The African Religion

In West Africa, where most of the slaves involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade came from, the religion of Vodun was practiced by at least 30 million people in Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Vodun, with its, numerous deities, spirit possessions, and animal sacrifices is one of the African religions that has, in my opinion, become the most misunderstood religions on this planet. In the eyes of people who bought and sold slaves the concept of paganism was used to justify the enslavement of African people and to separate them from their original religion.

In the Americas, the African religion of Vodun was renamed Voodoo and scorned by the none Vodun believers, made up of European and colonial slave owners and colonial slave merchants. The slave owners sought to do away with the ritual and tradition associated with the African religion and to perform a Christian conversion of their growing population of enslaved African people to the more refined and documented religion of Christianity. Over the years many slaves did let go of their religious umbilical connection to the motherland of Africa and grew apart from their religion that emphasized a more harmonious balance between the spiritual world and nature.

For a time many of the newly converted Africans still found ways to incorporate some of their African rituals into their Christian beliefs and in the South American places where they were left to practice their brand of Christian mixed with African religious way some of their African religious roots can still be found today. In North America, just about all of the African religious roots have disappeared, by separating the African American slaves from their cosmologies, rituals, and rites that they still clung to. Gone were their cultural expression, in song, dance, stories, and knowledge of the healing arts. As a result, Vodun turned Voodoo, continued to be demonized by the promoters of Christianity who viewed Voodoo as mere superstitions, that without a written text, was considered worthy only of being labeled heathen, and looked upon by the Christians as idolatry.

In fact, s variety of polytheistic religions had existed on the African continent for example, for centuries the African continent had fallen under Islamic influence so, in fact, not all African religions were without documentation (or written text) and not all the Africans shipped to the Americas were unable to read. The majority of African slaves may not have been able to read English, but many could read Arabic. Sprinkled throughout the colonies were small groups of practicing Muslim Africans that had a tendency to be pointed out by the slave merchants as exceptional slave labor groups. During the early part of the nineteenth century, a larger number of Islamic slaves would end up in northeast Brazil than all of the colonies and it would be the Muslim slave's that would provide a greater source of trouble and discontentment for their owners.

Portuguese missionaries had actually introduced European Christianity in places on the African West Coast in the fifteenth century making some slaves familiar with Christianity even before they were robbed of their freedom. The Old Testament spoke of the condition of the enslaved and nurtured within those slaves listening to the words of the bible the belief in future equality and freedom. Many of the slaves converting to Christianity would come to visualization Christianity as a possible way to freedom, and as more of the slave population converted to Christianity slaveholders came to the realization that one day the Christianization of the slaves might lead to a demand of emancipation.

In a way, the slave owners were right freedom was a word those who owned slaves didn't want to hear when it came to their slaves but eventually members of the churches, Quakers, Abolitionist, and American Indians would begin assisting slaves who would choose to emancipate themselves. Word had reached many slaves in the colonies that in Florida the Spanish held out the promise of freedom as a reward to any slave willing to undergo conversion to Christianity; which prompted the 1667 law passed in Virginia that stated conversion to Christianity did not change the status of a person from slave to free. As evangelicals and preachers drew more and more Africans born in America into the chapels and churches in North America their Christian conversion would just about do away with the religion brought to North America by the enslaved Africans. Through it all, some African descendant with the desire to hold on to the old African beliefs changed and adapted to their worship to their new circumstance.


That's why in places where the African descendants were given their own social space remnants of the old African religion can still be found in distinctive local forms like Santeria in Cuba, Voodoo in Haiti, Obeah and Myalism in Jamaica. These religious holdovers from Africa the stories, song, dances, and African religion are not to be feared in fact, it would not hurt for everyone, Christians included, to try and understand the religions forcible exported here hundreds of years ago. For those African beliefs still practiced on this continent, remember they are the last vestiges of the few possessions the African Ancestors taken from Africa were allowed to bring with them.

Honoring the African Ancestors

Back when the author Alex Haley documented the journey of his family roots, from Africa to a slave ship, to the Americas and the slave auction block. The unfolding of that information led him on a journey of adventure that he would eventually transform into his book titled Roots. With the help of Ancestors-dot-com, I was driven to learn more about my own family's African-American roots. I have to admit that my journey in search of my family's roots has been bewilderingly exciting. I have learned that you will need some C.S.I., investigative skills because you will have to overcome some of the family stories you have grown up with in order to embrace some of the cold hard facts that have a tendency to appear before you in the US census reports from long ago. A good example of this is while exploring my mother's side of the family things seemed pretty straightforward. There was an ancestor by the name of Celie, just like the character name in the movie Color Purple (I kid you NOT) who was a slave. She was given to the slave owner's daughter as a wedding present and from Celie, I was able to track solid family connections from 1855 to the present time.

My father's side of the family needed all of my detective skills which were very close to zero. But persistence and a lot of luck paid off. My father's side of the family just seemed to pop into existence with no prior history that was until I finally ran across a census report where I found all of my father's family names as they appeared on a later census only on this census the entire family was listed as white. Tracing that family line back from the time my father's family first appeared in my research filled in all the blanks. My search was based on all the information I had collected from older family members, many of them now deceased never revealed anything about a mixed family. I realized that I was looking at something about our family that none of us knew. It appeared that my grandfather was Caucasian, and for as long as he was alive the family was listed in the census as white. After he passed away the same family unit (with everyone a little older) was changed from white to colored at the point my father's family first appeared on my radar. All of my Ancestor' dot com drama is why I appreciate what Alex Haley was able to do. I put a pin in it and moved on with my research.

I remember looking at a map of Africa and thinking what a monumental task it must have been to backtrack hundreds of years in search of a family line beginning. Alex Haley went on to transform his Book Roots into a television special that kept people (like a younger me) glued to their television screen every night the televised drama, Roots, was shown. Almost every A-List actor in Hollywood, black and white, wanted to be part of that history-making television production. Aside from showing the horrors of slavery; the mood of this nation toward slavery in the 1800s and the plight of African people born in America at that time, the overall story of Alex Haley's Roots displayed a strong emphasis on family, along with the drive and desire not to forget where you had come from, or all those that had come before you.

To the lead character, Kunta Kinte, Africa was his home, and while he never got the chance to return to his home the African country and its region would not be an alien place to Kunta Kinte had he found a way to get back home. He understood the language, culture, and landscapes. Fast forward a few hundred years and African Americans born on this continent were forced to give up their language, their culture, and their religion are familiar with a new language, (English) a new culture, and a new religion (Christianity). When I was in college (back in the black power 1960s) I remember several of my activist friends talking about going back to Africa, even though they were born in the U.S., for at least two of them that experience led to disappointment, the couple one man, one woman that made it to Africa were not there for a year before their desire to return to America soon outweighed their desire to live in Africa.

One of the major effects of Alex Haley's book Roots was a giant surge in ancestor research by thousands of people from every nationality and most likely the cause of the growth of places like Ancestors dot com. The African people who came to the Americas as slaves were transformed from African culture to their new way of living over hundreds of years. Today just about the only trait African Americans have that relates to Africa is our skin color which is one of the reasons I tell the story of William and Rosa Bella Burke in my Juneteenth Handbook. The Burke's reminded me so much of my college friends determined to return to a motherland they had only read about or seen on television or in motion pictures.

Their experience was much like that of William and his wife Rosa Bella, two slaves who were set free by their master Robert E. Lee prior to the Civil War. They were African Americans separated from Africa by generations but when offered the chance to go to Africa, at the expense of their former master Robert E. Lee, they said yes. Assisted by the American Colonization Society (A.C.S.) the Burkes moved their entire immediate family from the U.S. to Africa because, as Rosabella put it, she wanted her children to grow up free. Upon arriving in the tiny coastal colony on the west coast of Africa, started by the A.C.S., would later grow into the Nation of Liberia. The Burke family settled into the African way of life and were immediately introduced to some of the harsh differences that went along with relocating to a new land.

Like my college friends, neither William nor Rosabella spoke the African Language, and few of the Africans that worked with the A.C.S. spoke a little English but this didn't help the built-in animosity between Africans and the newly arrived African American beginning to arrive into the tiny colony promoted by the A.C.S. William began taking some of the African people into his home, and sharing what little he had with them. He began teaching English to the African people he reached out to and with Rosabella, they worked to feed, clothe, and teach the African people around them. As time passed William started a church and it was during those troubled times that Rosabella continued to communicate with Mary Curtis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee. Many of their correspondence would be published in the 1859 edition of the American Repository. The women shared news of what was happening in their respective countries, Mary Curtis Lee told Rosabella of the growing talk of a war between the states.

Rosabella sent messages that told of the struggle involved in her family's slow and sometimes painful assimilation into African culture, she shared news of the people, places, and things she and things that she and her family had to deal with on a daily basis. Rosabella asked Mary Curtis Lee to pass messages on to her and William's family members still living in the area. Even though William and Rosabella Burke had little in common with the people in their new surroundings except for the color of their skin, unlike my college buddies, they would eventually make the transition to living outside of the U.S. In one of the messages from Rosabella, Mary C. Lee learned that Rosa Bella was expecting her first child born in Africa, and Rosabella was given the news that there was a war going on between the states.

"I love Africa," Rosabella wrote in one of her letters to Mary, "and I would not change it for America," she added.

The Burkes would eventually make Africa their home and because of her friend in America, Mary Curtis Lee, she and her husband William would be kept up-to-date about the war going on between the states an entire ocean away. Rosabella Burke would give birth to her first baby born free in Africa, a baby girl that she would name after her friend and former slave owner in America, Mary Curtis Burke.

I have come to love the study of history, in particular, black history.  I have found learning about America's past with regard to slavery, the trade triangle, and people removed from Africa to be worthwhile history. In a way, it was following the slavery history trail that eventually steered me to the history behind the creation of the Juneteenth Day Celebration.

In fact, I had gone to visit my mother who was from Texas to get information about her feelings about the Juneteenth Day Celebration and to see what she remembered of the celebration from when she was younger?  But when I found her sitting in solitude at my brother's house in Oakland CA. the subject changed. I learned from her that her most recent stroke had taken away her ability to write and that she was feeling down because when she could have taken the time to sit down and put her story into words life had often gotten in her way. I was able to lift her spirits by volunteering to write her book for her, which is another reason I spent so much time on Ancestors dot com.

After interviewing her for as much detail as she could recall, I wrote her book for her, over that summer I wrote, giving my mom the writer's credit, and by the New Year, her book Faye was published. I had a rubber stamp of her signature made so that she could sign her book for family members. Before she passed away a few years later she told me, the real reason she wanted to get the book done. One of her grandchildren (probably mine I'll bet) was having a conversation with her about the library, and in her attempt to explain to her grandchild's inquisitive little brain, she made the comment that you could find anything in the library. To which the child responded that he was going to check out the book about our family so that he could read all about the family members that came before him. In the end, I never did get to have that deep Juneteenth Day Celebration conversation with Miss Eunie Mae about growing up in Texas and Juneteenth.

Luckily for me today the Internet is a great place to look for facts especially where they relate to the trans-Atlantic slave trade up to and including Juneteenth. What you do with those facts is up to you. Use them to track down Ancestor dot com leads on your family root connection to Africa, or do what I did and turn some of your research findings into an educational presentation about slavery.

The thing that is foremost in my thoughts when I think about celebrating Juneteenth is that just like the Hebrews who came to celebrate their deliverance from slavery with the Passover celebration. Liberated slaves here in America celebrated their freedom from slavery with the Juneteenth Day Celebration. I celebrate Juneteenth Day in honor of all those who did not live long enough to know the freedom that they prayed and fought for.

Juneteenth Drinking Mugs

Collection of Juneteenth Drinking Mugs to celebrate American history, the beginning of the Juneteenth Day Celebration and to help keep you warm during the winter months by warming your hand when this mug is filled with your favorite hot drink. Several different artist Juneteenth designs are featured here below. A nice addition to your kitchen, or a nice gift for that special someone. Celebrate the history connected to the Juneteenth Day Celebration all year long and learn more about Emancipation. Visit the Juneteenth Handbook Pinterest board.

family-reunion Two-Tone coffee mug
by FayFood

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Harriet Tubman Collage Mug

Juneteenth Mug

Juneteenth Mug

Springfield Juneteenth Mug

Juneteenth Mug

Juneteenth Stars Coffee Mugs

Juneteenth Stars Specialty Mugs

Juneteenth Stars Lovers Mugs

Juneteenth/Liberation Coffee Mugs

Juneteenth/Liberation Lovers Mugs

Juneteenth/Liberation Specialty Mugs

Juneteenth Freedom Day African American Coffee Mug

Black History Emancipation Freedom Juneteenth Mug

Juneteenth Party 1865 Coffee Mug African American

Juneteenth Freedom Day Coffee Mug June 19th

Party Like Its 1865 Happy Juneteenth Coffee Mug

Juneteenth/Liberation Soup Mug

BLACK RAINBOW mug

Juneteenth Freedom Coffee Mug

Juneteenth Freedom Black History Flag Coffee Mug

Party Like Its 1865 Happy Juneteenth Coffee Mug

Juneteenth Stars Soup Mug

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Abolitionist Study 5

This is the 5th and final post in my Abolitionist Study Post about the interactions between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln during the build-up and the actual prosecution of the war within this nation. The Civil War continued from one bloody battlefield to the next and along the way, Lincoln would learn that the British did not plan to join Confederate forces in the War Between the States. America was the only colony turned union capable of supplying England with its source of cotton. I can imagine that Great Britain was in the same state of limbo put so many American politicians on the fence, unclear just who would be victorious in the Civil War but willing to wait until the war was over before making any commitment.

If cotton wasn't a good enough reason for the English to join up with the rebels perhaps the reason for the British superpower not wanting to commit troops and resources preserve slavery was because Britain had already outlawed slavery, in fact, the British Navy was an active participant in the blockade set up along the African coast to prevent new slaves from being taken out of Africa. The effect of the blockade made new slave transport riskier and thus more costly. American ship captains experienced at evading the blockade incurred the risk and asked for more money from the slave merchants intent on ignoring the no new slaves law.

Fredrick Douglass felt that the battle going on between the states would lead, either to this nation's salvation, or its ruin. During the Civil War, most of the union of states was located east of the Mississippi River. Explorers were beginning to map out territories in what was, back then, the uncharted lands to the west, and slavery would have to grow to keep up. The disunion between the states that would eventually elevate itself to the ultimate conflict of open war had actually played itself out earlier when Kansas was set upon by pro-slavery southerners determined to make the new state a slave state, and northern anti-slavery factions determined to see Kansas become a free state.

My Abolitionist Study Post constitutes mostly my thoughts and feelings from my reading of the book Douglass and Lincoln, by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick. Back in the 90's when I worked as a writer on the Juneteenth Documentary A Time to be Remembered, a Juneteenth Story, distributed by Karol Media. Most of the information I came across spoke of Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass with regard to the Emancipation Proclamation and since that time I have been interested in understanding the true relationship between Fredrick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

The book Douglass and Lincoln filled in a lot of the blanks for me with regard to the true relationship between these two men. Lincoln's plans for what was to come for the slaves, after the Civil War was not realized, mainly because his vice president, Andrew Johnson did not see the post-Civil War years the way Lincoln had visualized. Fredrick Douglass and a few others who would accompany him to the White House to meet with the new vice-president-turned-president would find out that President Johnson's post-war visualization for the ex-slaves would be tempered by the new commander and chief worries about preventing a race war, a bitter-sweet climax to the Civil War for Fredrick Douglass and his abolitionist supporters.

I did learn the over the years Frederick Douglass had visited the White House more than a few times, and that while many of his meeting with President Lincoln was contentious they were most often productive, and for the most part pleasant. Kind of like two people attracted by the same idea, but with two completely different ideas on how to get the job done. Douglass was treated to none of those comforting thoughts or feeling after his meeting with the new President of the United States.

I ended up being almost as surprised as Frederick Douglass was when Abraham Lincoln widow Mary included Frederick Douglass on her list of people that she would send mementos of her husband to. She sent her husband’s walking staff to Frederick Douglass along with a note explaining how Abraham Lincoln had considered Douglass someone important to him. Frederick Douglass wrote her back telling Mary Lincoln that he would treasure her gift to him till the day he died.

With Abraham Lincoln gone President Andrew Johnson, the almost total opposite to Abraham Lincoln with regard to the Post-Civil-War, ex-slave problem would be left to start the reconstruction of the Union. Douglass and his supporters would fight hard to turn Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation into the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and make slavery illegal in this country. 

While many white people had fought to end slavery many were still not ready to have the slaves-turned ex-slaves as neighbors and for a long time would support the so-called black codes designed to separate the races.  Frederick Douglass would live into his seventies and die a free man in a country still healing itself.

Abolitionist Study Part 4

Fredrick Douglass was aware of the inherent racism in the new Lincoln administration and probably knew that for every decision related to the slavery issue that Lincoln stood strong on, he lost some of his political support. None of the politicians knew how the Civil War would end but most would come to know enough about Lincoln's plan to redistribute the land in the south to the slaves. Politicians and the rest of the country knew that the Civil War would be a fight to the death for one of the factions involved in the war between the states, and I believe that remaining flexible, politically, was better than committing to an uncertain future.

To the south losing the Civil War would mean way more than simply losing a war, it would also mean losing a way of life that had existed for hundreds of years on this continent, and from what Lincoln could see the Confederates were intent upon winning the war to preserve their way of life. Douglass saw fighting the Civil War without the use of free colored people and slave the same as the Union fighting the war with only some of its available resources. The New York Tribune published "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" encouraging Lincoln to emancipate the slaves and in effect joining the Douglas Monthy publication in a call to bringing Africa into the Civil War.

Lincoln's response was:


My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing one slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it...



Lincoln's focus on saving the Union with little consideration given to the thought of slavery, except where the issue might promote his cause was his presidential stance to the press and public. However, Lincoln himself secretly shared many of his fellow politician's fears about arming thousands of African Americans to do battle with the southern states. President Abraham Lincoln would eventually overcome his fear that a well-trained, well-armed regiment of colored people could help take the war to the south, and overcome his anxiety that weapons issued to the slaves would end up in Confederate hands.

History would later show that colored Americans wore the uniforms of the north and the south, and fought on both sides of the Civil War. Colored businessmen in New Orleans, after being refused by Robert E. Lee to join up with regular Confederate force, would take up defensive positions to protect their businesses in the south. Northern color Americans fought to be completely apart of the Union, and slaves from the north and the south would fight for promised freedom and better treatment for their military service in a war that would create veterans on both sides.

The Abolitionist Study Part 3

Abolitionist, Thomas Garrett, a well-known operator on the clandestine system set up to assist fugitive slaves called the Underground Railroad, was saved by his community who stepped forward as the war between the states became a reality. As far as politics went, you might say that Lincoln's worst fears were realized. The nation had pulled itself apart and settled itself into two warring factions, North and South, on his watch.

With the beginning of the Civil War, Lincoln had to realize that normal politics had failed and that his first step in trying to preserve the union of states, or what was left of it, was to issue notice, to the Confederate forces, that the union planned to reclaim all of its forts, compounds, and territories, up to and including Fort Sumter, that had been taken over by the rebel forces. For Lincoln, it was a time for consorting with his generals and deploying his forces to answer all of the unknown questions necessary for a rookie commander and chief to prosecuting a war that would pit Americans against Americans.

His new presidency starting with a Constitutional crisis Lincoln public addresses turned more toward managing the war. Knowing his enemies strengths, and understanding his own militaries standing was key to prosecuting the war with the Confederates, Another consideration for Lincoln was managing the worries presented to him by those gathered around him. Could the Union end up in a war with a superpower and the Confederacy? Could the British be talked into joining the south in its battle against the Union to preserve Great Britain's southern supply of cotton? 

During that time Fredrick Douglass recognized that the words in Lincoln's speeches to the public continued to assure the south that the newly elected president did not intend to ignore enforcing fugitive slave laws. Prompting stories that reached Douglass that told of Union Generals turning away fugitive slave along with any useful intelligence they must have had.  Fredrick Douglass continued to speak to the public too, through his publication the Douglass Monthly. In his May 1861 issue, Douglass put forth the idea in print that free colored people and slaves be called up for military service, but where Douglass saw the formation of a liberating free black regiment trampling on the moral of the south, Lincoln saw adding more fuel to an already out of control fire.

When the reality of "war" began to sink into Washington DC politics many of the politicians were suddenly concerned about appeasing the Confederacy, further complicating Lincoln's ability to map out a clear war plan I'm sure, and perhaps the real reason Lincoln's words, when it came to the issue of slavery, fell so flat on Fredrick Douglass' ears.

The Abolitionist Study Part 2

The months leading up to Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, in 1861, were filled with telegraph reports of states like Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida taking their leave from the Union as one by one the southern states recombined themselves into the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy had taken the step that Douglass has assumed they would not. As Lincoln entered the presidency he became commander and chief of a military slowly spreading itself apart with two factions the abolitionist and the confederates ready for war. Even though newly in office Lincoln also knew the conditions were right for civil conflict.

On the slavery issue, the middle ground seemed to be disappearing and it was time to pick a side. With the secession of the southern states, Lincoln had to have realized that he no longer had to play by southern rules with regard to the agreements made about fugitive slaves, and southern slave hunters. Separating themselves from the union meant the south would have to use its own guns and could no longer count on northern support when it came to southern slaves.

But where the Confederates were unified against the abolitionist north and the abolitionist north just as unified against the Confederacy, as commander and chief, Lincoln has to mount a defense with union forces that were in many ways a mixture of both sides. So where Frederick Douglass might have said: "forward into battle men to free the slaves." Lincoln might have said, "Forward into battle men to preserve the union."

The war was on, and I'm sure that mothers in the south, as well as mothers in the north, cautioned their sons going off to war to remember that they might have relatives, driven into the conflict between the states just as they were, fighting on the other side. Battlefields in the north and south would be soaked in blood over the next few years as American fought against each other sacrificing their limbs, their youth, their lives and I suspect in some cases even their relatives on the other side of the battlefield. Both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass knew that no matter who won the war the U.S. would be changed forever.

Just as the gloves were off for President Lincoln with the secession of the southern states, when it came to the southern demands on the north where slavery was concerned, the Confederates in many ways felt the same and as a result. Many prominent white Abolitionist suddenly found themselves in needed 24-hour protection from southerners and southern sympathizers. In the case of Thomas Garrett, the community around him including many African Americans armed themselves and protected the valuable member of their community day and night. (To be continued)