Spirituals

Growth and Development of the Songs

By the late 18th century, the spiritual had begun, in a small way, to distinguish itself from other music performed by enslaved Africans primarily by the context in which it was performed. However, it was in the middle of the 19th century that the spiritual reached its full development. Although other forms of African American music were developing that were similar in style (e.g., the blues), the spiritual had its impetus and growth as a musical form in the clandestine gatherings of Africans in religious ceremonies and rituals. Plantation owners’ effort to Christianize enslaved [Page 439]Africans was a covert tactic to subjugate and control them, and enslaved Africans recognized the insincerity of the Christian proselytizers. Africans’ predilection to spirituality, however, allowed them to transform the newly introduced religious concepts and ideas into their cosmology, which led to the formulation of religious practices based on their African past. It was in these religious practices that the spiritual was born.

The spirituals are a classic example of the creative and dynamic communicative possibilities of music in African cultures that continued to be explored by Africans in the Americas. The songs were used for multiple purposes: to teach, to inspire, to signal, to comment, to inform, and to tell stories. They not only were used for religious expressions but also covered the history, thoughts, and aspirations of enslaved Africans and contextualized their lives and affairs under the oppression and religious hypocrisy of the slave system. Most important, the spirituals were practical tools that served as coded communications for emotional and physical escape as well as rebellion.

The texts of the spirituals are full of allusion and imagery with hidden and double meanings. Many of the texts include biblical words like Savior, suggesting God, ancestor spirits, or Harriet Tubman and Canaan referring to heaven, a better life in a Northern state, or freedom after emancipation. The phrase my home indicated Africa and steal away to Jesus implied escape to the North. A few of the most well-known spirituals are “Go Down Moses,” “O Mary Don’t You Weep, Don’t You Mourn,” “Walk Together Children,” “Wade in the Water,” “Roll Jordan Roll,” and “Deep River.”

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