The Church and Slavery Gianna Rufo College

Throughout Harriet Jacobs’ powerful and informative autobiography, Christianity is repeatedly mentioned as a direct and indirect influence on the episodes of her life as an enslaved woman. Jacobs depicts religion amongst the enslaved as an assuaging escape from their suffering and exposes the Christianity of the White slaveholder as a hypocritical contrast to their lack of morality. Within her autobiography, she dedicates a chapter, entitled “The Church and Slavery,” to Christianity’s place in Southern society. Her accounts within this chapter show Northern Christian readers how their religion was being corrupted under the institution of slavery. Jacobs’ intended effect on the anti-slavery movement was influenced by the effects of the Second Great Awakening and the cohesion between abolition and religious revival. Although many Christians in the North were in favor of immediate emancipation, they were focusing their religious energy on the conversion of native people abroad rather than the moral education of White slaveholders within their own country. However, Jacobs recognizes that there were too many obstacles to overcome in order to inspire moral revolution amongst Southern slaveholders. Within this section of Harriet...