Nothing
suited his condition then better than the doctrines of passive
submission embodied in the newly learned Christianity. Slave
masters early realized this, and cheerfully aided religious
propaganda within certain bounds. The long system of repres-
sion and degradation of the Negro tended to emphasize the
elements of his character which made him a valuable chattel:
courtesy became humility, moral strength degenerated into
submission, and the exquisite native appreciation of the beau-
tiful became an infinite capacity for dumb suffering. The
Negro, losing the joy of this world, eagerly seized upon the
offered conceptions of the next; the avenging Spirit of the
Lord enjoining patience in this world, under sorrow and
tribulation until the Great Day when He should lead His dark
children home,--this became his comforting dream. His
preacher repeated the prophecy, and his bards sang,--
"Children, we all shall be free
When the Lord shall appear!"
This deep religious fatalism, painted so beautifully in "Un-
cle Tom," came soon to breed, as all fatalistic faiths will, the
sensualist side by side with the martyr.
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