Christianity among African-Americans

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to formulate an answer to the question what role Christianity played among African-Americans between 1800 and 1865. To provide this answer, a literary analysis of mainstream African-American literature will be combined with historical data. The mainstream literature that will be analyzed are the texts by Walker, Douglass, and Jacobs. In the first chapter, the texts will be analyzed to determine how Christianity is represented in them. This chapter will show that there is a distinction between the Christian beliefs of white people and that of people of African descent. Chapter 2 will discuss the historical background of the texts and their authors. It will show that the use of Christianity had a positive effect on the image of the texts and their authors. In chapter 3, historical data will be examined to determine whether these texts justly represent the time they were written in. In this paper, it will become clear that while Christianity is very present in mainstream African-American literature, lack of data makes it difficult to determine whether this corresponds to the actual historical situation.