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Abstract

This article posits that the spread of Christianity among enslaved Africans hastened the development of a common ethnic identity among ethnically diverse peoples who were the first generations of enslaved Africans on American shores. The article focuses on this notion of Black religion as a primary source of the logic of Black resistant/resilience and as the spiritual source for the development of a collective Black consciousness. It is further argued that resistant/resilience organically developed in the process of the construction of an authentically African theology as exemplified in the document that has come to be known as "Nat Turner's confession." The author assumes that the African-Christian hybrid cosmology seen in the confession is an example of the worldview of enslaved Africans generally in the 19th century. This Africanized Christianity forms the basis for the common ethnic identity, with its motivating cultural value (self-determination) and central organizing theme (resistant/resilience) seen in the ethos of Africans in America today.

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References

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Battling The Serpent

Abstract

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