Although today we see slavery in moral terms, during the early years of the slave trade up until the Civil War, most Americans saw slaves as property, like a car or a computer. Owning slaves was an inalienable right for those who had the money to afford them.

During the eighteenth century, slavery itself became inextricably bound up with consumerism. By mid-century, a third of the British merchant fleet was engaged in transporting 50,000 Africans a year to the New World. American ship owners, farmers, and fisherman also profited from slavery. Proponents of slavery needed to look no further than the Bible to justify "the peculiar institution."

A common argument for slavery was found in the book of Genesis, chapter 9, in which Noah's youngest son Ham saw the nakedness of his father and had his brothers cover him. Noah then cursed Ham to be a servant to his brothers forever: "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers" (Genesis 9:25-26). Many interpreted Ham's curse as placed upon people of darker skin color - specifically, Africans. The argument's circular logic stated that since Ham's descendants were to be slaves forever, and Africans were already slaves and inferior, then they should remain in slavery. Proponents also pointed to the New Testament where, they argued, Christ never condemned slavery.

Some argued that, far from being an evil or a human institution merely permitted by God, slavery was in fact a "positive good" because it exposed "heathens" to Christianity. The plausibility of this argument would survive in the "Bible Belt" beyond the end of slavery, and would be used into the mid-twentieth century as a defense of the subjugation of Blacks as part of God's continuing plan for their progress from African savagery to civilized Americans.

Faced with the inherent paradox of this logic, the enslaved themselves reacted in a variety of ways. Some, by force of logic and painful personal experience, became atheists who scoffed at the religion of masters who prayed with them on Sunday, then beat them on Monday. Others sought to distinguish between slaveholding religion and Christianity proper. Still others held onto their African beliefs, mixing them into the potpourri of traditions found in the "bush arbors," the secret meeting places that became the invisible churches for those early African-Americans.

To read more, go to http://smith2.sewanee.edu/gsmith/Courses/Religion391/DocsMilitantSouth/1853-GovHammond.html