Field Hollers In African American History

We typically think of slaves as a mistreated African American. Thats not all they were, they sang, they read, they were a huge part of our history we don't even acknowledge. They contributed a lot to our music, you could say they were the roots of jazz and blues. Slaves sang almost every moment of their life, there is many different categories of their music, but one of the most interesting is field hollers. Field hollers contain a lot of information on the slave(s). This means emotion is strong in these songs. You can find three main subjects in their tunes, those three are; sad, happy, informative, or passing time.

In 1916 America’s first settlement began to increase their population number, but not in a way you might expect. Jamestown

Typically when they sing using sadness they sing about negative points in their life, negative subjects all workers relate to, or the pain that comes with their work. When they sang using a sad tone it was called a blue devil or sometimes just blues. They used these names to describe their blue mood. A quote describing why blues are sad by Joe louis: “The man says, why I sing the blues is because I lived it. I know how it feels. When your hurt you gotta tell somebody. Somebody must understand how you feel . The only way to do it is to say it loud and clear. Make sure that everyone will hear. Its the truth the way it is. That’s why I sing the blues. “ The reason people sing blues and sad songs during the time is to let off steam, and to get your emotions out of your system instead of letting steam build up to the point you explode.

When you think of a happy song, you typically don't think about freedom. When were on this topic happiness is getting any small taste of freedom. Many songs I used in as my sources sang about someone getting free, or rebelling just for a moment of freedom. In these songs they fill you in in all the emotions and thoughts. They give great, yet short descriptions that paint a big image in your