African-American Slave Culture

Slaves never gave up their hope for freedom or their will to resist total white control over them. They succeeded in creating a semi-independent culture centered on the family and church, which enabled them to survive the experience of bondage without abandoning their self-esteem and to pass on to other generations values that conflicted with those of their masters. Slave culture drew on the heritage of Africa. African influence appeared in dance and music, forms of religious worship, and slave medicine. The end of the foreign slave trade helped foster a particularly new African-American culture, shaped by American and African traditions and values.
The family was the center of slave community. Because of a natural increase of the slave population,
These meetings were frequently interactive and emotional. The biblical story of Exodus in which God chooses Moses to lead the enslaved Jews of Egypt to the promised land of freedom, was central to black Christianity. Slaves saw themselves as a chosen people whom would one day deliver from bondage. Christ as a redeemer who cared for the oppressed was important. Other heroes from the Bible included Jonah, who escaped from the whale; David, who bested the more powerful Goliath; and Daniel, who escaped from the lion’s den. The Christian message of brotherhood and equality of all before the Creator seemed to repudiate slavery.
Slave culture rested on slaves’ belief that slavery was unjust and their yearnings for freedom. Despite proslavery arguments, slaves believed they were being deprived of the fruits of their labor by idle planters living lives of luxury. While most slaves knew it was impossible to directly combat their condition, this did not prevent them from desiring freedom. Slaves constantly talked and dreamed of liberty, and their actions during and after the Civil War flowed from their experience of slavery and their hope of escaping