Essay # 2

Short Essay #2

The nations of Europe all held their own views of the slavery. It becomes obvious throughout the readings that the various Christian leaders of these nations also held varying points of view on the idea of slave trade. Those that agreed with the idea of slavery referred to the Bible and the writings of Paul for support of their ideas, while those that opposed it clung the ideas from Jesus Christ that slavery was wrong. Since Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, permeated almost all of European life from the wealthy to the impoverished, the connection between Christianity and social status was deeply intertwined to the point that sides would be taken and Christians from Germany to North America would fail to come to agreement for many years.

The main problem lay in the fact that the Bible was interpreted by both sides to lay the foundation for their arguments. Brown wrote about the Protestant movement detailing how all men were created equal and that were was no room for the idea of slavery. These Christians believed that it was clearly a sin to the point that one Spanish Jesuit lost his teaching post for failing to give communion to some Portuguese slaveholders. Brown also discusses other Christians that believed slave owning was absolutely Biblical. Paul speaks in Ephesians about how masters and slaves need to honor their duties to one another. They also quoted Saint Augustine who believed that slavery was simply one more consequence of mankind’s sinful nature.

Equiano’s book showed how religion entered his life and how it impacted him over the years. He learned about God and the Bible as a young man. His first visit to an English church was a pleasant one, especially when he learned that the church-goers did not sell nor buy slaves. The people at this church answered his questions about the worship and the service, explaining to him who God was and why they venerated him. In his book, Equiano was treated in a friendly manner and as an equal brother in Christ when speaking to the Christians he came into contact with.

Boulle’s article discusses slavery in France with a small note regarding Christianity. The interesting thing to note about France was the law that slaves became free once they entered France as the nation believed that slavery belonged only in the colonies. Early on, the only prejudice against blacks was due to their ‘non-Christian’ status; they were believed to be heathens, therefore the prejudice arose.

Hudson discusses how England’s anti-slavery push began and English views of American slave-holders as well. The main point appears to be the hypocrisy of the church – on one hand they disavow slavery and make great claims against it. On the other hand, clergymen in America are slave owners and make quite a profit due to their use of slaves; therefore they had no urge to stop buying slaves. The irony in this was they left England for religious freedom, but used that same religion to engage in the slave trade.

Garzina’s take on slavery revolved around slaves and their conversion to Christianity. Typically this was found in the form of former slaves reconciling their freedom with Christianity, having had to move from one home (Africa) to another (America) and finding freedom, not only in the physical sense, but spiritually as well.

The book Questioning Slavery by Walvin discusses the “Christianization” of the slaves by the plantation owners in North America & the Caribbean. The white owners worked hard to convert their slaves to Christianity not only for the reasons stated in the bible, but more so to rid the blacks of their African religions and customs. This didn’t always work; although the owners would worship with their slaves, they felt the slaves were still not completely civilized in their worship. But one thing held the blacks on favor – they were better off than the pagan that did not worship God, at least in the eyes of their Christian masters.

Peabody’s article had no discussion in regards to religion and slavery. Rather it focused on France and their laws regarding slavery. In particular, the article concentrated on a wealthy Frenchman and his purchase of two slave boys while at sea. Upon his return, he “lost” his slaves due to the law that declared any slave brought to France was immediately free. The article goes deeper into the decisions made by the attorneys and the courts.

In conclusion, the connection between Christianity and social status was so deeply intertwined that the two sides would fail to come to agreement for many years. Each nation had their own beliefs on slavery and each Christian had their own beliefs as well. But one thing is for sure – depending upon where the black man lived and how his owners felt Biblically about slavery, his social status was strongly affected.

Short Essay #1

            That attitudes and images of Europeans towards the African ebbed and flowed throughout the years as different viewpoints were socially addressed. 

Early European views of Africans were without the taint of the racism that developed in later centuries. Wealth, the appearance of nobility, and good manners appeared to be the main criteria in determining social ranking of these African visitors, along with religion. Hostility was aimed toward not the color of their skin but the God they prayed to – Muslims were still not welcome in Europe, no matter how many years separated from the Crusades.

At this starting point of 1400, Africans were not unknown to Europeans. Prior to this time period, neither continent was wholly isolated from the other. The Crusades aside, the relatively close proximity of southern Europe and North Africa meant that throughout the Middle Ages a small number of Africans made the journey to Europe. Most of southern Europe, including the Italian city states, in particular, had contact with the Middle East and North Africa. The presence of Africans in Europe actually dates back to the era of Rome, wherein the relationship between Europe and African truly began. It was this Mediterranean sphere that would have a larger number of African inhabitants due to its proximity to Northern Africa.

The life of the African slave was also different in the two areas. Mediterranean slaves were seen as beasts of burden – they worked the fields and performed all manners of manual labor under the watchful eye of their master. The life of an African ‘slave’ in Atlantic Europe was a bit more civil. They were domestic servants to the wealthy, playthings for the rich, and generally treated much better. In the end though, they were unpaid labor and therefore slaves.

England was very critical of slavery (i) but at the same time found themselves deeply entrenched in the slave trade. Spain on the other hand simply bought and sold Africans with little or no empathy for the ones they were buying and selling. Africans were considered property or mechandise with no

The Story of Me

Hey. My name is Frederick Miller and I live in Peoria, Arizona; it’s a suburb of Phoenix. I’ve lived in the Phoenix valley for almost 20 years. I grew up in a small Illinois town called Clinton and wound up here in Arizona after a six year stint in the U.S. Marine Corps. While in the Corps, I was stationed in Twentynine Palms, California and served in Desert Shield/Desert Storm back in the early 90’s when we stopped Saddam Hussein from overtaking the small oil nation of Kuwait. I moved here at the end of my enlistment with my first wife, telling her I’d give it a year and if I didn’t like it, we were moving to the Midwest. Well, I liked it here and we stayed although we divorced in ’97.  I am currently married (for the 2^nd and last time) to a San Diego girl and we have six children between us (a his, hers, and ours kinda thing).

The Marines taught me to do financials and I worked as a bookkeeper, project accountant, and finally Senior Accountant through the years. I got totally sick of numbers and had a mid-life crisis and decided to go to school. I started at Glendale Community College in 2007 and worked my way to Arizona State University West where I am attending the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College in order to become a Secondary history teacher (7^th through 12^th).

Through my life, I’ve been avid scholar of history. I’ve studied all types of history but I can honestly say the subject of “Africans in Europe” has not been one of them. I am an American Civil War fanatic and I’ve read and studied all matters of the Slave Trade, but since that is not the topic of this class I’ve got a lot to learn. I enjoy American History and hope to teach it in high school – my main eras being the Civil War and Vietnam. World History is enjoyable as well – I tend to read and study the Crusades era as well as ancient Greece and Rome.

This should be an interesting class and I hope to be able to take something away from it that I can utilize in the classroom when I get there. I look forward to these next few weeks and getting to know those that I can.

Frederick