"It Is True in More Senses Than One, That Slavery Rests upon Hell!" Embodiment, Experience, and Evil in African American Discussions of Slavery and Shareholders

To fully understand how African Americans once held in slavery challenged and redefined notions of authentic Christianity and religion, one must move beyond an approach to religion that focuses purely on the interiority of mind, intellect, soul, and belief. These nineteenth-century African Americans described slavery as a hellish experience that was embodied and enacted. What they saw, what they heard, what they felt physically, and how they and others behaved mattered as much as what anyone thought or believed. Here, Blum brings the insights of scholars Mark M. Smith and Anthony Pinn on the importance of senses and bodies to the study of nineteenth-century discussions of religion and slavery.