They are seemingly preoccupied with the works of such outstanding intellectuals as DuBois and Woodson and so failure to appreciate the less academically sophisticated, but equally profound influence of
slave religion as a counter-hegemonic force.
(21) Margaret Washington Creel, "A Peculiar People":
Slave Religion and Community Culture Among the Gullahs (New York: New York University Press, 1988), 139; Donald G.
(8.) In addition to Raboteau's
Slave Religion, also see Woodson, Aptheker, and Raboteau's African-American Religion, Religion in American Life.
He critically examines the origins, norms, and foundation of the first source,
slave religion, as formational of both American Protestantism and American culture.
(9.) The first two chapters of Albert Raboteau's study on
slave religion examine the major characteristics of African traditional religions and why African-based religions had a greater survival rate in areas of the Americas other than mainland North America.
Well known to historians as a specialist in
slave religion in the antebellum United States, Raboteau's present volume is alternatively scholarly and personal.
From "the invisible institution" of Al Raboteau's seminal
Slave Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978) to the increasing numbers of monographs that cover black religious life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, stories of a heroic and often political "black church" have shaped how we view all of black religious history.
Orser, Jr., in his survey of the historical archaeology of
slave religion offer pieces substantial enough to serve as counterweights to the more traditional histories.