remain in slavery! In violation
of the slave's dearest rights, all the highest, noblest, and purest
instincts of his nature have been destroyed, in order to advance the
pecuniary interests of the man "who gains his fortune from the blood of
souls"! Are those slaves who enjoy moral and religious instruction any
better off?