Slaves have never been mere passive victims of slavery. Typically, they have responded with ingenuity to their violent separation from their native societies, using a variety of strategies to create new social networks and cultures. Religion has been a major arena for such slave cultural strategies. Through participation in religious and ritual activities, slaves have generated important elements of identity, shared humanity, and even resistance, within their lives.
This volume presents papers from a conference of the University of Nottingham’s Institute for the Study of Slavery – the only UK centre studying its history from antiquity to the present. It breaks new ground by juxtaposing slave strategies within the diverse religious cultures of Graeco-Roman antiquity and modern Brazil. After a wide-ranging historiographical survey, eleven experts examine how in both societies slave religious activities involved both constraints and opportunities, shedding particular new light on the neglected religious strategies of Graeco-Roman slaves.
