Chapter 13, The Church and Slavery Summary and Analysis

After the scare resulting from Nat Turner's insurrection, the slaveholders in the area decide that the slaves would benefit from some religious training (to discourage them from murdering their masters). The churches within the community begin to offer special services for colored people in the afternoons when the white people are not at church.

The reader learns of a sanctimonious pastor named Mr. Pike, who inculcates the slaves with the belief that God wants them to obey their masters faithfully, and that resistance to one's master is depravity in the eyes of God that is punishable by the fires of hell.

One also learns of a second pastor. This pastor comes into town to helm the Episcopal church after his predecessor, a man popular among slaveholders leaves to take on a more lucrative...