Music all over the world is used as therapy. Music Serves as an outlet for either the person who creates it or the person who partakes in enjoying it. African who were brought to America because of slavery used music in just that way. They classified this music as the negro spiritual. Overall negro spirituals were used as an outlet but more specifically they had three main functions. The functions that negro spirituals had were to be used as songs to praise, ways to protest slavery and vile treatment as well as subversive coded messages to escape slavery.
According to the article Negro spirituals song of Survival, negro spirituals originated over a 200 year period. During the 17th century many did not know about spirituals. They were referred to as shouts a term that originated from Africa. They became more known going towards the 18th century and after the Civil War in the 19th century. The article states “ Negro Spirituals were the first type of uniquely American music to come out of this country (North America)” ( Faigan). More specifically the spirituals originated in the southern parts of America. Negro spirituals can also be compared to gospel music in the sense that are greatly used in the African American community, but negro spirituals have a significant difference for one they are group songs. There isn't a specific artist or person who created a spiritual. Spirituals are just bits and pieces of biblical text, experience, and prayers sometimes fashioned as a conversation.
Negro Spirituals were used as songs to praise. During slavery many slaves were exposed to the christian religion when their masters went to church. Although they were exposed to christianity it was forbidden for them to practice it but they som...
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...edge slave used their spirituals as secret coded messages that combined biblical text as a way to escape slavery. The spirituals contained directions on where to go, and who to meet. For example the song Follow the Drinking Gourd states, “The river ends between two hills, / Follow the drinking gourd. / There’s another river on the other side, / Follow the drinking gourd. “ This song gives the slaves the directions to freedom and tells the to follow the drinking gourd which is a star. another example of a negro spiritual that is a coded message guiding slaves to freedom is Crossing the river Jordan. The song says, “ I got to cross that river of Jordan / Lord, I got to cross that for myself/ Says, nobody here can cross that for me / Lord, I got to cross that for myself. This songs tells the slave that the way to freedom is through the river Jordan.
Montgomery, William. Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The African-American Church in the South. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1993. Print.
Because it offers them the possibility of community and identity, many slaves find themselves strongly attached to religion. They cannot build a family structure and they cannot be identified by family name, but through the church, they can build a community and identify themselves as Christians. This comfort becomes virtually non-existent for it too is controlled by the slaveowners who “came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters” (57). The fact that one person could have the ability to control the amount of religion another person has and his purpose for having it diminishes any sense of community or identity that it may have initially provided.
The black slaves in general held to a different form Christianity that was unbeknownst to traditional orthodox Christianity. As discussed in lecture on February 4, 2014, black slaves held to an interpretation of Christianity that placed emphasis on the Old Testament, and all of its hero’s and accomplishments. The slaves also reinterpreted Jesus Christ, figuring Him into the Old Testament context of an Old Testament King like King David, who achieved many victories upon this earth (Lecture 2/4/14). Due to the perversion of Christian teachings from slave master and their erroneous catechisms, the slaves reacted strongly against the New Testament and its teachings. In turn, the slaves would cling to the Old Testament, particularly due to the role that the Jews suffered in the midst of their captivity to the Egyptians in ancient times. (Covered in the Bible under the Old Testament books of Genesis and Exodus) The reality of God coming to the aid of His chosen people the Jews was a theme that encouraged and comforted the slaves, and they gladly adopted this similar idea of being God’s “chosen people.” Also, the slaves held to Old ...
Moreover, many owners later came to feel that Christianity may actually have encouraged rebellion (all those stories of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt, after all, talked about the liberation of the slaves), and so they began to discourage Christian missionaries from preaching to the slaves. African Americans have taken their own spiritual, religious journey. God was looked upon as a source of peace and encouragement. The community of enslave Africans were able to use religion and spirituality as a way of overcoming the mental anguish of slavery on a daily basis. To a slave, religion was the most important aspect of their life. Nothing could come between their relationship with god. It was their rock, the only reason why they could wake up in the morning, the only way that they endured this most turbulent time in our history.
Music was used as a critical instrument in the early 20th century in mobilizing and inspiring the civil rights movement by giving them more voice to bring out their grievances. According to Kerk (2007, p.18) Martin Luther king was the most prolific figure who utilized music to sensitize society, “we believe that freedom songs play a big and vital part in the struggle that we are going through” this words were also echoed by the Albany movement “music keeps us a live, it gives us a sense of unity, new courage every dawn, hope to move on that the future still holds something in our most daring and dreadful hours”
Most African Americans of the early to mid-nineteenth century experienced slavery on plantations similar to the experiences described by Frederick Douglass; the majority of slaves lived on units owned by planters who had twenty or more slaves. The planters and the white masters of these agrarian communities sought to ensure their personal safety and the profitability of their enterprises by using all the tactics-physical and psychological-at their command to make slaves obedient. Even Christianity was manipulated in a way that masters communicated to their slaves that God had commanded them to obey their masters. People like Frederick Douglass who preached abolition of slavery, only had to nurture the already existing spirit within slaves to strive for freedom.
In their quarters, slaves expressed themselves with some what more freedom from white slave owners. Religion provided a feel of similar freedom and also gave slaves mental support. By attending church, slaves created a Christianity that emphasized salvation for every race, including slaves.
The primary function of the Negro spirituals was to serve as communal song in a religious gathering, performed in a call and response pattern reminiscent of West African traditional religious practices. During these ceremonies, one person would begin to create a song by singing about his or her own sorrow or joy. That individual experience was brought to the community and through the call and response structure of the singing, that individual’s sorrow or joy became the sorrow or joy of the community. In this way, the spiritual became truly affirming, for it provided communal support for individual experiences. Slaves used the characters of the bible, particularly the Old Testament,...
was a better life awaiting them. "The Spirit of the Lord allowed black slaves to
Music is an art and a wonderful gift to human race. It soothes, stimulates and makes us feel happy. It affects our moods in many different ways from lullaby to war cry for changes in the society. Music is actually distinct to different people. Above all, it has a transformational importance that is captured in its art and nature. Music draws our emotions and it has an impact of bridging different cultures across the continents. Slave songs were very vital channels through which all kind of information was conveyed both positive and negative.
...e to the audience that the Bible adheres to the deserved emancipation and support of African-Americans, rather than enslavement and oppression. For example, Douglass preaches, “ A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as ‘scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.” By using Matthew 23:23 to assert American Christians as righteously indignant, Douglass infers that if the White American people are truly Christian, they will obey the doctrines of The Bible and negate their duplicity by showing love and mercy to black people.
African Americans started to go to school and became accustomed to American culture, so church became a regular thing. In the church they would sing, clap, stomp, and have a call and response way of singing, called Negro Spiritual. Soon Negro Spiritual became well known and some choruses went abroad to Europe or Africa to sing.
Enslaved Africans have always brought music, dancing, and singing to the plantation life. It has always been apart of African-American culture to resemble theatre with traditions. Theatre traditions are a great way to be able to express yourself and given the history of African-Americans they always loved the rituals of music, dancing, and singing. It was a great way to be able to keep their mind off dealing with slavery and the lack of rights they were given within America at that time. In 1820 William B...
Humans from the coast of West Africa arrived to the New World as slaves. Stripped of everything familiar, they brought with them their traditional ways of using music to record historic events, expressions, and to accompany rituals. While toiling in the tobacco fields of Virginia, slaves were not permitted to speak to each other. So, they resorted to their African tradition. They sang!
African-American slaves may not have had the formal education that many of their white slave owners possessed, but they intuitively knew that the labor they toiled through each and every day was unjust. This dynamic of unfairness brought about a mindset in which slaves would critique the workings of slavery. To many people’s understanding, slavery was an invasively oppressive institution; Levine however, noted, “for all its horrors, slavery was never so complete a system of psychic assault that it prevented the slaves from carving out independent cultural forms” . Slave spirituals were a part of the independent cultural form that enslaved African-Americans produced; these songs had numerous functions and critiquing slavery served as one of