The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South

One of John W. Blassingame’s reasons for revising and expanding The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South was to further investigate the role of religion in the history of slavery and the history of the South. Religion was crucial in understanding how plantation owners perceived and tried to manage slavery. As Blassingame writes in his preface to the new edition, “The white church quickly emerged as the key institution which had to be analyzed in order to understand the most crucial aspects of Southern antebellum society” (viii).

Blassingame emphasizes that religion is a powerful tool for control, survival, and resistance. White enslaved people in Islamic nations were torn between their native Christianity and the pressure to convert to Islam, with some assimilating into Arabic culture and becoming devout Muslims (60). For African American enslaved people in the South, Protestant Christianity helped them become acclimated to Southern culture—but also helped them develop their own interpretations of Christianity and their own culture. This is in contrast with the experiences of enslaved people in Latin America, where Christianity was more closed off to them (65-71).

Protestant Christianity also influenced how plantation owners treated their enslaved people, as it drove wealthy Southerner guilt over slavery (268).