African American Family & Resistance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

African American Family & Resistance - Essay ExampleIn the late eighteenth century, Methodists formulated strong rules against slavery, claiming it to be contrary to the laws of God, and also threatening to excommunicate solely slaveholders who did non free their slaves. However, it was not until the rebellion of Nat Turner in 1831 that the white slave bearers truly became panicked for their lives. With the view of preserving their lives and their way of life, the southern slave owners got laws passed restricting the rights of the slaves to hold meetings, whether religious or otherwise, and even to render or write. They feared that once the slaves were allowed to do all this on their own, they would no longer be able to be controlled by the slave owners.The reasons behind the slave owners wish for control over the religious schooling of their slaves was not only that by this method they could ensure that the slaves learned to turn the proverbial other cheek, as Christianity prea ched, exactly also that this was the only way to ensure that the slaves did not read the bible on their own and got their own pass on from it, like that of the Exodus. By ensuring that the religious teaching remained in the hands of the whites, the slave owners ensured that only the message they wanted to send across would reach the slaves. One can say that it was their way of portraying Christianity in a light they wished to make the slaves docile and subservient. A lot of this teaching was designed to prevent the slaves from climbing any insurrection and to ensure there were no rebellious thoughts fostering in the minds of the slaves due to a free reading of the Bible by the slaves themselves.In a way Christianity does not deal right off with the prohibition of slavery, there is no verse that specifically denounces it, however, there are chapters in the Bible, especially the oldish Testament, that lay bare the fact that whenever there is oppression, God leads the oppressed to safety and