" Swing Low...Sweet Chariot, comin' for to carry me home, Swing Low...Sweet Chariot, comin' for to carry me home........", I remember hearing this song in my earliest memories of going to church. It was and still is sung during our "Watch Night Service" while we pray and tarry and wait for the new year, just as the slaves did as they awaited news of emancipation, as they waited for the day of "Jubilee".
Negro spirituals, sing-songs and call/response answer, and hollering could be heard in prayer meetings and gatherings but could also be heard from workers in the fields to help with pacing the work load and with freeing their minds as they worked long hours under inhuman conditions. Often messages were passed through "code" and "sorrow" songs, because the words were undecipherable by the slave owners and overseer's. This method served to tell the news of death, escaping slaves on the underground railroad and other important plantation news. By the 1700's drums, known for their tribal connections to Africa and for their communicative ability, were banned from plantation life for fear of inciting rebellion (3). Messages were passed from field to field, house to house, plantation to plantation and, in some cases, from state to state through the message of music. When more slaves began to learn how to read, messages were created in code from songs written in hymnals.
Interestingly enough, this genre of music is unlike slave music created in other parts of the Old World and Atlantic diaspora. Even though they did not let go of their African roots, negro slaves assimilated a lot of American Culture, especially in the area of religious and spiritual practices as they embraced the God of their repressive masters. Spirituals were used as a form of comfort and expressed the joy and hope, pain and sorrow of the enslaved.
Music and dance were important aspects of the African heritage and being able to bring a piece of home with them to a foreign land was very important because it unified them as they all came from different regions in Africa and it also allowed them an escape from the reality of slavery and plantation life. Slaves manufactured drums, banjos, and rattles out of gourds similar to those found in Africa and because music and dance held both secular and spiritual meaning, negro slaves crafted a rich musical tradition that had enormous impact of the development of American music.
Negro spirituals, sing-songs and call/response answer, and hollering could be heard in prayer meetings and gatherings but could also be heard from workers in the fields to help with pacing the work load and with freeing their minds as they worked long hours under inhuman conditions. Often messages were passed through "code" and "sorrow" songs, because the words were undecipherable by the slave owners and overseer's. This method served to tell the news of death, escaping slaves on the underground railroad and other important plantation news. By the 1700's drums, known for their tribal connections to Africa and for their communicative ability, were banned from plantation life for fear of inciting rebellion (3). Messages were passed from field to field, house to house, plantation to plantation and, in some cases, from state to state through the message of music. When more slaves began to learn how to read, messages were created in code from songs written in hymnals.
Interestingly enough, this genre of music is unlike slave music created in other parts of the Old World and Atlantic diaspora. Even though they did not let go of their African roots, negro slaves assimilated a lot of American Culture, especially in the area of religious and spiritual practices as they embraced the God of their repressive masters. Spirituals were used as a form of comfort and expressed the joy and hope, pain and sorrow of the enslaved.
Music and dance were important aspects of the African heritage and being able to bring a piece of home with them to a foreign land was very important because it unified them as they all came from different regions in Africa and it also allowed them an escape from the reality of slavery and plantation life. Slaves manufactured drums, banjos, and rattles out of gourds similar to those found in Africa and because music and dance held both secular and spiritual meaning, negro slaves crafted a rich musical tradition that had enormous impact of the development of American music.