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Free to Be a Slave: Slavery as Metaphor in the Afro-Atlantic Religions

Free to Be a Slave: Slavery as Metaphor in the Afro-Atlantic Religions <jats:sec><jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Scholars tend to regard enslavement as a form of disability inflicted upon the enslaved. This paper confronts the irony that not all black Atlantic peoples and religions conceive of slavery as an equally deficient condition or as the opposite of freedom and other rights that are due to respected human beings. Indeed, the religions of enslaved Afro-Latin Americans and their descendants—including Brazilian Candomblé, Cuban and Cuban-diaspora Ocha (or Santería) and Haitian Vodou—are far more ambivalent about slavery than most scholars and most Black North Americans might expect. In these religions, the slave is often understood to be the most effective spiritual actor, either as the most empowering servant of the supplicant's goals or as the most effective model for supplicants' own action upon the world. These ironies are employed to illuminate the unofficial realities of both the Abrahamic faiths and the North American practices of 'freedom'.</jats:p> </jats:sec> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Religion in Africa Brill

Free to Be a Slave: Slavery as Metaphor in the Afro-Atlantic Religions

Matory, J. Lorand
Journal of Religion in Africa , Volume 37 (3): 398 – Jan 1, 2007
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2007 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0022-4200
eISSN
1570-0666
DOI
10.1163/157006607X218764
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Scholars tend to regard enslavement as a form of disability inflicted upon the enslaved. This paper confronts the irony that not all black Atlantic peoples and religions conceive of slavery as an equally deficient condition or as the opposite of freedom and other rights that are due to respected human beings. Indeed, the religions of enslaved Afro-Latin Americans and their descendants—including Brazilian Candomblé, Cuban and Cuban-diaspora Ocha (or Santería) and Haitian Vodou—are far more ambivalent about slavery than most scholars and most Black North Americans might expect. In these religions, the slave is often understood to be the most effective spiritual actor, either as the most empowering servant of the supplicant's goals or as the most effective model for supplicants' own action upon the world. These ironies are employed to illuminate the unofficial realities of both the Abrahamic faiths and the North American practices of 'freedom'.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Journal

Journal of Religion in Africa – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2007

Keywords: FREEDOM; CANDOMBL&EACUTE; SPIRIT POSSESSION; SANTER&IACUTE; VODOU; A; SLAVERY; MORALITY

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