Hell Without Fires

"Hell Without Fires examines the spiritual and earthly results of conversion to Christianity for African-American antebellum writers. Using autobiographical narratives, the book shows how black writers transformed the earthly hell of slavery into a "New Jerusalem," a place they could call home." "These stories by five of the earliest antebellum spiritual writers - George White, John Jea, David Smith, Solomon Bayley, and Zilpha Elaw - create a new religious language that merges Christian scripture with distinct retellings of biblical stories, with enslaved people of African descent at their center. Showing the ways their language exploits the levels of meaning of words like master, slavery, sin, and flesh, Pierce argues that the narratives address the needs of those who attempted to transform a foreign god and religion into a personal and collective system of beliefs." "Pierce presents a complex and subtle assessment of the language of conversion in the context of slavery. Her work will be important to those interested in the topics of slave religion and spiritual autobiography and to scholars of African American and early American literature and religion."--BOOK JACKET.