fferent according to the law because conceptually the two identities, slave and free, closely parallel each other even today.Survival was a key element for the lives of African Americans during slavery. Its guiding principle was the ability to endure the oppression to secure the continuation of the race. Slaves recognized that adaptation to the new environment and culture in the New World would be the main factor for their ability to stay alive. They began this adaptation process, called survival faith, by creating a sub-culture which merged traditional African practices with those the slaves were forced to adopt from their masters. The African slaves brought with them all of their African traditions but were suppressed from utilizing them in their original fashion. Therefore, they merged remnants of African cultures including the great Bantu tribes from Sierra Leone to South Africa; the Sudanese, straight across the center of the continent, from the Atlantic to the Valley of the Nile; the Nilotic Negroes and the black and brown Hamites, allied with Egypt; the tribes of the great lakes; the Pygmies and the Hottentots; and in addition to these, distinct traces of both Berber and Arab (DuBois, 3) with those remnants of European and Native American cultures. This new culture was comprised of dance, rhythmic music, folk traditions and values, religious beliefs, food and its preparation, cultivation of crops, herbal medicines, socialization of children, philosophy of respect for elders, oral traditions, etc. Within each aspect of the new African American culture, survival was somehow intertwined either directly or indirectly. Along with the notion of survival faith came the belief that if the slaves were not to be free from oppression in this life, they would certainly be free from oppression in the next life. This religious rationale held a functional value and assisted the slaves in concentrating on the freedom in the next life, b...
