Religion and the Enslaved

The Griot Circle of Maryland teaches field calls and spirituals on Harvest Day 2019.

NPS/Tim Ervin

In the 19th century, African Americans hosted their own religious services in the woods at Hampton and attended religious meetings with neighboring groups of free African Americans and enslaved people. One laborer, Nick Toogood (1786-1879), was said to be a “spiritual leader” among the enslaved at Hampton and was known as a powerful hymn-singer. There is limited documentary evidence of burial grounds for the enslaved and later free African Americans on the original Ridgely properties, though the location of these sites remains unrecorded.

 

Hampton Carriage House (built c. 1850, image c. 1897), location of religious services led by Eliza Ridgely on the second floor.

NPS

The Ridgelys also had their own ways of promoting Christianity among Hampton’s enslaved community. Eliza Ridgely provided church services in the second floor of the Hampton carriage house, under the direction of a white Presbyterian minister, Rev. Galbraith. She also held community gatherings, centered on weddings and funerals, in the great hall of the mansion. Her daughter Eliza, or “Didy”, recorded in her 1853 journal that she taught enslaved children Sunday School classes, which included learning the Lord’s Prayer and memorizing Bible verses.

For the Ridgelys, as well as other enslavers, setting the guidelines for religious practice seemed to mean that they shared a common humanity with enslaved people, while also providing social control and demands for enslaved people to take on their beliefs and behavior. For the enslaved, lessons of a shared religion gave them a language with which to compel the enslavers to behave as Christians and allow them to seek knowledge, both Biblical and otherwise.

During the Civil War, Ridgely family member Henry White recalled that enslaved children approached him to learn to read (then not permitted) so that they could better prepare for the freedom they hoped was coming:

“I still remember the younger ones, who at that time were beginning to hear of freedom and the possibilities of education, coming to me at times privately with little primers, and asking me to explain the spelling of certain words, or the meaning of certain combinations of letters, which they could not understand; begging me at the same time not to let any of the elders know that they had done so, as it was one of the principles of slavery that they should not be taught to read or write.”

Enslavers’ attempts to provide Biblical instruction and institutionalize Christianity among the enslaved was, like so many other aspects of American chattel slavery, a process of struggle, negotiation, and a form of control.

 

 

Learn More

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  Enslaved People

  Hampton was the second largest plantation in Maryland. Learn about the struggle, hardships, and lives of the enslaved.

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  Chattel Slavery at Hampton

  From the colonial period through 1864, the Ridgelys enslaved over 500 people. Enslaved people, from young children to the elderly

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  Freedom Seekers

  Learn all about people that would seek their freedom from Hampton.

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  Forms of Control

  From physical to mental abuse for the youngest ages to the oldest. Learn about the harsh truths and forms of control.

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  Gruesome

  Working Conditions

  Accounts of the working conditions of the forced labor iron works.

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  Learn about more

  People of Hampton

  Hundreds of people lived, worked, and were enslaved at Hampton coinciding America's development as a nation. Explore more of their stories.