Blasphemous Doctrine for a Slave to Teach

Abstract

This chapter discusses enslaved men’s attempts to provision their families materially, emotionally, and spiritually. Often unable to openly exhibit the hallmarks of nineteenth century masculinity, to provide and protect, enslaved men found covert ways to support and influence their loved ones through ideological provisioning, a form of subtle resistance. Slaveholders could never entirely control the exchange of cultural goods and ideas, and caretaking fathers regularly couched their authority in the mantle of religious counsel.