Spiritual and Cultural Beliefs of Enslaved People

Spiritual and Cultural Beliefs of Enslaved People

Multiple Choice

Enslaved people across the British colonies maintained aspects of their African culture in all of the following ways EXCEPT?

• Maintaining burial traditions, such as including ritual objects in the grave.

• Continuing to communicate with each other in their home language.

• Crafting musical instruments using gourds, skins and other objects.

Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947

Multiple Select

What were common forms of resistance against slavery?

• Armed Rebellions

• Breaking Tools

• Feigning Illnesses

• Running Away

Objective

Students will discuss the nature, persistence and impact of the spiritual beliefs and cultures of enslaved people.

Key Concept

Enslaved and freed people worked to maintain cultural traditions while building new ones that sustain communities and impact the larger world. 

Open Ended

Why is it important to trace the connections between the practices of enslaved African Americans and American culture?

Oppression through Religion

Across all European colonies and what is now the United States, white settlers forbade enslaved people from practicing their own spiritual practices and forced them to convert to Christianity.

Resistance through Religion

While religion was often a critical tool of oppression and cultural extinction, it could also be a form of resistance. Many enslaved people used the Christian message of God’s love and the promise of a spiritual paradise to express their own desire for freedom in this world and the next.

Christian Rituals Disguised as Resistance

Many enslaved African and Indigenous people used Christian rituals as tools of resistance so they could continue their cultural beliefs and practices. Others developed hybrid traditions that blended their cultural forms of spirituality and religion with Protestant and Catholic beliefs. 

Tradition through Land

More than 573 sovereign Native nations exist today in what is now the United States. Many of the Indigenous people who belong to these nations continue to engage with their lands, languages, art forms, food traditions, political systems, economies and spiritual belief systems.

Multiple Choice

What style of music is recognized as the first great American form of music?

• Jazz

• Spirituals

• Gospel

• Blues

African American Innovation

Enslaved Africans created two of America’s most enduring musical forms: spirituals and blues music.

Native Food and Origin

Indigenous and African foodways persisted and developed during enslavement, continuing to the present day and influencing diets across what is now North America with foods like corn and barbecue.

Multiple Choice

What purpose did spirituals serve for enslaved Africans?

• Spirituals served as communication and a way to pass time during labor by singing.

• Singing spirituals was easier than learning to read and write

• Spirituals were a way to resist Christianity

• Spiritual singing was demanded by Slaveowners