THE SLAVES' RELIGION. In the film, the slaves are depicted as Christian, and they receive religious instruction from the relatively benign planter, William Ford.
THE SLAVES' RELIGION. In the film, the slaves are depicted as Christian, and they receive religious instruction from the relatively benign planter, William Ford.
In the Guianas, religious instruction came relatively late in the day. During the Dutch period in Berbice and Demerara (now Guyana), it was thought that the slaves should not be encouraged to become Christian, and they were allowed to maintain their original African gods.
That all changed when the British arrived, and with the growing momentum of the abolition movement. In London, this was driven by evangelists, and – unsurprisingly – they saw spiritual emancipation a natural adjunct to physical emancipation. In the years between 1807 and 1834, the colony saw a huge influx of missionaries. Slaves began to congregate in large numbers in places like this, in New Amsterdam (see photo). The tree under which they held their services is still there.
It ought to have been the beginning of harmony but instead it was an age of dissent. A vague sensation of suffering became a burning sense of injustice. After the riots of August 1823, hundreds of slaves were executed in Georgetown. Their heads were stuck on poles, and displayed in the little gardens next to 'The Sidewalk Café'. It was the last futile gesture of an evil trade. Eleven years later, in this colony at least, it was ended forever.
