Retentions of African Religions and Conversions to Christianity

In In Hope of Liberty, the issue of the conversion of slaves to Christianity is highlighted numerous times. According to Herskovits’ ideologies, Africans arrived in the New World with cultural retentions, such as religion and language; however, if slaves instead followed Frazier’s model of the African race as they arrived in the New World, these individuals came to America as empty vessels, devoid of any previous cultures and religions. From Frazier’s perspective, no struggle would exist for a slave to accept a new religion. Nevertheless, historians generally agree and accept Herskovits’ ideas over Frazier’s. Implicit in Herskovits’ argument is the fact Africans possessed religious ideals and the Europeans would be forced to actively change and replace African religions with Christianity, if they wanted their slaves to follow the same religion they did.
Initially, slaves had no intention of leaving their Old World practices behind. For example, Horton notes, “these dedicated [European] churchmen were particularly frustrated by the tenacity with which Africans clung to their Old World ways” (Horton 30). Why would Africans want to convert? Some Africans converted because incentives did exist to become a Christian. Besides simply appeasing the master and likely avoiding punishment, religious conversion could offer an opportunity for blacks to learn to read and write. Whites would also experience more difficulty in legitimizing the enslavement of a baptized African, since “one powerful justification of slavery was the presumed ‘pagan’ character of African society” (Horton 21). As a result, Africans may have been pursuing Christianity to aid in their quest for education and freedom. This education could be used as a tool in a later escape from bondage. I just wonder at this time how difficult the struggle was to put a former religion behind and accept a new one. In 1665, many of the motivational reasons to convert to Christianity were lost by the passage of laws that “subsequent conversion did not entitle Africans to freedom” (Horton 21). What were the reasons to convert to Christianity at this point?
Steadily, as generation after generation of slaves was exposed to Christianity, the majority of blacks began to identify themselves as Christian. In many instances though, African principles permeated in the Christianity they practiced. Christian slaves continued to maintain a deep relationship with the spirits, continued to communicate with ancestors, and continued to chant healing charms like predecessor followers of African religions did. The two different religion types began to integrate together into one religion that influenced the Christianity that both blacks and whites practiced.