Short Essay Two

Assimilation vs. Racism: Christianity and the Social Status of Africans in Early Modern Europe

            A crucial epoch in the history of Africans in Europe was the explosion of the Atlantic slave trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The growing African presence in European society was confronted with the inherent racism of the white elite classes. A key part of African assimilation was the embrace of Christianity by the black population. Christianity fostered the development of an international African identity, especially among seafaring blacks, because it allowed Africans uprooted from their various homes to connect to one another. But even as Africans became increasingly assimilated to European religion and custom, racial divides between elite whites and subservient blacks dictated the Africans’ social status to a far more definite degree. However, Christianity played a key role in the social movement for the abolition of slavery; Christian groups at the fringe of English Protestantism who had garnered significant wealth in Atlantic trade and influence in the New World led the movement, reinvigorating the influence of Christians over state policy after centuries of decline. Christianity did little to improve the subservient social status of Africans in a society overcome with race divisions, but it did help facilitate the development of an international African consciousness and was the key force behind the abolitionist movement.

            The scholarship of James Walvin, Pierre Boulle, and Sue Peabody do not reflect specifically on Africans and Christianity in early modern European life, but their work does provide key insights into the social dynamics of the slave trade and the inherent racism in state policy that most significantly dictated the social status of Africans. By emphasizing the importance of European consumption patterns and the labor market forces in Africa and Europe, including the comparative advantages of Africans as opposed to Indians in both plantation and domestic work, Walvin demonstrates a general image of the social dynamics created by the African presence in both Europe and in the New World. Pierre Boulle helps characterize the social status of Africans in France in terms of state policy. Primarily concerned with what the debate over the regulation of slavery in France reveals about the inner workings of the French government in the decades leading up to the Revolution, Boulle shows how the racism of ruling elites in France forced blacks into a subservient social status despite the rhetoric of liberty and equality: “The conflict between the principles of liberty and property, which had impeded a clear answer to the status of nonwhite residents in France during the ancien regime, would result in delaying action during the Revolution.”[1] Sue Peabody’s work is chiefly concerned with what the legal debate over the existence of slavery on French soil reveals about early modern race relations. Focusing on 18^th century court cases concerning slave status and race in France, Peabody highlights an emerging emphasis on racial distinctions in French society; "In 1759 the Parlement of Paris agreed to hear the appeal of a master, Brignon, whose slave, Francisque, had been freed by a lower court. The case marks a transition in French legal thought from the first had of the eighteenth century, when there was little differentiation between race and slave status, and the second half of the eighteenth century, when race alone because the basis for many laws."[2]

            In contrast, the writings of Olaudah Equiano, and the scholarship of historians Gretchen Gerzina, Christopher Brown and Nicolas Hudson, provide key information about the importance of Christianity in defining the social status of Africans, showing how it shaped African consciousness and was responsible for the abolitionist movement. Olaudah Equiano demonstrates an African’s take on the experience of living in Europe, pointing to the challenge faced by many to reconcile an assimilated (Christian) European identity with an African identity. As demonstrated in his autobiography, Equiano’s relationship with other Africans stems from a mediated identity based upon European ideas of nation and culture, shedding light on the African consciousness. Speaking of his shipmate and interpreter Dick, Equiano writes, “From what I could understand by him of this God, and in seeing these white people did not sell one another as we did, I was much pleased; and in this I thought they were much happier than we Africans.”[3] Gretchen Gerzina notes the importance of mobility in shaping the African consciousness as expressed through the writings of black seafarers, specifically Olaudah Equiano, Paul Cuffe, and Nancy Gardner Prince. More importantly, she notes how the three authors have Protestant Christianity in common, which allowed them to mutually connect despite being uprooted from their homeland: "All of these writers were African born and tried to reconcile their enslaved status with the freedom conferred by a Christianity they discovered only because they had been forced to travel from their place of birth, thereby exchanging their birth home for a spiritual one."[4] Christopher Brown reflects on how the abolitionist movement reignited the power of Christianity over European society after centuries of decline. He writes, “An attack on slavery, all understood, entailed also an attack on private property and the social order. The promotion of Christianity, by contrast, seemed to offer the most promising way to sanctify human bondage and restrain its worst abuses without fomenting revolutionary change."[5] He notes that the margins of British Protestantism are chiefly responsible for promoting Abolitionism, particularly the prosperous groups like the Quakers who had gained substantial wealth and influence in the New World. Finally, Nicolas Hudson provides a conservative take on the origins of abolitionism, explaining that English abolitionist leaders were part of an elite class that identified with Africans as being victims of the same oppressors (i.e. the tyrannical English monarchy). He notes the divergence between the English nobility and the new wealth of Atlantic merchants and plantation owners, and asserts that abolitionism was a reaction to the growth of power and authority of the mercantile classes, and concerned the impact of slavery (new money) on an old society, using the examples of France and England. Together, these works display the connection between Christianity and social status in early modern England, showing that although Christianity fostered the development of an international African consciousness and fueled abolitionism, the social status of Africans was ultimately subject to the racism of the elite white ruling classes.

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[1] Pierre H. Boulle, “Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France,” The Journal of The Historical Society, 1:1 (2006): 40.

[2] Sue Peabody, “Race, Slavery and the Law in Early Modern France,” Historian 56:3 (1994): 505.

[3] Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (New York: Random House, 2004), 50.

[4] Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, "Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic," South Atlantic Quarterly, 100:1 (2001): 43.

[5] Christopher Leslie Brown, “Christianity and the Campaign Against Slavery and the Slave Trade,” In The Cambridge History of Christianity Vol. 7: Enlightenment, Revolution and Reawakening, ed. Margaret M. Mitchell and Frances M. Young (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 521.