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Early
Southern Music and Its Influences by
Matthew Moye
“Early
Southern Roots of Modern Popular Music, Part 7”
Slave
Music in Antebellum Times
As we have
noted several times before, the turn of
the 19th century was a watershed time in the
South. Slavery, which had been foundering, began
instead to grow, fueled by the new cotton trade. And,
as slavery increased, so did the influence of African-
Americans on the music of the land.
Anti-slavery
sentiment was strong in the United
States in the new century. The slave trade ended
officially in 1808. Manumission was complete in the
North by 1827 (except in Maryland, Delaware, and
parts of Illinois). Both The Missouri Compromise of
1820 and the Compromise of 1850 balanced the
spread of slavery to new states.
One might
assume, then, that slavery had been
contained. In point of fact, though, the slave
population increased from one to three million
between 1800 and 1840. By Civil War times, the
number of slaves increased by a third again. White
cotton planters obviously encouraged slave
reproduction as the sole means left to them for free
labor.
The influence
of black people thus became
established in antebellum times. This edition of "The
Southern Roots of Modern Popular Music" discusses
these developments through the slaves’ music. Slave
music is seen today as one of the vital ingredients in
the rich fabric of Southern music which yielded so
many forms---Bluegrass, Blues, Country, Gospel
(both black and white), Honky-Tonk, Jazz, Ragtime,
Rock ‘n’ Roll, Sacred Harp, and Spirituals (among
others).
Acceptance
of Blacks in Music
As the decades wore on, differences widened
between the music of urban and rural areas and
among Northern and Southern blacks. In the North,
African Americans struggled for social and economic
acceptance. In the South, such a struggle was still a
moot point. Rather, Southern blacks struggled for
basic humanity, and their music was a major outlet.
Three accounts of blacks in the urban North during
this period will provide contrast:
Philadelphian Frank Johnson gained an international reputation
for his mastery of instruments and for his orchestral and compositional
skills. He even performed for Queen Victoria at Johnson’s military
band.
All society went to New York’s African Grove Theater. One evening
in 1822, the audience stopped a production and demanded Ira Aldridge,
a
Shakespearean actor known for his Othello, to come
out-of-character. They wanted him to sing a slave
song he had made popular, and he obliged: Opossum
him creep softly, Raccoon him lay mum;/ Pull him by
the long tail, Down opossum come./ Jin kum, jan
kum, beangash, Twist ‘em, twist ‘em, run;/ Oh, the
poor opossum, Oh, the sly raccoon.
Charles
Dickens wrote about meeting the famous
"Juba" (William Henry Lane) on his 1842 trip
to
New York. Lane was regarded as the "greatest of all
dancers" of his time. He performed the "single
shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross cut...spinning
about on his toes and heels like nothing but the
man’s fingers on the tambourine."
Slave
Songs
Slaves (meaning, for the most part, Southern
blacks), by contrast, had to focus on the day-to-day
misery of slavery and on the hope of eventual
freedom. Here are some examples of how these
issues played into slave music:
In his 1845 autobiography just seven years after
his own escape, Frederick Douglass remarked about slave
music: "A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing
of O Canaan, sweet Canaan,/ I am bound for the land of Canaan,
something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the north---and
the north was our Canaan."
Harriet
Tubman [see the sidebar] was the most
successful of the Underground Railroad "conductors."
She used a particular song to let slaves know that she
was present and thus to be alert for escape: "Dark
and thorny is de pathway Where de pilgrim makes his
ways;/ But beyond dis vale of sorrow Lie de fields of
endless days."
Many slave
hymns and Spirituals had escape
messages in them, according to Eileen Southern in
The Music of Black Americans. These included:
"Steal Away, Jesus," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,"
and "Brother Moses Gone to de Promised Land."
Some songs even provided escape directions:
"Follow the drinkin’ gourd! Follow the drinkin’
gourd./ For the old man is a-waitin’ for to carry you
to freedom if you follow the drinkin’ gourd./ When
the sun comes back and the first quail calls..."
Southern
and Urban
New Orleans in 1800 was stewpot of diversity---
African, English, French, German, Irish, and Spanish
people. Beginning in the 18th century, slaves were
allowed to gather at the Place Congo (Beauregard
Square) for Sunday afternoon dances. Anywhere
from 500 to 3,000 slaves, representing six African
tribes (Kraels, Minahs, Congos and Mandringas,
Gangas, Hiboas, and Fulas) would hold ring dances.
Their instruments were drums, banjos, and rattles.
These dances and similar ones in New York and
Philadelphia were all stopped by city officials by
1843.
Following
this ban, New Orleans blacks were
divided between free blacks who openly performed
"cultured" music for all to hear and those slaves who
performed African rhythms underground. After the
Civil War, these two strains fused, becoming the
root-stock of music that would sweep the world by
the 20th century.
Southern
and Rural
Work songs characterized the usual music of the
farming slave. For the masters, the work songs
helped the slaves capture a rhythm in repetitive
labor. Thus, work songs help produce more work.
For slaves, the songs helped defeat the despair of
doing hard, boring work. In group situations, masters
encouraged a song leader.
"Shouts"
(dances), on the other hand, were
common events following worship services. The
benches were moved out of the way and everyone
stood in the middle of the room. The Spiritual began,
and the people began to walk, then to shuffle, in a
ring. The group evolved either into shouters
(dancers) or singers (and clappers). However, since
this was a religious event, the group was careful to
observe a distinction of religious and social events.
The feet were never to cross or even be lifted from
the floor.
Over the
next several hours, the singing became
an intense, wild chant, and the religious words of the
songs became like a cry. The pace quickened. When
shouters tired, they dropped out to rest and sing
instead.
White Protestants
did not like dancing, and
usually required converted slaves to drop the shouts.
This was not so much the case in Catholic areas,
such as Louisiana.
Themes
in Slave Songs
Slaves often cited heroes in their music. The
most common were Jacob (the most frequent hero),
Daniel, Moses, and Gabriel. Satan represented the
usual villain.
In terms
of topics, the major themes of slave
songs were: faith, optimism, patience, weariness, and
fighting. It should be no surprise that faith,
optimism, patience, and weariness were tools to help
the slaves overcome the many psychological and
physical burdens of slavery. A theme of fighting, on
the other hand, was apparently held as an option, if a
final one.
The slaves
songs were syncopated and in an
overlapping call-and-response pattern. Words were
not as important as performance. Scale patterns were
pentatonic (as was the folk music of the whites of
Celtic heritage).
Conclusion
The influence of African-American performance,
especially of slave music, swept through America
between 1800 and 1860. Protestant hymns were the
major medium for this dispersion---in churches and
especially camp meetings.
In the next
edition of this series, we will look at
the last major component of Southern music---the
folk music of the British Isles.
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Early
Southern Music and Its Influences
Matthew
Moye
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