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The Attitude of Slaves Toward White Culture

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Though African-Americans were forced to adjust to white culture during slavery, they chose to adopt elements which fit in with their former way of life in Africa. 

 

Christianity–the religion of the dominant culture–influenced African-Americans. Slaves were especially drawn to its teaching of a community of believers. Christianity gave them a sense of community, something that they could share beyond the common humiliations of slavery. While African-Americans adopted many elements of this new religion, they still retained many of the religious beliefs and practices from their homelands. In Africa they had accepted the notion of one supreme Creator who ruled over other gods, so in America they were able to consider the Christ and Holy Ghost of Christianity as lesser gods. The slave Nat Turner used a combination of the religious beliefs of both cultures as justification for revolting against whites. Though he believed in the God of Christianity, he felt that certain signs in the heavens foretold his destiny to lead slaves in an insurrection. Not only did Turner claim that the Holy Spirit had spoken to him, but also that a solar eclipse sent from heaven was “positive proof, that he would succeed in his undertaking…as the black spot had passed over the sun, so would the blacks pass over the earth.” While many African-Americans fully adopted Christianity, others like Nat Turner clung to a mixture of beliefs which distinguished them from the dominant religion.    

 

Another part of the dominant culture adopted by African-Americans was an Americanized view of the role of the sexes. Although African-Americans were not always able to establish nuclear families, the successful ones regarded the father as the head of the family in imitation of white family structure. This adaptation of the white culture’s view of women as domestic creatures and men as planners or fighters was in stark contrast to the matriarchal society that existed in their homelands.  Slaves copied this model not merely because they admired whites but in order to build a family unit which would allow them to create a sense of identity and belonging. 

 

 Education was a value of white culture which African-Americans used to their advantage. Like religion, education was sometimes used against white culture. A self-taught slave, Nat Turner learned to read the Bible at an early age. Other people recognized his intelligence and assured him of his greatness. In prison he states that, “my master, who belonged to the church, and other religious persons who visited the house…remarked I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was, I would never be of any service to any one as a slave.” Turner was certain that his intelligence made him unfit for slavery. Whites as well as fellow slaves reinforced this impression. Believing he was superior to his situation, Turner tried to change his circumstances. It was not only Turner’s religious beliefs but also his intelligence which was ultimately responsible for his rebellion against the white culture.

 

 

How Religion Shaped American History

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Religion in America has been used to justify unforgivable actions against others. The treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government is one example. In the nineteenth-century, Americans believed that it was their manifest destiny, or God-given duty, to spread their society across the continent. Americans’ godly mission, however, did not require them to care about the Native Americans who were displaced from their lands as whites moved closer. When President Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act with the approval of Congress in 1830, Native Americans were forced to move to land west of the Mississippi. In 1838, the Cherokee Indians journeyed west. Baptist missionary Evan Jones traveled with the Cherokee and described the experience: “The Cherokees are nearly all prisoners…In Georgia, especially, multitudes were allowed no time to take anything with them, except the clothes they had on. Well-furnished houses were left a prey to plunderers, who, like hungry wolves, follow in the train of the captors.” Although the U.S. believed that manifest destiny justified the seizing of land, this action led to the unjust treatment of Native Americans.

Despite the negative consequences of manifest destiny, religion in American has also served as a motivation for reform. Throughout our nation’s history, churches promoted various social reforms. In the mid-twentieth century, for example, African Americans found leaders for the civil rights movement in their congregations. Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. led the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott during which African Americans refused to ride buses after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. He also organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to protest the treatment of blacks in white society. Today African American church leaders continue to fight for social justice. Reverend Jesse Jackson consistently brings media attention to issues of civil rights and other causes like welfare reform. Both King and Jackson demonstrate that religion can be a positive force when it is used to uproot injustices in society.  

  

 

Limited Liberty after the English Civil War

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During the English Civil War, various social groups in England hoped to improve their positions in society. After the first round of fighting in 1649 the Leveller movement became popular with small traders, shopkeepers, apprentices, and others who did not have political rights. The Levellers had fought in the civil war and hoped that they would be rewarded by receiving the right to vote. In the Levellers’ view, even men without property or wealth should vote because men were created equal by God. As one Leveller stated, “there is no form of government by divine appointment, but the voice of the people is the voice of God…For the father hath not the power to engage the son but by consent.” Levellers wanted to engage in a father/son relationship with their government in which the government as the father would listen to the sons (the Levellers).

Although a new government was formed under Oliver Cromwell, the Levellers did not benefit from it. Cromwell, the leader of the New Model Army during the war, thought a form of monarchy would be ideal. Bringing order and security to England was more important to Cromwell and his supporters than the wishes of the Levellers. The Protectorate, the monarchical government created under Cromwell, failed to grant voting rights to the Levellers. As the new ruler of England, Cromwell justified his position by saying that the people should not be given too much liberty because they would abuse it.

Like the Levellers, the Diggers also hoped to change their position in English society through government reform. Diggers focused on eliminating private property. They wanted Cromwell’s new government to eliminate the enclosures that drove the poor off their lands. They believed that “the Earth is the Lord’s. not particular men’s who claim a proper interest in it above others.” Diggers felt they had a God-given right to their own land because God made every man equal. They hoped Cromwell’s government would entitle people of all social classes to land.

Contrary to the Diggers’ wishes, the new government did not eliminate private property. The majority of revolutionaries were landowners who opposed giving land to the poor and taking it from the wealthy. Though they claimed to be radicals, the revolutionaries of the English Civil War protected their own conservative interests. The inability of the revolutionary government to provide for all Englishmen prevented the English Civil War from fulfilling its democratic ideals.

 

Huey Long: Champion of the Poor

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When he was eight years old, Huey Long saw a neighbor lose his farm at a sheriff’s auction.  The farmer owed money to a store, and once the farm was sold, the farmer and his family were homeless.  Huey remembered, “The poor farmer was out. I was horrified. I could not understand. It seemed criminal.”

The memory of that day stayed with Huey during his political career as Governor of Louisiana and later as a U.S. Senator. He made few friends in politics, particularly during his time in the Senate from 1930-1933. Huey thought that government in general was too concerned with the interests of Wall Street and thought Roosevelt’s New Deal programs did not do enough for the poor. Though his time in the Senate was short, he made the most of it by speaking out for the underprivileged.

He introduced his program Share Our Wealth to Congress. Instead of letting the majority of the nation’s money reside with a lucky few, Huey wanted a more equal distribution of wealth. The program called for a limit on how much money millionaires could make so that every hard-working American family could have at least $2,000 a year. At the time, that amount of money would be enough for a house and a car. He also wanted every child to have the opportunity to get a good education. As he stated in one of his Senate speeches, “From the worst to the best there would be no limit to opportunity. One might become a millionaire or more. There would be a chance for talent to make a man big, because enough would be floating in the land to give brains a chance to be used.” He emphasized that there was enough education, money, and land in America to make “every man a king.”  

With encouragement from Huey’s speeches and radio addresses, people formed Share the Wealth clubs throughout the U.S. They met to share Long’s ideas with each other. In 1935, more than 7.5 million people were club members. Obviously, the nation still suffered from economic difficulties despite the work of the New Deal.

Although the government did not act immediately on his ideas, many government programs today address issues that concerned Huey Long. These include college financial aid, housing assistance, the Works Progress Administration and food stamps among others.

 

Seti I: Warrior Pharaoh

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Although the Egyptian empire did not completely crumble under the leadership of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs, the Amarna period beginning with the pharaoh Akhenaten (ca. 1353-1335 BC) was nevertheless characterized by a combination of diplomacy and neglect towards its neighboring territories.  As a consequence, Egypt’s influence in the more remote regions it owned declined. Seti I (ca. 1306-1290 BC), however, introduced a new style of foreign relations during his reign in the early Nineteenth Dynasty. For example, battles were fought to extend Egypt’s sphere of influence in Syria. Seti wanted the people in his territories to see the might of the pharaoh rather than simply telling them to behave through letters as some of his predecessors had done. Seti’s campaigns were designed to reassert Egypt’s control over her empire and to retake areas that Egypt had lost to her enemies.      

Shortly after his second year as pharaoh, he accomplished something his more famous son, Ramesses II, could not. During the reign of the pharaoh Tutankhamen, the city of Kadesh was lost to the people of Hatti, known as the Hittites. Seti, seen at Karnak in his role as an archer, successfully defeated the enemy at Kadesh. The Hittites did not mount a good offense to the attack on Kadesh, most likely because a major part of the Hittite army at the time was involved in a border dispute with the Assyrians to the east. In fact, the king of the Hittites does not appear in the battle scenes which show Seti regaining Kadesh. Instead, an ultimately ineffective combination of Syrian and Hittite soldiers was sent to meet the pharaoh’s challenge. Nevertheless, the Hittites did try to put up a fight after their losses. The scene on the battle relief at Karnak is described as “the vile land of the Hittites, among whom His Majesty…made a great heap of corpses.” In battle Seti is “a mighty bull, with sharp horns, stout-hearted, who smashes the Asiatics and tramples the Hittites; who slays their chiefs as they lie prostrate in their blood; who enters into them like a blast of fire.” The next scene illustrates the return march to Egypt with prisoners from the campaign.        

Kadesh remained under Egyptian control for a short time; however, it eventually reverted to the Hittites without any military challenge from Egypt. Seti had the same problem with Syria as his predecessors—Syria was too far away from Egypt for him to maintain consistent control over the area. As the Hittites regained control over much of Syria, the stage was set for a future confrontation between Seti’s son, Ramesses II and Hatti’s new king. In the meantime, the Hittites and the Egyptians entered into a period of cold war, mainly because of Seti’s pride. Egypt did not actually need Kadesh—it had no supplies or overland trade routes that were vital to the country’s survival–but the king viewed retaining Kadesh as a matter of honor. As a result, although he would later reopen trade with other former foes, Seti refused to trade with the Hittites.

Although it is somewhat understandable that historians have devoted much attention to the achievements of Seti’s extremely long-lived son Ramesses II, Seti I deserves more than a just few paragraphs in the history books.       

Mercy Otis Warren: America’s First Female Political Author

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Mercy Otis Warren was one of the few women who expressed her political views in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Her first play, The Adulateur, used fictional characters to criticize Boston’s royal governor Thomas Hutchinson. She wrote that he would stop at nothing to destroy the colonists “boasted rights, and mark them as slaves.” Although Mercy was bold to publish her writings at a time when a woman’s involvement in politics was considered scandalous, she was conscious of society’s opinions. She published her early works anonymously, knowing that a female writer might not be taken seriously.  At this point in her career she accepted society’s belief that men should take an active role in politics, while women were “confined to the narrow circle of domestic cares.”

Mercy was a gifted political writer, but she was only able to achieve this because of the men in her life. Her father and brother supported her classical, unconventional education, providing her with the skills she needed for a writing career. Her husband supported her talent when she doubted herself, and John Adams became her mentor. As she said in a letter to Adams, “Your Criticism, or Countenance, your Approbation or censure…may in some particulars serve to regulate my future conduct.”  As Adams gained political prominence in early America, he often helped Mercy’s work gain an audience.

Later in her career, Mercy asserted that women had the right to understand political matters, and she stopped publishing her works anonymously. Consequently, male reviewers dismissed her History of the American Revolution because it was written by a woman. She gained respect from the men around her for her talent, but her career remained dependent on male opinions of her work.

 

How English Colonists Treated Native Americans

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The Spanish conquistadors were unquestionably cruel to Native Americans. England’s colonists, however, were equally hostile toward the natives they encountered. The success of England’s colonies depended on the exploitation of Native Americans who were forced off their lands. Religion was often used to justify the poor treatment of the natives. Both England’s economic system and religion led to Native American oppression.

John Rolfe introduced tobacco to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1612. Jamestown’s tobacco growers made a lot of money by trading tobacco with the Europeans. Tobacco, however, tears up the land where it is planted so the colonists began to covet Native American lands. The Powhatan tribe tried to repel the land-grabbing English in 1622 and succeeded in killing a third of the settlement’s inhabitants. The colonists, however, successfully put down Native American uprisings throughout the decade. The Native Americans were forced to give up their lands so the colonists could grow even more tobacco.

In addition to their desire for land, the English also used religion to justify bloodshed. In 1637, New England Puritans exterminated thousands of Pequot Indians, including women and children. Captain John Underhill led the attack. He stated that the Pequot “broke forth into a most doleful cry, so as if God had not fitted the hearts of men for the service, it would have bred in them a commiseration towards them. But every man being bereaved of pity fell upon the work without compassion, considering the blood they had shed of our native Countrymen.” The Pequot had previously killed several English captains so the Puritans claimed God supported their extermination of the Pequot for the killing of Englishmen. Since they were Christians and the Pequot were seen as heathens, the Puritans felt justified in their actions.    

 

 

 

Women’s Roles in Ancient Egyptian Religion

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The religious titles and duties held by ancient Egyptian women seemed to give them status in their society. Yet many religious duties were closed to women. Except in extreme cases of emergency and one takeover by female pharaoh Hatchepsut, pharaohs were always male; this had important consequences for religious Egyptian women. The pharaoh stood atop the Egyptian hierarchy in government as well as religion. Since the pharaoh was considered half god and half man, he functioned as an intermediary between the gods and the people and he was also the only official priest of all the gods. Women could never aspire to the rank of chief priest, but they held other respected positions such as priestess. Although large numbers of women in the Old and Middle Kingdoms served as priestesses of the goddess Hathor, their role remained limited. For example, priestesses carried out rituals and feasts, but unlike male priests, did not hold administrative positions. The priestesses were the wives of important officials—mayors, senior civil servants—positions only held by men.  Ultimately, priestesses owed their position not to their abilities or religious faith, but to their husbands.    

 

Another title women held in ancient Egyptian religion was God’s Wife of Amen, the main god of the ancient Egyptians. New Kingdom queens did not tend to serve as priestesses but they often held the title of God’s Wife of Amen. By the beginning of the New Kingdom, the title was handed down to kings’ daughters.  In contrast to the priestesses of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, the God’s Wife of Amen wielded considerable power. On the one hand, she occupied a respected religious position. Her power is described from a scene in one of Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s chapels:  “She [the God’s Wife of Amun] is shown leading a group of male priests to the sacred lake of the temple for the ritual purification before entering the temple courts. They then proceeded to the sanctuary of the god where Hatshepsut as king performed the ceremonies in front of Amun with the god’s wife of Amun in attendance.” The God’s Wife of Amun was clearly the most powerful female religious figure at that time, since it was very unusual for a woman to lead male priests in their rituals and even more unusual for a woman to enter the inner sanctuary of a god. On the other hand, the God’s Wife of Amen also occupied an administrative position. For example, she controlled acres of land. Despite her privileges, the role of God’s Wife of Amen was limited—women could only acquire it by being a king’s daughter.

 

In addition to the titles of priestess and God’s Wife of Amen, ancient Egyptian women also became professional mourners and songstresses. The profession of mourner was open only to women. They were hired to express grief at funerals by beating their breasts, tearing at their hair and wailing. The fact that this position was reserved for women suggests that only women were capable of this kind of excessive grief which would be incompatible with the man’s role in Egyptian society.  

 

Women of high birth had another option in religious life of the New Kingdom—they could become songstresses. This office gave considerable respect to its bearer. The title shemayet or chantress was the most common one for elite women in the New Kingdom. For example, every woman of status at Thebes was a “chantress of Amen.” This was not a position that any woman could acquire without a wealthy husband. The job of the songstresses was to please the gods and goddesses and to communicate with them but not much is known about their duties. Considering the positions of priestess, God’s Wife of Amen, and professional mourners, the temple songstresses probably had no more authority in this male-dominated society than they did.

 

Recommended books: Daughters of Isis by Joyce Tyldesley and Silent Images by Zahi Hawass

 

Children in the Nazi Ghettos

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Although the concept of the family did not disappear during the Holocaust, the traditional family structure was modified to meet new circumstances. Isolated from their jobs and their role as provider for their families, fathers no longer had the same authority. Since many family members worked in the ghettos, including children aged ten and older, the father’s status within the family changed. In addition to the inability to adequately provide for their families, fathers also could not protect their children from Nazi cruelty. Israel Gutman states that “during the Nazi occupation and the existence of the ghetto…the trust and logic of the adult world was undermined. Fears, frustration, and helplessness affected adults more profoundly than it did the adolescents and placed the head of the family in a humiliating position. Fathers could not protect their children.” Deprived of their traditional roles, fathers were ineffective and had no influence over their children who began to disobey and question their authority. These children also had no role model to replace their real fathers. No paternal feeling existed among the Nazis for the Jews in the ghettos. Since the Nazis believed the Jews were evil, children either had a male role model through their father or they had none at all.

 

The role of Jewish children changed as a consequence of the decline in patriarchal authority. Their fathers were no longer providers, so children smuggled food to their families. They accomplished their mission by slipping through and over the gates to beg on Polish streets, and many saved the food they received to present to their families rather than eat it immediately. Mark Mandel from Warsaw, Poland is one example of a child smuggler. There was a streetcar that ran for two blocks in the Warsaw ghetto which Mandel, age 11, and his sister used to smuggle goods from the Christian side. The entire society was turned upside down as children began to replace their parents as the support of the family. Children had the advantage of size and the ability to play on the sympathies of those on the outside, but their task was dangerous. Diarist Abraham Lewin told of the Warsaw ghetto’s tiny smugglers: “Once again we can observe the scores of Jewish children from the age of ten to 12 or 13 stealing over the Aryan side to buy a few potatoes there…There are also vicious guards who hit the children with murderous blows…More than one child has fallen victim to their bloodlust.” Prior to the conditions of the ghetto these children only worried about school and chores, but in the ghetto they were forced to take on adult responsibilities and even risk their lives for the sake of getting food to their families.

 

Following the breakdown of the traditional family, teenagers in the ghettos established youth groups. Many members either had no blood relations left alive or had missing relatives, but the groups they formed soon became surrogate families. Youth groups performed the basic functions needed for survival. Members of youth groups shared whatever they had in money or food so that everyone had enough to survive. The groups provided aid to members, but those involved formed familial bonds with their fellow members. Youth movement leader Yitzhak Zuckerman explains: “There was common responsibility, not concern for ourselves…the possibility that one of us would abandon the other and get along somehow—something that sometimes even happened within families—did not exist within our circles.”