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The Religion of Slavery

Karl Marx poignantly described religion as the opiate of the people, and the sigh of the oppressed. Contemporary intellectuals have extended this premise to say that religion also functions as the golden scepter of oppressors that is used to buttress and perpetuate the plethora of tyrannical regimes that has afflicted societies throughout human history. One such regime is slavery, which was severely exacerbated by the onslaught of the racialised version that emerged from the discourse between Europe, Africa and the Americas. This essay seeks to explore the intricate relationship that existed between racialised western slavery and the Christian religious paradigm, with respect to the work of the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson. The topic of religion is very important to any discussion of slavery as it was at the helm of the more than three hundred years of slavery in the Americas, and it also believed to have brought about the end of slavery, so much so that......

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Approximate Word Count: 3862
Approximate Pages: 16 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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