Christianity

What first appealed to me after indulging myself with Robert Hayden’s poem, “Middle Passage,” was the use of Spanish words. Not having frown up speaking Spanish and having to go through the trouble of leaning it there are words that for me tend to describe certain emotions and qualities of life in a better light. The opening line “Jesus, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy,” simply translate to Jesus, Star, Hope, and Mercy.
Throughout the remainder of the poem it seems that those elements of Jesus, Star, Hope, and Mercy apply to all characters mentioned throughout the poem. Jesus being the man that he was knew of the sufferings of all the people and knows the sufferings of those blacks on their perilous voyage. Jesus also serves as the center of the Christian faith which in large part was the belief of the slavetraders. The star symbolizes a couple things and in line twenty we read, “ Jesus Saviour Pilot Me.” This line denotes a few relations to the stars which often served as a sailors guide among the rocky seas. Before Jesus was born in Bethlehem a star was shown in the sky to announce the birth of the baby Jesus upon the earth.
Hope is essential for all on board, for the blacks a hope to escape their hardship or ill treatment of their new masters. Hope for the slave traders to find their way home and hopes that by trading these slaves they could make a profit or use them to do so. There is a line just before section II which reads, “Pilot oh Pilot Me,” and for me whether is be due to too much inquisition or overzealous prodding brought forth a few meanings of this line. Before Jesus was crucified he was brought forth among the people and before a man named Pilot, who ultimately would decide his fate. Succumbing to the outcry of the multitudes to crucify the Saviour, Jesus Christ, Pilot washed his hands of the deed and carried on the wish of the people till Jesus was inevitably crucified. This line in many ways speaks for the blacks who were being traded for want of the multitudes, the whites, and just as Pilot washed his hands of his deed to the Saviour the whites washed their hand of the deeds they’d done to the blacks who were sentenced to a life of slavery.
As far as Mercy is proclaimed after the rebellion of Cinquez and the other slaves the two remaining slave traders whom the slaves let live to steer the ship plead for Mercy to the courts to adequately punish the rebellious slaves. The two remaining slave traders plead, “now we demand good sirs, the extradition of Cinquez and his accomplices to La Havanna. And it distresses us to know there are so many here who justify the mutiny of the blacks.” The slave traders believed that the blacks were in the wrong and that their enslaving them did not deserve this kind of mutiny.
Middle Passage evokes the true meaning of Christianity to the forefront of the mind and begs the question what is truly good and what is truly right? The slave traders with their mindset pushed for vengeance upon the slaves, while the slaves in an effort for their own lives rebel for the what is their right and freedom as well.