Religious Freedom in the Atlantic World

         Religious freedom in the Atlantic World was relative to three important factors, religion and ethnicity.  Muslims and Jews experienced much less freedom to worship then the Christian powers that largely controlled the region.  Africans and Native Americans often had their native religious beliefs silenced by the European slave owners and invaders, often in the name of conversion.  And African Christians in Africa were allotted much more liberty in how they worshiped then African Christians enslaved in the New World. The following is an examination of the religious freedom of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Atlantic World as evidenced by the writings assigned for this course.

            For many of the Africans slaves forced across the Atlantic, Islam was their religion of familiarity.  But for these Africans, their religious beliefs were rarely if ever tolerated.  Though they would find ways to practice privately, many “African slaves who had been brought in chains from West Africa had been forced to observe the practices of their masters’ religion under rigidly specified conditions” (Afroz, 229).  Forced baptism was a normal occurrence, as the Christian slave owners were often required to convert their subjects to the faith of their ruling monarchy.  For Muslim slaves, though, it was not all that difficult to keep with their native beliefs, as Christianity and Islam follow much of the same doctrine, allowing Africans slaves to play the line between the two.  Regardless of the similarity, to “Muslim slaves… Christianity, represented oppression” (Afroz, 233). 

            Jews in the Atlantic World experienced much more freedom then the Muslim Africans of the region, but that does not mean that their religious beliefs were respected.  Jews were largely looked down upon in the Old World, and what flexibility they experienced in the New World was often due to their value to the corporate powers of the region.  In the Atlantic, Jews were able to pave a new path for themselves, with Jewish intervention being especially “instrumental in the extension of the privileges that were granted in the Dutch colonies… The Jews conspicuous significance in trans-Atlantic commerce earned them the right to retail trade in Brazil, which was not recognized in Amsterdam” (Klooster, 136).  By proving themselves invaluable, Jews across the Atlantic were able to establish themselves in the New World, and were thus allotted personal and religious freedoms not common in the Old World.

            There seems to have been two forms of Christianity in the Atlantic World.  On the Old World side, specifically Africa, Christian missionaries were often much more open minded, even willing to make certain concessions that would blend some of the African cultural norms with Christian practices.  In this respect, they were able to justify their actions as conversion.  However, for those who were to be shipped across the Atlantic to the New World, conversion was forced.  “Ever since the early days of the Atlantic slave trade, Papal Bulls and royal orders required that slaves be given religious instruction, and baptized as quickly as possible after purchase” (Thornton, 269).  Much of the infusion of African practices into Christian norms in Africa, were not tolerated in the New World.   “Christian clergy did suppress a considerable amount of African practice, some of it apparently religious, in the Americas” (Thornton, 276).

            Religious freedom was relative to ethnicity, religion, and location.  African slaves with Islamic beliefs experienced little religious freedom, and were usually forced to conversion.  African Christians in Africa were converted much more peacefully then their enslaved New World counterparts, and were allotted much more religious freedom in customizing their methods of practice.  Jews, meanwhile, experienced very different levels of religious freedom dependent location.  Though not necessarily forced to convert, Jews in the Old World were not allotted the social freedoms of other religious groups.  But in the New World, Jews established themselves as integral members of society, especially in the port cities of the Atlantic World.  In summary, religious freedom in the Atlantic World was relative to the circumstances of ethnicity, religion, and location. 

            

Atlantic People

For those whose lives were enveloped by the Atlantic World, identity came from many sources.  Ira Berlin, who authored From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America, does an excellent job of summing up just this type of culture.  In this writing, Berlin describes the origins of black Americans, or more particularly Atlantic creoles.  In Berlin’s view, Atlantic creoles did not possess any single definitive characteristic that would mark nationality or origin.  “Instead, by their experiences and sometimes by their persons, they had become part of the three worlds that came together along the Atlantic… Familiar with the commerce of the Atlantic, fluent in its new languages, and intimate with its trade and cultures, they were cosmopolitan in the fullest sense” (Berlin, 254).  Though Berlin was directly assessing the Atlantic creole, the same analysis can be successfully utilized to understand people of many origins that were involved in the Atlantic World.

            Samuel Cohen was a Jewish translator and miner that worked for the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic.  Like many others of this period, there is very little else known about Mr. Cohen outside of his connection with the company and its business related activities.  His last name “would have made his ethnic affiliation obvious to the Christian Europeans who dominated the public institutions of” the Atlantic World (Meuwese, 28).  Though there is not evidence that Cohen was a particularly religious man, he was proved understanding of the European culture in which he was enmeshed and was capable of moving throughout it comfortably.  “His ability to live his life between different cultures while belonging fully to neither one of them suggests not only that it was Cohen’s personality that made him a successful translator but also that it was the essential nature of his life as an assimilated European Jew that habituated him to the practice” of surviving in the Atlantic World (Meuwese, 28). 

            Though not of dark complexion, Cohen faced many obstacles resulting from his Jewish background.  Like many in the Atlantic World as described by Berlin, Cohen was able to utilize his skills as a translator and miner to make himself a valuable employee of the Dutch West India Company.  Throughout his time in the Atlantic World, Cohen moved about not necessarily belonging to any single class or nation, instead being a member of the culture that was the Atlantic World.  

The Atlantic Economy

The growth in the various communities of the Atlantic World were all tied together by an economy that was both directly and indirectly responsible for the migration of peoples and creation of cultures.  In all four of the articles utilized for this study, there was an economy, or plantation economies more specifically, that served as a common thread serving as the backbone of the Atlantic World.  The following is a brief look at how these connections spanned the Atlantic to affect several continents.

Perhaps the most identifiable effect of the Atlantic trade economy is best summarized by David Richardson in his writing titled; “Slavery and Bristol’s ‘golden age.’”  Bristol, being an important port of trade, flourished greatly as a result of the Atlantic slave trade in which it was heavily vested.  Though “much of its wealth was already linked to American colonization,” (Richardson, 41) the slave trade that touched all of the Atlantic World brought Bristol to national prominence and major player in the shipping industry.  Moreover, the “earnings from slave-based activities were not confined… to the Bristol merchant elite.  They percolated throughout Bristol society” (Richardson, 48).  Whether it was tobacco, sugar, or slaves; Bristol was directly tied to the Atlantic World by its shared interest in the Atlantic trade economy. 

Tied directly to trade in Bristol and the rest of Europe for obvious reasons was West Africa.  Robin Law and Kristin Mann doing an excellent job of describing the role of the “Slave Coast” in Atlantic trade in the co-authored work titled “West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast.”  Though it is easy to dismiss the Slave Coast as simply a point of departure for vessels carrying human cargo, “the creation of efficient commercial networks also fostered continuing demographic, social, and cultural exchanges that shaped not only the history of the community itself but also that of the regions of the world connected by it” (Law and Mann, 332).  The economy of the Atlantic directly fostered a growth and need for the export of slaves from the West African region.  With time, the integration of Europeans and South Americans into the region was evidenced in many ways that changed not only the culture and complexion of its inhabitants. 

In Elizabeth Kiddy’s writing “Congados, Calunga, Candombe: Our Lady of the Rosary in Minas Gerais, Brazil,” she takes a close look at the influence and involvement of those involved with Our Lady of the Rosary in Brazil.  Though it might be odd to connect the dots between a religious sect and the Atlantic economy, it really is quite simple.  “Although some rosary confraternities were exclusively white in the early days of the captaincy, by the 1750s almost all had become constituted predominantly by slaves, free, and freed blacks” (Kiddy, 47).  With the growth of the Atlantic economy, or more importantly the plantation economies, the Americas saw a large influx of African slaves from the years 1500 to 1800.  Brazil took on an especially large role as the point of entry slaves.  The members of Our Lady of the Rosary that were of African descent were just the more ‘climatized’ to the culture that was fostered by the Atlantic economy.

Even in places where slavery was not initially welcomed, there is an obvious correlation between all nations tied to the Atlantic economy.  James Spady gives an overly descriptive example of just such a place in “Bubbles and Beggars and the Bodies of Laborers: The Georgia Trusteeship’s Colonialism Reconsidered.”  In it, Spady goes in depth exploring the Georgian colony’s quest to define itself.  The most important point of contention at the time was the Trusteeships refusal to allow slave labor, even though the opposition found white labor not serviceable as they struggled to make profitable the plantations of Georgia.  The struggle for the colony was only further complicated by the influence of the Atlantic economy and those involved with it.

Sugar and Slaves

            When addressing the slave trade as it pertains to the Atlantic World, it is important to note the historical normality it took throughout much of the Old World.  “Involuntary migration and international trafficking in people were vital corollaries of the growth and consolidation of forced labor across much of the Old World in the years 1500-1800” (Richardson, 568).  There were, however, obvious differences in way slavery was utilized in the Old World in comparison to the New.  The Old World form of slavery was far less a form of chattel slavery, and encompassed peoples of many different ethnic make-ups, including whites.  Forced servitude and the ensuing forced migration was often the result of war, as slaves would be utilized as crew for ships of war or on the battlefields of foreign lands. 

            The change that would take place in forced migration trends as a result of the rise of plantation economies in the New World was, in reality, a mere redirecting of the destination of slaves from the Old World.  The market that was created by said plantation economies was not necessarily directly tied to African slavery, at least not right away.  In the Spanish controlled Americas, Native Americans were the first recipients of Spanish forced labor, particularly in the mining of gold and silver.  Due to the devastating affect of European disease, and the political justifications of Catholic conversion on the Native workforce, Native Americans were no longer a morally or financially viable option for forced labor, (even in light of the Spanish use of Mita). 

            To the north, in the English controlled colonies, a similar conclusion was soon to be had.  Many of the first laborers were indentured servants.  African slaves quickly became more financially viable once their life expectancy in the Americas increased.  As indentured servants earned their freedom after an agreed upon timeframe, Africans remained a property owned for the mere cost of boarding.  Legislation would later recognize African slaves as less human then an indentured white servant, further cementing the acceptance of chattel slavery as the norm in the New World. 

            The rapid growth of the sugar plantation economies in the New World, are in direct relation to the expansion and focus of the transatlantic slave trade.  Though there are many variables affecting the focus on African slaves, there is no questioning the demand that sparked the heavy flow of forced laborers from Africa to support the demand from sugar cultivation.  The outcome was the first understood slave societies in which “were rooted in an extreme reliance on African labor… Where ever sugar went in the Americas, slavery and enslaved Africans followed” (Richardson, 571). 

            As noted by Richardson, it is “estimated that up to 80 percent of those entering the Atlantic slave trade would disembark in sugar-growing regions of the Americas” (Richardson, 580).  The demand for African slaves was in direct correlation to the demand for sugar.  Furthermore, as plantation owners were unsuccessful in producing self-sustaining slave populations, the market for replacement slaves remained vibrant until the 1800s.  Had it not been for the demise of the native populations, as well as the relatively low life expectancy of African slaves; the transatlantic slave trade would likely have been much smaller as replacement slaves made up a large portion of the demand for new slaves.