The abuse and harsh treatment slaves received from their masters were left hidden. Because of this the slaves had no legal rights to protect them and no voices that could be taken seriously. They couldn't go and file a complaint in court and build a trial, to receive justice. They had no protection, but only that which the slave community gave each other. They acquired the skills “necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones from a brutal system of slavery” (Hine 159). Through folk tales the slave learned skills which were “watching what they said to whites, not responding, withholding information about other African Americans, and dissembling” (Hine 159). In this way the African slave protected himself and gave the master fewer problems and opportunities to punish him. Slaves saw religion as a way out of the slavery they found themselves in. This was a way to deal with slavery and the treatment they were receiving. Since then, religion was the only place where they were not seen as slaves, but as human beings. However, sometimes “masters denied their slaves access to Christianity” (Hine 159). Slaves saw other ways to engage in religion. The religions most practiced by slaves were Baptist and Methodist. These religious congregations “had racially segregated seating, but whites and blacks joined together in communion and church discipline” (Hine 159). There were also master-sponsored plantation churches where they were preached to obey their masters. The slaves did not like this and instead “preferred a semi-secret black church which they conducted under the leadership of” (Hine 160) a black preacher. Here they practiced their beliefs and served with "the song... middle of paper... that he had over his slaves. Slavery in the 19th century consisted of the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery and how it built the way slavery was viewed in the Americas Reinforcing the thought that African slavery was the most beneficial and profitable way to grow the economy in the Americas African slaves suffered many things as they came to the Americas and lived in this country. They saw a wrong way of life in their eyes and in their minds. They were accustomed to the profit of others and denied what was already theirs, namely the freedom and equality color of their skin were inexplicable. And the many problems that Americans created treated them as they did and saw them as something different from them. Considering them as property and not as human beings and denying them rights.