For slaves condemned to a life of bondage, Christian belief could be a salve and source of hope, if only for release in the hereafter. But slaveholders often deployed religion as a tool of social control, tailoring prayers and sermons to stress the duty to obey one’s master. Christianizing slaves also served Southern propagandists who claimed that bondage uplifted African “savages” and liberated them from spiritual darkness.
Religion as a weapon of control
