Before Africans came to America as slaves, they lived in Africa, where music was an essential part to daily life. Tribes would celebrate every event and do work with music, dancing, and singing. Thus, negro spirituals essentially have roots in Africa, where slaves brought to America learned to love and cherish music as a part of their daily lives.

However, in the 1600's, North America was in the height of colonization, and slave labor was seen as an effective way to support a colony economically. European traders arrived on the Western Coast of Africa and traded for slaves to be brought to North America as American slaves. Slaves were forced into packer slave ships and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the American colonies and West Indies. Upon arrival, slaves were traded and sold into a lifetime of servitude and slavery. Families and friends were torn apart, forced to work against their will on farms and plantations. Life as a slave on a plantation was stressful and tiresome. Slaves sometimes worked from sunrise to sunset, with tough quotas to fill, and strict and painful punishments for failure to work. Slaves lived crammed together in shacks on the plantation, with little spare time and few possessions.

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As slavery progressed and generations passed, slaves were introduced to Christianity by whites. The slaves found interest in the Bible, and found refuge in its stories of faith and hope, and a promise toward better days. Slaves, with a love of music and history of music, began to sing songs to help them unite and pass the work day. Spirituals were also at first sung as a form of worship, both inside and outside of church. At first, slaves sung in "praise houses" to get together and sing. Eventually, slaves attended sermons and churches, where they continued to sing spirituals. Some spirituals were sung in the fields as work songs, but spirituals in general were focused on Jesus, the Gospels, and salvation, and inspired a message of hope.

In 1865, slavery was abolished and the slaves were free. Following the emancipation of the slaves, black churches emerged, in which ceremonies containing music, dancing, and spirituals took place. Some former slaves tried to forget the spirituals, relating them to the evil memory of slavery, but the spirituals had become a part of the culture. As time progressed, the spirituals became a form a music themselves, and groups specializing in spirtuals emerged in the 1920s. As spiritual music groups emerged, they gave birth to a separate yet similar form of music, Gospel. Nevertheless, spirituals were still tradition, and they were sung by preachers in church as well as musicians in a studio. Spirituals were sung during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's and 1960's for the same reasons they were sung during slave days; to rise up and overcome adversity. Today, spirituals are still popular, such as "Amazing Grace" and "Wade in the Water", and help carry on the memory of the struggles and triumphs of slaves in America.

Types of Spirituals

http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/2002/Music/Pages/spirituals.htm

Spirituals were often song either in joy or sorrow. In either sense, singing spirituals helped slaves to survive the work day and remain occupied. Songs of sorrow, such as "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" would be sung as a group to weep for their condition as a slave. However, many sorrowful songs would end on a happy note, to offer hope and emergence from sadness. Songs of joy were also sung to instill hope, joy, and confidence in slaves. Singing joyful songs helped the slaves to stay upbeat and happy, despite the rough conditions. Both sorrowful and joyful spirituals helped to keep slaves optimistic and hopeful during slavery, and dream of the day of freedom.

Spirituals and Faith

Both faith and Faith are major components of negro spirituals. Slaves experienced unbelieveble suffering and hardship through slavery. Slaves were torn from their home, friends, and family and shipped to a mysterious world where they were forced to work for no pay. Slaves worked constantly and did very physically demanding work, which left very little personal time. Slaves owned little, and worked for little, if any, of their own benefit. Furthermore, slaves were hated because of their skin color and social standing, and were looked down upon by much of society. Unpunsished crimes were committed against slaves, slaves were beaten and lynched, and some were even hung. The typical slave experienced great emotional, physical, and psychological damage. However, despite the suffering, many slaves found solace in the negro spiritual, which both nurtured and displayed faith and Faith among the slaves.

Slaves sang spirituals because they had faith in the future. They believed that if they persevered throughout their hardship, that one day they would be free. Some slaves sung with faith that they would not only be free, but that they would also reunite with loved ones that they were separated from within the bounds of slavery. The great pain and suffering of slavery challenged the faith of every slave, but singing spirituals helped the slaves to proclaim their faith in the future and persist in their faith in case they were in doubt. The common slave's will to survive and be free undoubtedly helped them to grow in faith for the future and themselves as a culture.

Negro spirituals also displayed and nurtured the great Faith that slaves had in God and religion. Originaly, slaves grew fond of the Bible and its stories about Jesus Christ, and related their own struggles to those of Jesus and the Israelites. Thus, slaves sang spirituals about Jesus, freedom, and Heaven. Many saw Heaven as the state of being truly free, and slaves' Faith helped them to hope and believe that they would go to Heaven. Similarly, slave's sang of Heaven to damper their current enslaved condition. The thought of Heaven helped slaves to hope for the future and not let the pains of their labor disturb them, because happiness would someday be achieved in Heaven. Spirituals also displays slaves' undying Faith in God, for they did not see slavery as God's fault, but sang to God to help them and hope to one day be with him.

Negro spirituals were and still truly are exclamations of slaves' faith in each other and the future and their Faith in Jesus, Heaven and God. Singing helped the slaves to take their minds of slavery, and focus towards freedom and Heaven. Spirituals helped slaves to grow in their faith and not lose it in the demoralizing conditions of slavery. Ultimately, the singing of spirituals helps an entire race of people to persevere in horrid times and keep the faith of freedom and Faith in God alive.

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Examples of Negro Spirituals

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

Everybody Talkin' About Heaven

Sources

www.negrospirituals.com

http://ctl.du.edu/spirituals/

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