Once in bondage, slaves were stripped of everything.  According to one writer, “The Blacks suffered under merciless circumstances. Also, their property, family, and social structures were all torn to shreds. They had nothing left except their Gods to whom they clung when all was ripped away.” In Haiti and elsewhere, there was an attempt to strip them even of that, their “heathen” beliefs being rigorously suppressed, and in the slave colonies ruled by the French Catholicism was forced upon them.  However, the slaves “worshiped many of their Gods unbeknownst to the priests, under the guise of worshipping Catholic saints.”

Voodoo’s African elements include worship of loa (supernatural entities) and the ancestral dead, together with the use of drums and dancing, during which loa may possess the faithful. Catholic elements include prayers such as the Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer, as well as baptism, making the sign of the cross, and the use of candles, bells, crosses, and the images of saints. Many of the loa are equated with specific saints. For example, Damballah, the Dahomean snake deity, is identified with St. Patrick who, having legendarily expelled all snakes from Ireland, is frequently depicted stamping on snakes or brandishing his staff at them.