Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Some time after the rebellion, local slaveholders decide that the slaves should attend religious services “to keep them from murdering their masters.” Linda is invited to attend a new Episcopal service for black people. Reverend Pike, the pastor, reads from a text that states “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters…as unto Christ.” In his sermon, he calls the congregants “rebellious sinners” and harangues them for shirking work and drinking alcohol, saying that God will punish them.

Everyone is “amused” by the sermons and they return for a few more Sundays but eventually get bored and switch to Methodist services, which are full of singing and dancing. Linda feels that these people are more “sincere” Christians than the “sanctimonious” Reverend Pike.

Once, Linda attends a Methodist service and sits next to a mother who is broken-hearted, having just seen her youngest daughter sold away from her. The service leader is the local constable, who trades slaves and is frequently employed by other slaveholders to whip disobedient slaves. When he asks her what’s wrong, she shares her grief, saying that “I’ve got nothing to live for now” and praying to die. Linda sees that while other congregants are crying in sympathy, the constable is trying not to laugh. He tells her that the sale of her daughter is the “dispensation of [God’s] divine will.” The slaves begin to sing a hymn; Linda says that, hearing them, one might almost think them happy people.

At one point, the Episcopal clergyman leaves and is replaced by a pastor who is much kinder to the black community, holding meetings expressly for them in which he sincerely discusses Biblical texts and treats them as “human beings.” Soon, the white parishioners become disgruntled, resenting the energy and respect he devotes to these meetings. When the pastor’s wife dies, he frees their five slaves and leaves the town.

Linda becomes friends with an elderly slave, Fred, who has recently joined the Baptist church and wants to learn to read. She warns him that this is now against the law, but he is serious about his intent and proves a quick learner, reading the Bible after a few months of study. Linda says that there are thousands of people “thirsting for the water of life” like Fred and forbidden, by law, from accessing it. She points out the hypocrisy of sending people to teach “the heathen abroad” but forbidding black people in America from learning to read.

Linda says that missionaries should “talk to American slaveholders as you talk to savages in Africa,” alerting them of the sinfulness of selling children, abusing young women, and disobeying God by harming their brethren. Whenever religious readers raise such subjects in the South, they are ostracized and driven away. Often, clergymen visit the South feeling that slavery is morally wrong, but allow themselves to be persuaded otherwise by slaveholders who invite them to luxurious plantations and show them the dwellings of favorite slaves, who are intimidated into expressing contentment in their lot. These men then return to the North and defend the institution, knowing nothing of the moral depravity it actually causes.

It seems to Linda that there is an important divide between “Christianity and religion” in the South. For example, Dr. Flint is religious and always donates money to the church, but “the worst persecutions [she] endured from him were after he was a communicant.” He openly admits to her that he joined the church to shore up his social position and put an end to gossip about his character. Gallingly, he encourages Linda to join the church as well.

In response to this, Linda says she would be happy “if I could be allowed to live like a Christian.” Dr. Flint says that the best way for her to be virtuous is to obey him, and she retorts that this isn’t what the Bible says. He explodes, raging at her that she has no right to tell him what she wants and doesn’t want.