Atlantic Faiths: Secrecy and Adaptation

The Atlantic World was teaming with religious fervor. Christianity swelled the ports, soap boxes, and laws that governed the New World, choking out any and all other forms of religious belief. Like with most situations that have a formidable presence overshadowing everything else, the surface looks overbearing, an impenetrable force, but beneath the surface suppression made way for secrecy and a stronghold formation within other religions. Religious freedom did not spread within the Atlantic World, but the under tow of the Christian ocean was a teeming religious rebellion. Africans, Jews, and Muslims, for example, all felt the oppression of the Christian faith and each dealt with it as best they could through adaptation and secrecy.

The Jewish faith within the Atlantic World reveals the depth of secrecy people went through in order to preserve their faith and the wide spread nature of such secrecy. Under the guise of Christianity, the Jewish community set up trade ports which spread and grew exponentially[1]. These ports not only transmitted goods but the Jewish religion as well. Once the trade routes were established, “New Christian merchants came to control commercial ties with Brazil, they also became heavily involved in the African Slave Trade”[2]  and “the well-traveled commercial highway between Brazil and the Dutch Republic enabled Brazilian New Christians to return to Judaism”[3]. However, even as Judaism became more at the forefront within the economic community, it was not embraced. They may have gained certain privileges in some areas of the Atlantic World, but they never gained full rights[4].

Unlike the Jewish faith that rode under the wave of Christianity, Muslim and African religions resided within the wave, adapting within it. Christianity was a formidable religion and in order to salvage whatever they could, members of the Muslim and African religions adapted to their situation. The Muslim religion used Christianity as a mask to hide its true nature; it used the similarity between the religions to hide in plain sight[5]. Although individuals were forcibly baptized, “the forced separation of the slaves from the European Christian culture and the isolation of the estates thus created room for preaching religious teachings”[6]. Under the guise of Christian gatherings, Muslim slaves reached their own religious beliefs.

Similar to the Muslim practice, African religions also used the Christian faith. However, unlike the Muslim population, the African religions not only used Christianity to convey their own beliefs, they took pieces from both faiths, creating a hybrid religion[7]. Throughout Africa and the Atlantic World “Christianity was highly mixed with African religions, even in areas…where institutional churches existed and an on-going educational establishment was operating”[8]. Even as areas were saturated with the Christian religion, African beliefs did not get left behind.

Religion adapted or was done in secrecy, but was not given full freedom. Freedom is the ability to do something without fear or persecution, and the fact that religions had to be practiced in secrecy or adapted in order to have a sense of religious control makes it clear that freedom was severely lacking. Christianity in the Atlantic World created new religions entirely or strangled any foothold another may have been gaining. Religious freedom was not granted within the Atlantic World, but its people fought long and hard to retain their religious preferences despite the world in which they lived.

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[1] Klooster, Wim "Communities of port Jews and their contacts in the Dutch Atlantic World," Jewish History (2006). 20:131, http://www.springerlink.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/content/?k=doi:("10.1007/s10835-005-9001-0")&MUD=MP (accessed June 19, 2012).

[2] Klooster, 131.

[3] Klooster, 130.

[4] Klooster, 136-137.

[5] Afroz, Sultan. "The Jihad of 1831-1832: The Misunderstood Baptist Rebellion in Jamaica,"  Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (2001) 21, no 2: 232, http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=03f99dbe-1e3a-49ca-9f8b-66d03ee1eeec%40sessionmgr12&vid=2&hid=10 (accessed June 19, 2012).

[6] Afroz, 232.

[7] Thornton, John K. "On the Trail of Voodoo: African Christianity in Africa and the Americas," The Americas (Jan., 1988) 44, no 3:264, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1006906 (accessed June 19, 2012).

[8] Thornton, 266.