Spirituals

Spirituals, an African‐American musical tradition rooted in slave folk songs. Controversy surrounded the Christianization of slaves in the mid–seventeenth century. Many slaveowners argued that slaves did not possess souls and therefore needed no religious instruction; others contended that slaves did possess souls but as long as they were not Christianized they could be held in bondage. Attempting to solve the discrepancy, a Virginia law of 1667 stated, “Baptism doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom.” Thereafter slaveowners, with varying degrees of commitment, addressed the religious education of the slaves.

At first attending religious services segregated by race (and gender), slaves gradually accepted Christianity. Not until the middle of the eighteenth century, however, did slaves adopt Christianity in large numbers. This was accomplished initially through the evangelistic efforts of Samuel Davies (1723–1761) and Charles Wesley (1707–1788), and then by other ministers who led a series of camp meetings in the early 1800s. Through the lining hymns of Dr. Isaac Watts (1674–1748) and the more spirited hymns of John (1703–1791) and Charles Wesley, the slaves developed a repertoire of Christian songs that, during the camp meetings, provided the material from which they began to compose their own songs. The “camp meeting spiritual,” with texts of praise and thanks, held together by the camp meeting shout “hallelujah,” was the first sacred composition of the slaves. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, a religious folk‐song tradition, complete with slave text, melodies, harmony, and performance practices, had been conceived.

Employing themes of suffering and sorrow, hope and affirmation, these folk songs were based on five‐note and other gapped melodic scales markedly different from the diatonic scale of Western music. The characteristic “blue” notes in work and play songs of the period were melodic staples of the spiritual as well. Many of the songs, such as “Steal Away” and “Roll, Jordan Roll,” were reported to have double meanings, referring to biblical passages while also commenting on the slaves' immediate situation. Harmony, while based on that of Western music, was often in octaves, with intermittent fourths and fifths, unusual in Western music. Rhythm was marked by strongly accented and syncopated pulses and by body movements—swaying, hand clapping, and foot patting—synchronized with the rhythmic beat.

The first publication of spirituals in book form was Slave Songs of the United States (1867) by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison. Some early scholars, working from manuscripts, argued that the “Negro Spiritual,” this slave folk song, was simply an adaptation of white hymns. What these scholars missed, however, was the timbre or “sound” of the singing in actual performance. Producing the sound from the back of the throat and using the fatty tissues of the mouth for resonance, the singers created a sound of great sorrow or joy, but with an earthy character unfamiliar in Western music. Manuscripts could not capture the slides, whoops, microtones, variable pitch, or freely improvised melodies delivered by the leader (“call”) or the static, but forceful answer of the congregation (“response”). Nor could manuscripts convey the improvised interjections of the singers or the multilayered rhythm of handclapping.

The Negro spirituals lost popularity as black church music in the 1930s but were featured as concert music by touring university groups such as the Jubilee Singers from Fisk and Hampton universities. Spirituals regained popularity in the 1950s and 1960s when they served as the primary music of the civil rights movement.
See also African American Religion; Anderson, Marian; Bible, The; Gospel Music, African American; Johnson, James Weldon; Music: Traditional Music; Protestantism; Revivalism; Slavery: Slave Families, Communities, and Culture.

Bibliography

T.F. Seward , Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, 1872.
W. E. B. Du Bois , The Souls of Black Folk, 1903.
James Weldon Johnson and and John Rosamond Johnson , The Book of American Negro Spirituals, 1925, 1927.
John Lovell Jr. , Black Song: The Forge and the Flame—The Story of How the Afro‐American Spiritual Was Hammered Out, 1972.

Horace Clarence Boyer