Was Christianity Imposed on African Slaves In The Americas? | The Bisrat Podcast w/ Dr. Vince Bantu

i had this kind of you know idea of christianity being right like a little bit like as you described right like used as a form of slave control like you know uh imposed upon forced upon um enslaved africans and when i actually started doing the reading in the actual historical sources from the 17th and 18th century that's why i was so shocked to realize that not only was christianity not being imposed it was it was being violently rejected by protestant enslavers [Music] well hello everybody uh and welcome again to another episode of the bis rock

podcast uh i am your host vince bontu and uh and i uh host this podcast here entitled the bis rot or the gospel uh which is a a program and a ministry of the ju-3 project which is all about equipping the body of christ and the black community in the black church with resources to be able to understand what we believe and why and to be able to give an answer for the faith that we have and in this particular podcast uh the bis rot uh we explore topics uh through lectures and through conversations we

explore topics that are specific and pertinent to early african christianity um and and we bring scholarly resources to bear on questions in our community that are relevant and today i am extremely honored to be joined in in a dialogue um with a uh a colleague and friend dr catherine gerbner uh and so uh we are so excited to welcome dr catherine gerbiner today to uh join in a discussion on uh the title of this episode on the bizrod podcast which is is islam the original religion of african slaves in the americas uh and so we

are going to be talking today about uh that question in particular but also more broadly just the nature of religion and the religious dynamics of early african slaves in the americas and also uh what religious backgrounds even were looking like on the other side of the the middle passage but but before we get into it again i am so excited i just want to welcome and introduce dr gerbner uh to us today and we're going to get into this uh conversation um but dr catherine gerbner uh is an historian and the author of the amazing

book christian slavery conversion and race in the protestant atlantic world which she has presented on even here at the ju-3 project before which shows how religion was fundamental to the development of slavery and race dr gerbner received her phd from harvard university in 2013 and she is currently the samuel russell chair in the humanities and associate professor of history at the university of minnesota dr gerber's research examines the history of race and religion the origins of white supremacy and theories of conversion her writing has appeared in the washington post the imminent frame slavery and abolition

and several other venues dr gerbner's current research project is on caribbean reformations as well as constructing religion defining crime and so uh so again let's all uh give a warm welcome virtually uh or physically wherever you're at to dr gerber and dr german thank you so much for being here today thank you so much for having me um i'm really thrilled to to be here and to have this conversation with you so thanks oh definitely definitely uh yeah i am as well and and so yeah we can um just kind of uh you know jump

into it um we have you know we're gonna be again the the title of the episode today uh we've been talking about um a lot of different topics and themes and a lot of times they they really have more to do with um kind of the nature of religion and especially christianity um you know in the african continent and we focus on the pre-colonial period but i'm really excited for this conversation today and especially to be talking with really the expert on this topic because this really helps us to bridge um the kind of the

you know the experience on the continent before slavery but then kind of bridging that over into the experience that that many african-americans are more connected with which is you know slavery and the nature of religion uh in that in the middle passage um and so uh maybe uh dr girvin to start off with we could just kind of uh talk a little bit about both of us kind of in dialogue about just what was the before we get to the the real meaty question of like the um the title of the episode maybe we could

just both kind of you know have some conversation on um what were the religions that were practiced by the africans who were brought over to the americas through the transatlantic slave trade like what was the kind of broad religious kind of uh you know landscape right um you know it was incredibly diverse is what i would say you know that you uh you have so many different religious traditions being practiced so um sure there is islam in parts of uh you know especially in the northwest um but also lots of different types of indigenous african

religions um throughout the the western coast and then christianity was also i'm you are you are sure the expert on on this but you know uh especially in the coastal region or the kingdom of congo was uh had adopted catholicism as a state religion um starting the 15th 15th century so i yeah you have a you have a really complex um and diverse sort of religious history that uh you have to kind of dig into in order to really understand that um that sort of that african complex yeah definitely definitely i i couldn't agree with

you more um that you know there definitely was like a you know a broad diversity um you know like you mentioned um you know christianity and of course christianity was i mean i guess when slavery got started in the 15th century uh and you know and uh then slaves started bringing brought over to the americas especially in the 16th and 17th centuries you know at that time uh you know christianity was um you know had been a minority religion in egypt uh you know after the islamic conquest and then um and it actually had uh

it had been you know the dominant religion in nubia uh up until actually it was almost like right as the slave trade european slave trade was getting kicked off in the western side of the continent that was actually right when christianity had kind of died out in nubia but it had been around for a thousand years but but of course ethiopia was still a predominantly christian nation um and uh and and yeah not only that but um there's actually uh this is you know something that i'm working on right now in terms of research there's

actually evidence of of like the east african christianities of nubia and ethiopia and egypt spreading west into central and west africa uh even even before europeans showed up um so so and then of course as you mentioned like the king of the congo like through contacts with europeans uh even africans that didn't come over and weren't stolen as slaves uh some of them embraced christianity in west and central africa and the most probably the best example is what he brought up um so you know there's christianity but of course as you mentioned is also islam

um and uh that's also you know that also comes all over i mean north africa but then as north africa starts to conquer uh you know in different kingdoms in west africa you have islam very very prevalent in the kingdoms of mali and songhai and um and uh and all of that but um but also um yeah i mean i think uh you know and i i wonder whatever what thoughts you have um on this as well and just what evidence we have but it also seems to me that um in addition to christianity and

islam that there there also seems to be a lot of african slaves who also their religious identity was more rooted in the traditional kind of african religions um but yeah i just wonder what yeah what thoughts you have on that how did that kind of how did that population kind of fit into the mix of folks that came over here sure um yeah i think that's i think that's probably um yeah a huge a huge number of africans who are who are enslaved and stolen from the african continents um yeah may not have you know

may not have encountered either islam or christianity and so they were they were practicing indigenous african religions um and there you know you have a again just sort of a huge diversity and complexity there in the uh in the in the religious traditions um and and so yeah i think it's just so important to to to think about um like the dynamism the complexity and um and also sort of you know i think this is something we can get into more um which is how do we know what we know right so like what are

the sources um that are giving us information about what we think about right african religious history in this in this period um and so i'm so curious actually talking a little bit more about the research you mentioned about sort of christianity moving to the western west at the western coast because that's the kind of research that i think is so important to um to to dig in more about because historically so many of our sources and sources of knowledge have been from you know these european texts um european documents written by enslavers or white missionaries

etc etc um and so i think one one aspect of this conversation that we just always have to be cognizant of is like where like where our source is coming from what language are they in and what is that um and how is that sort of filtering our perception of what you know what you know religious experience was like um you know like let's say 14 15 16th centuries in the various parts of coastal west africa oh definitely definitely um yeah i mean that's i yeah i mean again i mean i couldn't agree more um

that i mean we have to be able to look at you know like all all you know like kind of all the evidence we have but especially um you know the literary and material evidence that's coming from you know the uh the communities that that we're commenting on if we're talking about we're talking about to use rabbitohs you know phrase if we're talking about slave religion then we you know we definitely need to go to um not always the colonizers or the the foreign missionary uh sources but the sources themselves and so that's um i

mean that's such a great point and and so yeah kind of like continuing on with that like you know you know just for our like kind of you know for a broad audience like what how how would we or can we uh as we as we look at all those sources as we look at sources coming from you know slave narratives and from uh evidence coming out of uh african communities uh during the you know during this period 16 17 and even 18th centuries um and then and then also corroborating that with some of the

dominant narratives like is it like how would we both like kind of you know just paint some broad brushstrokes of like um you know what what were kind of the the religions i mean we already named some of them um but is there a way that we can kind of like talk about which ones were the most prominent if that makes sense or which like kind of rough rough senses of like based on the evidence um you know which of these religions were you know for the slaves that came over to the americas and were

brought over like uh about like where more of them practicing traditional religions or were you know um yeah where some of them uh and i guess um you know i guess i could just say um and maybe uh you know maybe we could like kind of you know answer this together or we could like kind of go go later but i mean the the title of our our episode i think is kind of driving this question because we're we're responding to it historically but um but in in the black community there are many people um

who claim that like all or the majority of of african slaves were muslim and um and this is especially a common concept you know uh and belief in african-american and other you know not just african-american but other black diasporic muslim communities and we're our audience here is predominantly black christians and so you know how do we you know that's kind of where we're going in terms of like how would we engage that um so i guess maybe that's kind of two things in one is like um how do we you know how would we answer

that but then i think one way to get at that is what was the you know kind of um the majority religions uh if that kind of makes sense okay so in answer to that question i would say it's it's pretty simple to answer um you know this query about were all you know uh african stolen um and enslaved were they muslim the answer is no right like that's just it's not the case um and we know that because we know certainly there were africans who were muslim islam was especially important in the senegambian region

you know that is a long really like really significant history um and and so yeah there's absolutely no denying that and um and in fact there's also a history of uh especially in a latin american context wanting to suppress that uh the the reality that there were some muslims who were enslaved and brought to the americas um but it was it was a minority for sure and we know that because we have records from the from the slave trade right we know where uh where africans were enslaved um you know how many were uh sort

of uh enslaved in various regions on the west african coast uh and you know there are some as with all data you know there are some inaccuracies with it but in general you get a pretty clear clear picture of uh what the regional distribution of uh of enslavement was and then that regional distribution can tell you about um sort of the religious heritage uh among other things and so i so so yeah i think that there was especially in um you know north america uh the british caribbean we can say for sure that there were

there were muslims among the africans who were enslaved but that they were in the minority and that i probably the majority if you you know and again these are all with caveats because i'm a historian and i'm always like wow we gotta be you know careful about the sources majority uh likely were practicing um indigenous african religions and then there were also definitely christians um and and i say that also though uh with the caveat that just as i was saying you know there are we know that uh in some cases sort of the history

of islam has been um sort of among enslaved africans has been suppressed absolutely especially within north america and the british colonies the history of christian africans has been suppressed for very political reasons which are you know because of the way that sort of slave law and the relationship between religion and race developed in in the the protestant colonies like you know what became the united states um and then the the british caribbean colonies uh there it was supposed to be illegal right to enslave christians and so if you're enslaving christians in africa you weren't gonna

you know you don't necessarily want to highlight that fact and so uh there's absolutely a suppression of the fact that there were christians and slaves wow i wonder i'm just i'm so interested in that could you could you maybe share a little bit more about what that kind of yeah what that looked like and you know like some examples of that because that's so i mean that's again that's not that's out of my you know you know kind of expertise so i'm just curious about yeah what that what that looked like in terms of the

suppressing of of african christianity you know in in the americas oh yes so um actually you know just today i was i was uh skimming an article that was about uh african christians who were trying to sue for their freedom in spain um so not in this is sort of this different context but it's i think it's 16th century suing their for their freedom on the on the premise or on the basis that they were christian and um and so therefore you know even within the terms of just war which is how a lot of

european christians justified slavery uh they shouldn't have been enslaved within that context and um and so you know there's a historian chloe eyerton who who's written this article uh using uh yeah the court records uh showing showing sort of this and here you have like it bubbling up right like this is one of those instances where you're like oh this is tip of the iceberg right like the this existing documentary evidence of african christians arguing within a court in um spain that because they're christian they shouldn't be enslaved and you know that that's it's just

that means there are a lot more who didn't make it to that point um and within you know within a we'll say an american like north american context i there are uh you know inklings where you'll you'll you'll realize that someone probably was christian um you know but they are being sort of not viewed as christian because uh you know and this is really what my first book is about because especially protestants um they thought of christianity as a religion for free people and so they did not want to admit admit that any africans were

christian before that they were enslaved because that undermined the justification for enslaving them nor did they want to allow africans and their descendants who were enslaved in the americas to be baptized in the in protestant churches because they were worried that that would um give them certain rights and privileges uh including potentially you know freedom so there is a yeah absolutely long history of suppression of of of african christian identity um and then also of of the of the right of africans and their descendants to be baptized in in the protestant churches wow that's so

that's so fascinating um yeah i mean i wonder i just you know i wonder if that um even like that suppression kind of um is even why there's not as many it seems like again this isn't my area of expertise but it seems like we have more evidence like when you get into the you know late 18th and certainly the 19th century um and and and you see african-american churches and denominations you know uh flourishing and growing and resisting slavery and there's a lot more and but it just yeah it seems like there's a transition

that happens at least in the in the us um with you know kind of accepting and now by by you know white protestant christianity uh an acknowledgement and an acceptance of acknowledging you know african slaves uh as christians and yet still keeping them enslaved um and you know having segregated you know seedings in churches and balconies and things like that so it's just it's like seems like there was a shift there from like the early um you know the earlier denial of baptism and denial of acknowledging as a christian and then you know kind of

later on um you know doing that where we have more more evidence in later times but um man that's just that's so interesting um but but yeah you know it's okay so you know going back to you know our theme you know um yeah i mean it's i guess um i again going back to your answer like i i would agree with it completely you know i think that uh you know for my like uh you know kind of non-specialist perspective but you know just um i mean yeah just a little bit that i have

looked at in kind of um the you know transatlantic period and all of that uh that yeah i mean like you said um there's no denying that that there were muslims present uh in the in the slave trade i mean you think about people like omar ibn saeed you know who i think is the first like um first arabic author in the history of the us and you know was brought over from senegal uh you know over to i think charleston uh south carolina i believe and um and and wrote copies of the quran in

arabic and um and then i think there's another um interesting uh story uh i think in the 18th century of uh of a um of like i think a north african um or no like a west african islamic prince who actually was brought um who stolen uh i think his name was like prince ibrahim who was stolen as a slave and then brought over uh but then he was recognized by an irish guy that he met and then you know argued i think with john quincy adams to free him and then he was sent back

and so um but uh so yeah i mean there's like you said there's and then you have like you know uh islamic grave sites you know in places like south carolina and you know with islamic symbols on them so you know no yeah i think we're agreeing that you know nobody is arguing that there weren't muslims present uh just like there were christians present um you know like we think of other examples in south carolina like the stono rebellion oh you know which like seems to have been you know one of the largest slave revolts

in history was started by uh congolese christians and we've already talked about that that congo the kingdom of congo was a christian nation and that was through contacts with europeans but um but it was freely adopted it wasn't they they weren't enslaved or colonized in the 15th or 16th centuries and so uh many of those slaves that had come over uh by the time of the stone over in the early 18th century they were christians they were they were freely christians and they were already christians before coming over um so that so you know we

have christians and muslims but i would say that you know in slavery that most of those groups were the minority christian and muslim were the minority and that the majority of folks would have been practitioners of yoruba or akan or you know other traditional african religions um is the is the is the majority and um and so you know i think that that's just um important to like to to emphasize because especially for many in our our audience in our community when when talking to and engaging with uh african-american or other diosporic um you know

uh muslims and islamic communities today there can be an over emphasis of of you know pointing to those the the presence of those uh african slaves who were muslims um and then uh kind of a desire to uh kind of expand that to all slaves that that was the case for all of us that all of us were were muslim and then christianity was imposed uh and islam was eradicated um which is just not you know um it's just not the case as you said is that no you know it's it's uh it's it's historically

inaccurate um uh to say that all muslims or all slaves were muslim um and i think that that that's important for us to acknowledge some of the religious diversity as people are engaging these claims to be able to acknowledge that yes there were muslims but not all of them were in the same way that those of us like myself and other many other people in the audience who are who are black christians and who are you know uh very you know kind of um committed christians uh but yet i wouldn't make the claim uh that

all african slaves were christians even though it's exciting and great of course for me uh as a black christian to see that there were black christians like those at the sono rebellion and and others but i'm not going to go so far as to say that oh that means all of them were i would still acknowledge that with you uh that no most of them were not christians and most of them were practitioners of of traditional religion um and so yeah um yeah i didn't i didn't i didn't know if he had any i don't

want to make we yeah i didn't know he had any thoughts on any of that but before we move on to the next question or oh no i i would i just totally agree with you i think that um it's yeah the the majority were like practicing that neither christianity nor islam although those were all present and then um you know and that there were you know just so many different rich african indigenous religions and it's you know uh really important to sort of study those as well and to think about um you know also

what it meant uh in terms of if someone then sort of decided to pers you know be you know wanted to become baptized or wanted to join a church community like what did that what did that mean um for that for that person and sort of their faith journey and of course it's hard to it's impossible to ever really understand people in the past right but um you know just thinking about about what that relationship was and how um africans were sort of creating you know you know creating uh new religious communities in the americas

uh after they had been enslaved and sort of forcibly transported uh and how important that that process was and also you know how we will always have a limited knowledge because again back to sources i know that not only are so many of the sources written by by uh white europeans and white americans but you know these are communities where we know and this is sort of rabbitohs sort of fundament you know classic work it's these are happening outside of the purview of enslavers um in many respects and so it's intentionally like uh sort of

defined in a sort of a community that would that protected itself against um sort of this society of oppression yeah oh definitely definitely so um so i guess yeah like you know kind of um you know in line with with i think what both of us just said um i think another another question that that honestly is you know is a is a that is related to this um that uh both i think african-american muslims and christians have um you know which is uh different opinions on or different thoughts about is you know uh maybe

the big question then is looking at christianity uh often the the perception you know kind of the other side of that coin in a lot of islamic communities and you know i mean just to name a few like you know we could be um african-americans who are practitioners of you know maybe a kind of a more mainstream sunni uh islam uh that would be a little bit more global but then also there's more localized groups like nation of islam or uh the five percenters or you know uh that's usually what they're called but i think

the official name is the uh the nation of god and earth um and then you know uh you know you also have the more science up of america which a lot of people don't realize that was actually one of the first even before nation islam and even before the the five percenters the you know noble jew ali actually really was the first innovator of a lot of the cosmology uh and a lot of the different ideas about you know black people being more even the name like that the idea was that we were moors um

you know uh and that we were you know kind of from north africa um you know which uh which i i find kind of interesting uh maybe we can talk about this when we get to the next question a little bit more but but um but yeah this whole idea of again that all black people were muslims and and and it was a race in slavery um and uh and being kind of from this tribe of shabazz and um and and being you know kind of the poor righteous teachers that are five percent of humanity

that are meant to free the eighty percent that are led astray by the other five percent or the ninety percent or i get it i get mixed up but the hundred forty four thousand and all these different groups but the commonality even though they have a lot of differences about kind of their views of blackness and views of whiteness even um uh or even kind of you know pantheism that i think a commonality in a lot of these groups is again that number one as we've already uh kind of spoken to is that that that

all or most black uh people were slaves us africans were slaves which is which is not um not the case but then the other side of that coin is that and christianity on the other hand that was imposed and that was forced upon african people uh and it's a white it's a white religion it's a white man's religion um and that that it encountered african people completely and only through um you know through coercion and so for for you know uh for black people to be free and liberated and to go back to their roots

they have to reject christianity which they see as a european imposition and then go back to islam which they see as you know kind of the the original religion of black people so i wonder yeah i guess i just wonder what what thoughts would you have on that other side of the coin like basically like to put it real bluntly like you know was christianity imposed upon african slaves like is that is that the story of of the beginning of of african-american um or black american um you know christianity right uh yes um i mean

there's a really easy answer the answer is no right um it was not it was not imposed and but there and i think that you know there are so many different important components to to answering this question one of which um you know is is your specialty right like the ancient history of christianity on the african continent um another is sort of i would say what uh is sort of understanding the history of slavery and christianity better historically and that and that really is my the core of my research and honestly when i started my

research i was not expecting to find what i found right like i i had this kind of you know idea of christianity being right like a little bit like as you described right like used as a form of slave control like you know uh imposed upon forced upon um enslaved africans and when i actually started doing the reading in the actual historical sources from the 17th and 18th century that's why i was so shocked to realize that not only was christianity not being imposed it was it was being violently rejected by protestant enslavers you know

like they were protestant right and kind of what i was saying before like they wanted to protect their protestantism they wanted to protect christianity um and they did not want enslaved people to be able to access it because it was a sign of you know freedom and rights and um and liberation you know in in so many different ways and so and so i was just so surprised because right like the justification for for slavery in part was like oh we'll introduce these quote unquote heathens to christianity right uh but a right like not heathens

right so that like first of all there's they're enslaving some christians and muslims as well as people who practice indigenous african religions and number two they're actually then not even not only are they not trying to convert and baptize um enslaved africans but they are punishing and attacking um enslaved africans and freed africans who are trying to access baptism and they're also attacking european missionaries and so that's really and it was out of the surprise that i experienced um doing my research that i ended up writing a book that i did you know christian slavery

because i felt like it was this this com this part of the story that had been you know not just glossed over um really it had been the the story of christianity and slavery and sort of this idea of how christianity was imposed on enslaved people and people of african descent it really just it stems from like pro-slavery 19th century uh antebellum literature right like this effort to try to protect to protect slavery as an institution when it's like teetering on the edge um and saying oh no no like it's it's fine like we make

them become christian and um they're more obedient and loyal when they're christian and so this i this sort of idea of right um the obedience christian slave it comes out of that um that lineage of trying to protect the institution of slavery so the irony that you hear you know um that you hear that that argument being sort of repeated by um whoever you know whatever organizations but by african-americans themselves like that's an irony that i think is um you know it's it's it's it's kind of tragic right because we really need to go back

to the real story because there is there was this other type of oppression that was happening um in which you know enslaved africans were not being allowed to practice the religions that they were you know in in some cases where they were desperately trying to gain access to baptism or whatever and so you know some of the the most important sources from my research were coming out of these you know mission stations where you have uh writings by by missionaries but also in some cases by um enslaved and free christians themselves uh who were advocating

for their right to practice christianity to be protestants right like and this was you know 1730s right like this is this is early um in in sort of that's that's the that sort of long history and you know i have uh african and african descent christians writing about the fact that they're being beaten for carrying bibles by white enslavers that uh that that they're being um you know they're they're then using sort of the attacks that are that are coming on them and like reversing that and saying these you know white enslavers they are not

true christians right so they're they're using that whole line of attack which we see you know that is a very strong um and very legit like critique with the inside of the history of like um black christianity but yeah you see you see this happening um and it's this i think largely untold and like under-recognized part of the story that is absolutely essential to um to sort of rectify the true history of the relationship between between christianity and slavery wow wow that is that is amazing man i i just have to i just have to

underline if i have to make sure i'm hearing you correctly and then i feel like for our audience i need to underline something that you just said that if i'm if i'm understanding what you're saying and also as i've looked at your research you're saying today that that not only was christianity not imposed upon african slaves in the 17th and 18th century but in fact christianity was actually attempted to be kept from african slaves and that their that number one which is just like first of all just wow that's amazing and then number two the

second wow is that you're i'm hearing you say that african slaves actually petitioned to be able to practice christianity and were even persecuted for and critiqued the form of christianity that was dominant and were even persecuted on that on that basis yes exactly and and and i there's this the the petitions that i'm referring to they um they're written by they're they're uh it's on the island of um st thomas which is not the us virgin islands it was part of the danish west indies and so these were um these were moravian christians uh so

there's a moravian christian community here that was started in the 1730s and they uh there's two petitions um and one i i reprints uh a handwritten version of it in my uh in my book and it's by a woman named maratha um and she yeah it's a petition to the queen of denmark right and she's saying please intercede on our behalf we're being you know we are we are trying to worship jesus and we are getting beaten for that uh and you know we need your support and and it's it's really the most amazing document

and i write about it in my book but i've been doing more research on it since then because i it's written both in her native african language and in dutch creole which is like the um what they spoke in in in the danish west indies at the time uh and so you can see and so it's in font so she's from grand popo um so benin uh that's that that's sort of the region of africa where she was that she was raised and um and so you can see how she's translating certain things and this

is and this is the kind of document where you can not only recognize like oh wow there's this whole history of oppression um you know towards black christians in particular um you know whether it's like oppression you're like not wanting to allow them to get baptized or later on you have oppressions of black churches right like that because the black church becomes such an important uh you know source of support and you know community building etc within the black community so it's like no surprise it's like it's um you know the the object of like

terrorizing violence etc etc but that you know there is a longer history there uh so you see that in the letter but you also see um sort of the the interaction between you know west african religious traditions and and christianity and the way that she's writing and translating um and it's just it's just fascinating and morata in particular i'm uh the there's one historian reiki who who postulates that she um she had been baptized she was she had been catholic in um in west africa before she was enslaved and then she became a protestant christian

in the moravian church and you know it sort of unfolds it's like you start with this one document and then you can sort of unfold the pieces and you realize like there's just this whole world opens up and even though we'll never really be able to understand her life 100 you know it's just like doing that research and digging in um i just i just feel like it it it reveals um such an important different story um a more complex story and and and a far more like relatable story about about this history you know

the history of of black christianity that's um you know so rich and and and i just i wish we had more of those kinds of documents but the ones that we have um you know we just gotta we just gotta keep keep digging in them and learning more from them and and and then and on top of that for all y'all that are listening when we have scholars like dr gerber who who finally uncover and highlight these sources then you got to get her book and so that you become familiar with these these unsung heroes

um it was matata was the name yeah maratha we gotta know about the names of say her name we gotta know about maratha and and uh because it just when you when you're saying that that's again this out of my areas this is blowing my mind and but it just it just connects i think with with a 2 000 year history actually of african christians who um not only are they not imposed upon being christians um but they actually often will suffer and be persecuted and even die in order to practice christianity you know i

think about perpetua and felicity who were north african martyrs in the year 200 who were thrown in the coliseum in carthage for being christian by roman authorities and so you have african women christian dying for their belief in order to be able to practice it uh and then you know what you jump ahead to like egyptian or uh or ethiopian theologians uh and churches like um you know like timothy eliris or benjamin of alexandria or or georges of sagala these these christians who are actually being persecuted by the dominant european church because they have a

different christology you know you have the chalcedonian and miaphysite debate but then that resulted in you know european christians imposing in east africa their particular expression of theology that created this bitter conflict and you have these african christians who have their own practices and are being persecuted their bishops and monks are being killed um and and and then you know you jump all the way ahead to you know even now like i mean the it just just seems like such a seamless kind of through line throughout african christianity that when you're talking about the slave

religion or during the during slave days you have early slave christians who are actually um petitioning for their freedom on the other side of the continent we mentioned congo you have nzinga and bimba who's writing letters to portugal like condemning their slave practices in the west african coast and they're that are going on inside of congo and he actually says in his letters we don't want like you know your guns and your technology and all that stuff we want bibles and we want priests and we want eucharistic elements for communion so you see this constant

uh and then you know uh going up into the 19th and 20th centuries the you know the negro spirituals and the um even though we were given a slave bible in order you know that took passages out and to justify slavery because again they were afraid of of actually hearing the true gospel that even still you have all of these um you know slave narratives uh you know even the distinction you were talking about about the critique it reminded me of people like harry jacobs or or frederick douglass who who you know made a distinction

and frederas had the famous quote like between the christianity of this land and the christian of christ i see the widest possible difference and to be a friend of one means to be the friend of another or to be the enemy of another um and then you go all the way to the black church or the civil rights movement and how that came out of the church it came out of you know black pulpits and so it's just um oh man it's just and then on the flip side um you know especially we're talking about

imposition i mean you know uh i think that we also have to acknowledge the fact that if we want to you know if we want to um if we want to go back you know like if if if the claim must be made that christianity was imposed upon african people and whereas islam is the true religion of africa i think we have to examine that claim a little bit and go back even further and look at well you know how did islam actually first come into africa because in the year 642 the first you know

the rationing caliber uh the first invading army came in by the sword and conquered egypt and tunis uh or carthage and then built tunis and um and so and then going forward even now you know and you were talking earlier about what sources even islamic sources historiographers will this is where we get this information like historians like evan khaldoon who himself talked about how the kingdom of ghana was conquered um by the al murabids in you know modern day morocco and then that's when they began to practice islam so yes islam was very prevalent in

you know timbuktu and mali and ghana and songhai but how did it get there it actually happened through conquests uh from north africans who themselves were conquered several centuries before but you know at the same time now you know uh to be to be you know historical and accurate and it's not this is not to say um that that even african christianity is completely free of conquest or you know military conquest because certainly especially when you get into the 13th and 14th centuries in ethiopia there are um you know as a christian empire there are

actually uh examples of conquest you know with kings like yakuna amlak and amda sayon uh and zarya kobe that there are examples of them also imposing christianity through military might um you know in surrounding you know regions like the gojam and the hadiya um and uh and and so there are it's not to say that it's not to paint some kind of idealistic picture that that um that you know yeah like like christianity is you know or even africa because it's just perfect and you know there's no there's no flaws in that history um but

again uh when we when we go back and look at the sources um as you as we've already said um yeah it's it's it's it's wildly inaccurate to say that all or even the majority of african slaves were muslim um and it's also worth mentioning that uh that while there are evidences of even christian conquest uh in even in africa that's actually a minority and the majority of early african christians were themselves in usually minoritized and persecuted situations uh in the antiquity in the medieval period and in the early modern period on both sides of

the ocean whereas the flip side is actually true that um that they're that that yes in the same way while early you know kind of 13th 14th century uh african kingdoms many of them practice islam freely and developed islamic you know schools of scholarship and all that but that when you look at the origins of it it was more often than not through military conquest and so if anything there was a large degree of imposition uh in africa in sub-saharan africa when it comes to islam um and and not really as much when it comes

to christianity um yeah but i don't know if you you know sorry i was a lot so i don't know if you have any no that was so impressive you just you know covered so many thousands of years and it's yeah no i just i think that is it's true right like um and and we just need to think about uh you know like follow the sources um you like think again about why we've here we've heard the narratives that we had right like it's not just like look at the sources it's like why is

this narrative so prevalent right and then you know that like if we start to answer that question it's like there's usually some you know some reason that someone wants that narrative to uh to to be sort of a problem uh a prevalent narrative and so yeah we have to we have to look at the actual history and um and and sort of and be okay that it's super complex right like that there is uh there is com you know history of conquest it is not no it's it's part of both you know islam and christianity

like that's just that's just that's just the history you know and then also when we look into like the individual stories though that's where you really get to see what what these religious traditions meant to to people and in their especially like people who have been enslaved are being oppressed right so like people like morata and to see what it meant to her and try to um try to sort of balance that sort of macro right like the the macro uh history of whatever conquest and religion with the micro history of well let's think about

um you know this person's like the way that they you know why they worshipped you know like how that connected them to um their kin their community their ancestors and so the that's i think that sort of that dual um that dual recognition and being like okay with the complexity that's um i think that's so important uh when we're when we're having these discussions and yeah i i totally agree with what you were saying it was like an amazing sort of wide-ranging sort of synthesis of tons of scholarship so oh no thank you so much

and actually i i think that you know what you just said you know is really actually a good kind of way to you know close out our time is you know i couldn't agree with what you said more and um yeah just like um you know and maybe uh i mean i just you know loved if you have any other kind of just closing thoughts but um but i think that you know what you just said really helps to um you know i can maybe share just a little bit and maybe i'd love to give

you the last word and um and uh but just about yeah how we co how we go from here and and just you know especially with you know the black community in the black church in mind but really for all of us like what you know what's just the best takeaways in terms of how we should begin what is the best way to look at um kind of uh this particular topic of the role of islam um you know in uh in you know uh in in our ancestry and you know people of african descent

ancestry and kind of how we got here uh to the americas and i would just i would you know the only thing i would say is just kind of um just echoing what you said uh which is really looking at all the sources um and and and appreciating the nuance right and not wanting to read into history what necessarily we want to see or what we think should be there but just looking at what's there and i think that uh you know we've mentioned some some sources slave narratives and and other sources that people can

look at but uh but also again i want to encourage people to get the book christian slavery and and and it'll open you up some even more sources and and read some of these other you know uh some of these other slave narratives that that show us these these realities that again i mean my two cents would be that we should definitely not be seeing uh our own history as like oh we were all muslims and then we you know then it was taken from like no not at all some of us were as we've

already said yes some were slaves some were muslims but that's a minority and also some were christians but that's also a minority so as a christian i'm talking to my fellow christians and say i don't want to i don't want to christianize the entire you know uh uh african population you know pre-slavery because that's just not accurate um and i'm a christian i'm a dedicated christian and my hope is that the gospel goes out to all people uh and my people and every everybody else but but i don't want to be inaccurate and i want

to be as dr girvin i said accurate by saying that no when you read all out equiano ignacio sancho uh phyllis wheatley uh uh uh otobacuano you know they're all giving us their own narrative and they're from africa and they're letting us know now most folks practice traditional african religion um and and we've already had another episode where we've talked about how uh in my opinion that there's elements with which that that is is in agreement with christianity and that that is that it's been demonized uh far to an excessive degree but at the same

time there's degree as a christian i'm not talking as a scholar but as a christian i'm saying that there's also degrees which it doesn't but that's true for every culture um right and that's that's really you know uh and and also that christianity was already spreading um you know across the continent and was continuing to do so um but that would be yeah i mean that would be my two cents on just how we should look back at at this but i'd love to just if you have any closing thoughts on yeah just kind of

um yeah just how we should best kind of think back on this question historically yeah well i i really i mean it's kind of going to be a reiteration of what you're just saying is just is you know be honest about like what actually happens right it's it's minority where muslim minority were christian majority were indigenous african um religious practitioners and but most importantly like read their like when you can read their words right so it's like uh you know sure like i would love when if you know people want to read my book that's

great but i would rather have people read morata's letter right like i would rather have people read you know hopefully most people have read like douglas on this or like you know read equian read african christians and and and africans who are not christian just read what they were saying um and and let them tell you right it's uh i think that those those gems that we have it's like that's what we should that's where we should turn to um when we have them and let them let them speak for themselves definitely definitely well man

i i i just wish we had more time because i feel like i could just sit here and and learn with you and from you forever but but we want to respect your time so um dr governor thank you so much again give virtual and physical uh hand praises to the lord for dr gerner's scholarship um and for this time now uh and before we go real quick uh dr grover i just want to also uh just ask if there's any um you know ways that you would want our listeners to know what you're up

to like ways they can connect with you with your future work anything you want to just kind of plug or let us know about um yeah just how we can stay connected to your great work yeah absolutely um well i i have a web where i sort of summaries some of the stuff i'm working on um and one of them like you mentioned caribbean reformations is one where i'm trying to sort of center uh like black theological uh history within in the caribbean um and to sort of de-center the history of like the reformation from

europe and really like try to think in a more like african diasporic context uh and then so i write a little bit about that on my website which is uh basically my name katherinegorpner.com um but then i'm on i'm on twitter i'm at kt gerbs and i do keep a facebook page although i don't um i'm not like a i'm not a super active facebook user um i'm more active on twitter than i am on um than i am on facebook but i also really uh would welcome emails um i try to respond to all

emails that i get um and so my email address is k gerbner umn.edu and that's also you can find that on my website but uh yeah i would again i would just really welcome um yeah any reflections or or thoughts that people have yeah i always appreciate it all right well thank you so much again dr gerbin all of y'all definitely uh definitely connect with dr grobner work because it's a blessing to the academy and to the community so i just want to again thank you so much dr grubner we look forward to doing this

again yeah this is really it was wonderful and i agree i could just like keep on talking to you but i know i know your listeners also probably will need you need a break as well oh definitely all right well thank you all for tuning in man that that was powerful um our sister dr gerber uh is has been a blessing uh dropped some gems but also um you know i appreciate i just echo what she said actually about uh going actually the primary sources that's what you know i got my book out most of

all people's but you know i try to encourage you to read you know read shenuda read without the patrons in their own words so uh that's that was great stuff and also just um thank you again for tuning in to another uh episode of the bis rot today we talked about uh is islam the original religion of african slaves and uh what dr gordon and i both put down uh based on the evidence is that for a minority it was but for the majority uh it definitely was not and the gospel the best rot has

been present among uh african people from day one uh and um and and in a way that was not oppressed or imposed as it often was in the case of of islam among african peoples so but definitely follow up uh we'll you know stay connected with myself and dr governor she was saying um to continue this dialogue but other than that we will sign off now and we will uh we will holla at you on the next uh episode of the bis rock podcast so thank you very much and god bless you all you