What did the Africans really believe in during the slave trade?

I know that the masters were Christian during the African slave trade to the USA, but I’m not sure if Africans believed in their own beliefs or just be Christian like them.

If Africans believed their own beliefs, did the masters force them to convert?

Answer #1

You can not generalize that, actually. People were kidnapped and enslaved form many places in Africa and they had different cultures there. Some of the norther Africans were Muslim originally, there is an Ethiopian tribe that is Jewish. As missionaries had been in Africa before those days, some of the Africans were christians. But most of them had their own, tribal religions, all of them different.

Some voodo cults derive from a mixture of African tribal cults and European superstition.

Most of the slaves became Christians in the new world, as masters forbid them to pass on their own culture, (and mixed people from different cultural backgrounds as well as ripped families apart - thus foreclosing the passing on of any tradition) and ordered people to attend christian services.

More Like This
Ask an advisor one-on-one!

Law Offices of Andrew Cohen

Legal Services, Probate Attorney, Trust Administration

ROSS & ASMAR Attorneys at law

Immigration Law, Criminal Law, Civil Litigation