Short Essay 2

Religion & Social Class

            During the 17^th and 18^th century, governments in Europe were politically structured to address the needs of a few elite who were ranked at the very top of the social class hierarchy. An important factor is that the political structure involved religion. Religion has always been at the center of conflict – between and within empires. Moreover, religion was a characteristic of social class. Social class is the degree of prestige attached to an individual’s position in society. A high social status meant more power and privilege. The different types of characteristics that can determine one’s social class can include, but not limited to: race, ethnicity, gender, age, skin color, economic class, religious sect, and regional grouping. The connection between Christianity and social status was that Africans who were Christian were sometimes able to get out of slavery and build a community with other Africans who were Christian.

            In Sue Peabody’s 2004 article, discusses how Christianity was linked to social status. She states that slavery was illegal in France although the French people embraced the notion that dark skinned people were inferior to whites. The French expressed some discrimination against anyone who was darker than them. Although slavery was illegal in France, slaves were brought to France for two reasons which were for religious instruction or for training in a particular trade. The religious instruction was to teach the Africans about Christianity and make them a more civilized people. Peabody also explains how a trial for Jean Boucaux, a slave brought from Saint Dominingue, favored in him being freed of slavery. The attorney general argued that Boucaux was a man equal to them and he was a citizen. They considered him French because he was born the subject of their monarch and he was their equal as much by humanity as by the religion which Boucaux professed. Boucaux went from slave status to the status of a free man and one of the reasons that Boucaux was freed was because of his Christian religion.

            In Gretchen Gerzina’s 2002 article, the Christian religion of black men and slaves in Europe brought them together. In the article, Equiano wrote a Christianized tale combining a religious awakening and commercial enterprise. Black seamen identified themselves first as African and Christian and secondarily as seamen. Whether they were enslaved or free, they became perceived as a community through the combined lenses of race, religion and travel. The article explained how seamen both of slave and non slave social statuses were brought together by their Christian religion. In Christopher Brown’s 2008 article, he discusses how the religion of Christianity had made possible the more ambitious commitment to rid the entire societies of long accepted customs and practices that degraded the human race.  The religious leaders of every Protestant denomination and every Catholic order regarded slaveholding among their brethren as unexceptional and unobjectionable. In this article, Christianity forbids anyone of any social status to own slaves because the religion does not allow slaveholding. Pierre H. Bouelle’s article talks about how nonwhites were viewed as exotic in France. If prejudice was expressed against them, it was only because they were not Christians and remained uncivilized. Here in this article, Christianity and social status are not connected because anyone who was not Christian was considered to be uncivilized no matter their status. Nicholas Hudson does not really discuss Christianity and social status because Great Britain was against slavery altogether. You did not have to be Christian to be a free black man in Great Britain as the government did not allow anyone to be of slave status there.

            In conclusion, the connection between Christianity and social status in Europe was that being Christian could help a slave become a free man. The Christian religion also brought free men and slaves together to build a community among them because they had their ethnicity and religion in common. In some places such as Britain where slavery was illegal, the Christian religion did not have much of a connection with the social status because everyone was free there. There were classes of rich and poor but nobody was a slave. Discussed here were the many different reasons of connections between Christianity and social status in Medieval Europe.

Short Essay One for HST 498

Zarmina Ismail

HST – 498

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Short Essay One

            Most Americans assumption of slavery is that it started here in the United States. Americans are responsible for binging innocent Africans over here and making them work to their core. What many people are not aware of however is that slavery goes back hundreds of years. Africans were used as slaves in Europe as far back as the 1400’s and were treated just as poorly as they were by Americans. Italians, Germans, French and the British took advantage of these people and the idea crossed over the Atlantic Ocean and into the U.S also. Slaves were used to work in the fields, and also to perform domestic chores. The increased number of slaves in Europe resulted in a large variety of abuses, mistreatments, and intense violence. Before Africans were brought to Europe, Europeans based their images of the Africans on what they would read from the published books of travelers. They had an interest in Africa and kept in contact with them. The images of Africans changed among the Mediterranean and Atlantic Europeans throughout the medieval period because their positive relations turned into taking advantage of the Africans and turning them into market and domestic slaves.

            The Europeans always imagined Africa as a hot, rainy and forested continent with exotic fauna and many black people. By the seventeenth century, Western Europeans were able to see Africans in both a European environment as well as in their own African homelands. The Italians, French and English got their images of Africans from books published by travelers such as Peter Martyr, Leo Africanus, Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas. Portuguese travelers brought back stories of African politics, traditions and customs mainly of the Kongo and Ethiopian nations. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, Europeans and Western Africans kept in contact. People are not sure whether they had cultural conflicts or if they were just societies in contact with each other. Europeans wanted to spread their Christian beliefs throughout Africa and influence them more than the Muslims. Soon after exploring the West Coast of Africa, Portuguese sailors started to enslave Africans and have them work on sugar plantations. Spaniards discovered sugar plantations in parts of Cuba and soon followed in the Portuguese footsteps and imported slaves back from Africa to work in the sugar plantations.

            During the medieval time, Italy was the economic center of Europe. (Lecture 1.3). When the black plague broke out in Europe it wiped out half of the population there and Italy had a labor shortage. Landlords in Italy started looking for slaves on the Italian Peninsula and wanted slaves that would work for them like the Serbs did. (Lecture 1.3). When Italians heard of the African slaves they soon started to import as well. Some slaves were ordered to work on farms while other slaves were domestic and had to do household chores. Sometimes the domestic slaves were seen as “exotic” by their masters and were used for sexual pleasure as well.

            In the 1600’s, the English, French and the Dutch had established colonies in the West Indies and started an African slave trade. By this time, most Europeans were only enslaving Africans. Their images of Africans were that they were cheaper, and better at labor than other slaves. Sugar was developed in Africa and became the main export to Europe. The rising European demand for sugar was creating a fierce competition for slaves and for new sugar colonies. From the 1500's to the mid-1800's, the Europeans were shipping out about 12 million black slaves from Africa to not only Europe but the entire Western Hemisphere. Nearly 2 million of these slaves died on the voyages. The African slave trade increased throughout the years from 1400’s to the 1600’s.

By the 1600’s, Africans were the only slaves that Europeans were using which was a change from Indians and Western Asians that they were using before. The Europeans had an image of Africans which was always to keep relations with them and to bring them to Europe and use them as slaves. What they read in the books brought by sailors was of an “exotic” land and people, but once they knew they could use them for their own good those images started changing.  Africans were slaves in Europe all throughout the medieval years.