Years ago, reading the arguments in the 1800s over the abolition of slavery, I was struck by how often the debate turned to the religious beliefs of the slaves themselves. Pro-slavery types argued that slaves could not possibly grasp the notion of God or appreciate the stories in the Bible — and so slavery was OK.
After a while, this concern sounded almost desparate and obsessive, growing from fear: If slaves know who God is and God knows who slaves are, and if they pray to Him and He can hear them praying to Him, and they know He can hear them and He knows that they know He can hear them … well … well, white folks are going straight to Hell.
I’m very knowledgable about neither the Bible nor Negro spirituals. But it’s clear even to me that African American slaves didn’t merely understand the Bible, they related to it with a personal, creative passion that produced one of the most relentless, intense, complex, and beautiful musical traditions on Earth. This must have been troubling to some people, to say the least.
Both the Bible and Negro spirituals are basically examples of "slave culture" — their authors naturally understood each other. That’s what I suspect. I came to the realization when researching the many and varied versions of the Ezekiel story in Negro spirituals. I even resorted to reading the Book of Ezekiel …
To make a long story short, God takes his reluctant prophet Ezekiel to a field of very dry human bones. He tells Zeke to get those bones to get up take a little walk, and Zeke isn’t sure he can get that done. So God tells him "Look, I’m God, and I ain’t kidding around":
Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.
Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
My mind reels, imagining the impact such a story must have had for an African American slave. In comparison, their white counterparts must have found the story rather, I don’t know … interesting?