Short Essay 2

David Reece

History 498

Dr. Barnes

Essay 2

In early modern Europe Christianity was the philosophical basis for broad social order. Individuals of every nationality were furnished with a particular place in society as controlled by shared social understandings. The connection between social status and Christianity was very strong, almost to the exclusion of nationality in early modern Europe. What I mean by this is that a Black man in early modern Europe who was the right kind of “Christian” for his location could obtain heights equal to all but the very top of the white social order. More precisely, an individual’s place in the social order was determined by other factors in addition to one’s acceptance of Christianity, but if a person is thought of as not being a Christian, then his social standing would be decisively weakened.

It is important to remember that the term “Christianity” is being used in a specialized form for the purpose of this essay. I do not say I am using “Christianity” in a broad form, because, although it is common to refer to Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy all as “Christianity” in popular conversation, no orthodox member of any of these groups would support the idea that all three groups are a part of the larger category “Christianity”, and this would have been especially true during the period in question. During the period at least between 1529 (really even earlier, but the term Protestant had not been developed until this year) and the early 1800’s, the divisions between Protestants and Catholics were exceedingly hostile. Protestants almost universally considered the Pope of Rome to be the Antichrist of Scripture and the Roman Church-State to be the harlot woman (unfaithful church) who rides the Beast (Empire) of Revelation. Similarly, the Roman Catholic Church pronounced anathemas on Protestants, especially at the Council of Trent. Comparing and contrasting the connections between Protestantism and social status with the connections between Roman Catholicism and social status would be worthy of an historical study by itself, but for the current study the focus will be on the ways the localized accepted form of “Christianity” related to social status.

Although the section of James Walvin’s Questioning Slavery that was required reading for the course did not really address specifically the issue of Christianity and social status it does touch on the subject in very important ways by implication. Walvin spends a good deal of time explaining the various self-interested motives of Europeans to exploit African labor to the degree that Europeans did through the slave trade. Walvin’s concern seems to be to remove simple racism as the cause of the prominence of the African slave trade over other forms of coerced labor. Walvin’s arguments support the idea that Christianity was closely connected to social status, or at least the foundations of it, by resisting the idea that Europeans chose to turn to enslaved Africans more and more for forced labor because of racism. Walvin’s case that Africans were abused by Europeans because of rational market based decisions suggests that Africans were treated in a basically similar way to any exploited population by Europeans. As related support, Boulle’s “Racial Purity or Legal Clarity?” and  Peabody’s “Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France” basically demonstrate either that Christianity was more important in France than race or that other socio-political considerations were more important than race. These documents are the weakest of the evidentiary pieces in favor of a robust view of the importance of Christianity in the determination of one’s social status in early modern Europe.

In the chapters from Equiano’s writings, and the rest of the book more broadly, it would seem that Christianity was tied to social status, but Equiano’s place as an enslaved man lowered him to the place of being considered essentially a non-person according to law, an object of abuse for many, and an object of pity for a couple of High-Church Anglican women and many Low-Church Anglicans and Nonconformists. Upon obtaining his freedom and returning to English society, Equiano’s intelligence, writing, and speaking ability, along with his public avowal of Christian doctrine and morals allowed him to obtain a high stature and material wellbeing. Although a number of other factors did prevent Equiano from obtaining better social status earlier (primarily his bonds of perpetual servitude), his Christian profession and demonstration were central to his ability to rise as quickly as he did in British society. Some similar ideas are presented in Garzina’s “Mobility in Chains” which associates some of the origins of Pan-Africanism with the effects of Protestantism on English speaking Africans. The article would support the idea that Christianity was central to social status because it offers multiple examples of individuals who were able to rise because of their acceptance despite distinct difference of appearance and of origins. The idea that enslaved sailors had a paradoxical set of oppressions and opportunities is central to this document, but more central to the thesis of this essay is the fact that men that once were slaves could rise to the levels that they did. Although Christianity did not eliminate all other factors of social status or override them, it did create an atmosphere that could on occasion lead to the total acceptance of outsiders by many Britons. Brown’s “Christianity and the Campaign Against Slavery and the Slave Trade” and Hudson’s “Britons Never Will be Slaves” both show how powerful the influence of Calvinist political thought and the idea of imputed rights or social covenants were as a result, but they also emphasized how Europeans thought of Africans because of the Europeans’ Christianity apart from the Christianity of an Africans, and the value of a Christian African would by necessity be magnified in addition to the other benefits by Europeans who already were so influenced by their own Christian philosophical underpinnings.

The various articles show that Christianity was the inescapable material of the social fabric of Early Modern Europe, and that race was an under developed concept at the time. Nationality was much less important than family, rulers, religion, church, or material gain, but Christianity was an overriding principal of judgment.  In Europe, individuals who were not the right sort of “Christian” for the area they were in were not considered acceptable to be in the highest circles of society.  Racism in Early Modern Europe was a difficult obstacle for Africans to overcome, but judgments of individuals based upon creed were predominant.