Inevitable then is the conclusion that the religion of the American slaves was decidedly different from the prevailing religion found among the peoples of Africa. We saw that fetishism was the prevailing religion found in Africa; that the few American slaves who maintained any of their African religious heritage were considered grossly superstitious by the American slaves generally; that the slave-groups brought to America from Africa were so broken up and scattered that the old group-habits did not continue to exist. We found on the other hand that the slaves of America, who were in contact with Christianity, became very enthusiastic over the Christian religion; that they developed a sorrow for this world and a joyous longing for heaven, as they showed by their shouts and songs. This emphasis upon a place of rest in heaven, we conclude, helped the American slave adjust himself to his particular environment. As it helped him to live, so it helped him also to die. G. R. WILSON. FOOTNOTES: [1] This dissertation was submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature of the University of Chicago in candidacy for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, March, 1921, by Gold Refined Wilson. [2] Working toward this end, I have examined a vast amount of material on slavery, much of which is controversial, having been written by men who favored slaves, or by abolitionists and slaves who were able to see only one side of the question discussed. Such literature, being biased, so distorts the truth that it is extremely difficult to discover what is social fact. As sources, however, I have used books and magazine-articles, written from a more scientific point of view. There are a few representative ones. Kingsley's _West African Studies_, which, although expressing the attitude of the author, gives us a comprehensive picture of what the life in Africa is. Washington, in the _Story of the Negro_, in a simple, sincere manner, sets forth the struggles of the Negro in his contact with a higher civilization. Woodson's _Education of the Negro prior to 1861_ shows to what extent effort was made by the whites to bring the slaves into contact with the white civilization. _The Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia_, by Earnest, shows how the church of the Negro slave, beginning in the church of the whites, grew to be an independent organization. Fragmentary evidence in the histories of the religious denominations shows the same progressive development. A few of the stories of fugitive slaves, though written for other purposes, still speak very clearly of how dependent the slave was upon his cultural surroundings for his religious ideas. The stories of the lives of Nat Turner, the Virginia slave insurrectionist, and of _Harriet, the Moses of Her People_, are filled with apocalyptic imagery. Concerning the phenomena of cultural contacts, the most scholarly piece of work yet produced is that by Prof.