1) John Marrant's narrative differs from typical slave narratives as it focuses more on his spiritual and religious experiences than providing an emotional account of his time in bondage. 2) The narrative can be seen as subtly legitimizing slavery as Marrant takes a submissive position and distances himself from his black identity in order to be accepted by white people. 3) When facing execution, Marrant asks his executioner for permission to pray, showing that both God and the executioner hold power over him as his master. The narrative reinforces the use of Christianity to justify white supremacy and slavery.

1. Shaunteri Skinner
Response Paper #4
REDI 2016
Ordained by White Supremacy
John Marrant’s narrative does not strictly follow the typical style of the traditional ‘slave
narrative’ due to its anticlimactic nature and style that reflects a biblical context. It begins with a
preface and an introduction that falsely establishes this formula, settling ‘authentication’ and a
time of birth. W. Aldridge serves as a patron that gives credibility to Marrant’s narrative,
underscoring the creative end, but verifying its ‘truth.’ This makes me skeptical of the editing
process and Aldridge’s influence on the overall presentation of this narrative. Marrant provides a
date, settling the reader into what would become his story with New York as the location. From
then on, he inhabits an overwhelmingly spiritual and religious experience that he does not
hesitate to overbear his reader with. This narrative serves more as a testimony of a man ordained
by the system that holds him captive through his merciful pleas and outbursts of prayer. In a
sense it can be seen as a pro-slavery narrative even though Marrant does not explicitly endorse
this institution.
I believe that this narrative can be seen as a text that subtly legitimizes slavery, with hints
of subordination and the choice to remain in bondage. Marrant takes subordinate position,
offering himself to the system that slave narratives commonly denounced. His motive involves
religious institutions that force him to distance himself from his Blackness in order to be
accepted by the same group that does all but view him as free even though he is a free man. He is
able to recall the horrors, but his tone in these situations does not signify any sort of outrage
toward this oppressive system through the language that he uses. Other traditional slave
narratives avoid emotional outcries in order to maintain the legitimacy of their story because
their audience was more than likely going to discredit their accounts so limited their most

2. authentic personal reflection. Marrant attempts to do the same, but it works out in contrast
because he instead focuses on his helplessness and his overall commitment to God. Instead, he
expresses that he begs for mercy when he thinks he’s going to be set on fire: “I cried out, Lord, if
it be thy will that it should be so, they will be done: I then asked the executioner to let me go to
prayer; he asked to whom? I answered, to the Lord my God; he seem surprised, and asked me
where he was” (73). The fact that he ‘asks’ the executioner whether or not he can pray shows
that it is not only God’s will that will be done. The executioner can be framed as a God-like
figure based on the context that Marrant places him in as he simply asks to pray. God is the
master, but this mortal being can be seen as his master based on the context of this passage. The
executioner gives him access, and they engage in dialogue.
Marrant’s experience with enslavement involves ‘Indians’, the indigenous people of
America who hold him captive in a way that does not represent the qualities of chattel slavery.
Indeed, he is imprisoned and somehow his enemies become his friends by the grace of God. He
prays and depends solely on his faith to be led out of this situation and is successful. Again, he
credits this overturn of their decision to the almighty, focusing less on his trials and more on the
emergence from desolation. Through appealing to the clergy, he reasserts the power of religion,
citing conversion while also reinforcing white supremacists motives to use Christianity as a tool
to legitimize slavery. In this narrative, white people are not held accountable or called out in any
sense. Yet, what if Marrant only did this to become a minister? Can this narrative be seen as a
crisis that he encounters as a Christian man that has been manipulated by a white voice?