The Problem of Slavery in Christian America: An Ethical-Judicial History of American Slavery and Racism

by Joel McDurmon

The Christians will oppress you more. For instance, the biggest dinner must be got on Sunday. Now, everybody that has got common sense knows Sunday is a day of rest. And if you do the least thing in the world that they don’t like, they will mark it down against you, and Monday you have got to take a whipping. Now, the card-player and horse-racer won’t be there to trouble you. They will eat their breakfast in the morning and feed their dogs, and then be off, and you won’t see them again until night. I would rather be with a card-player or sportsman, by half, than a Christian. Another told the same commission: I believe the people that were not religious treated their slaves better than those who were religious. A religious man will believe whatever the overseer says, and he has control of the hands in the field. Whatever he says is law and gospel. If he says, ‘John has acted impudent,’ the master will come round and say, ‘Chastise him for it,’ and the overseer will give him two or three hundred lashes. Then, in the next place, they don’t feed or clothe their slaves as well as the irreligious man. There was one Mr. Anderson, a preacher who married a girl who had slaves, and after that, he quit preaching pretty much, and drove his slaves very hard. He couldn’t see anything but cotton bales.... If pork was selling at a high price, all the slaves would get from the religious man would be three pounds a week, while the man that couldn’t be so religious would give them four pound...