SONGS OF SLAVERY Written by: Linda Caprio Content Area: In this lesson, students will analyze primary source documents related to slavery in the United States. The predominant content area addressed is American history. Grade Level: Although this lesson was originally designed for use in an eleventh grade classroom, it can easily be adapted for use with seventh grade students as well by extending the suggested time allotment. Suggested Time Allotment: 2 class periods Essential Question(s): How did slaves express forbidden feelings and desires, such as anger, resentment, or a longing for freedom? Purpose/Goals: Slave songs are an especially important resource for studying the "lived experience" of slavery. As one of the only emotional and spiritual outlets available to slaves, these songs contain the hopes and dreams, frustrations and fears, of generations of African Americans. In this lesson, students will work together in groups to decipher the songs and analyze what they reveal about the deeper thoughts and feelings of enslaved Americans. They will then write their own songs -- of protest, mourning, etc. -- to experience the empowering and sustaining effect that this form of creative expression can have. This lesson concludes with a class discussion on the significance of music and coded language in the slave community. Objectives for Student Learning: - Students will improve their abilities to critically analyze primary source documents.
- Students will understand that slaves used music and coded language to express forbidden feelings and desires and to communicate information they wished to keep secret from the white community.
- Students will understand that music served as one of the only emotional and spiritual outlets available to slaves and that it provided them with a sense of comfort and community.
- Students will write their own protest songs to experience the empowering and sustaining effect that this form of creative expression can have.
- Students will improve their abilities to work productively with their peers.
NCSS Standards: - I.a. Culture: Students will analyze and explain the ways cultures address human needs and concerns.
- I.b. Culture: Students will predict how data and experiences may be interpreted by people from diverse cultural perspectives and frames of reference.
- I.g. Culture: Students will construct reasoned judgments about specific cultural responses to persistent human issues.
- X.d. Civic Ideals and Practices: Students will practice forms of civic discussion and participation consistent with the ideals of citizens in a democratic republic.
Student Assessment: Student learning will be assessed during the two class discussions. They will be evaluated in terms of three criteria: the depth of their understanding of the slave songs, their abilities to support their assertions with evidence from the texts as well as with knowledge gained during prior class periods, and their abilities to draw connections between their protest songs and the slave songs. The criteria used to assess the students' contributions to the class discussions will help teachers to determine what skills the students need to continue building, what concepts they already understand, and what ideas they need to spend more time working on. Resources: - Student journals
- Activity sheets (one per student). See Procedure for distribution details.
Procedure: Day 1: Warm-up activity: Please answer the following questions in your journals: How important is music in your life? What purposes do you use it for? - Remind students to complete the warm-up activity.
- Ask a few volunteers to share their answers with the class. Spend a minute or two discussing the various ways that people use music (as a form of entertainment, relaxation, social commentary, protest, etc.)
- [Transition] As you know, we can learn a lot about a group of people by examining the type of music that they like to listen to and create. With this premise in mind, we will spend the next two days trying to learn more about the lived experience of slavery by analyzing several songs that were created by actual slaves.
- Pass out activity sheets and ask for a few volunteers to read the introduction out loud to the class.
- Give students a few minutes to read the translation of the first song and to work with a partner to answer the corresponding questions. Discuss their answers together as a class.
- Divide the class into mixed-ability groups of three or four. Give groups twenty minutes to analyze the remaining songs and to answer the corresponding questions. While students are working, move from group to group answering any questions and helping students who appear stuck.
- Ask groups to share their interpretations of the songs. Place particular emphasis on the following questions:
- Why do you think the composers created these songs? What purpose might they have served in the slave community?
- What knowledge do people need in order to understand these songs?
- Why do you think the composers used the type of language that they did?
- How do you think slaves would have felt while singing or listening to these songs?
- What do these songs reveal about slaves feelings and desires?
Day 2: - [Transition] In order to understand how slaves might have felt while listening to or singing the songs we studied yesterday, we will create our own protest songs.
- Ask students to turn to the last page of their activity sheet and to read the directions under the "Your Turn" section.
- Give students twenty-thirty minutes to work on their songs.
- Use the remaining class period for group presentations. After each group presents, ask students in the audience to answer the following questions:
- Why do you think the composers created this song? What community is it intended to serve?
- What knowledge do people need in order to understand this song?
- Why do you think the composers used the type of language that they did?
- How did you feel while listening to this song?
- What does this song reveal about the composers' feelings and desires?
- Then ask the presenters to offer their own answers to these questions.
- Make sure that students connect the feelings that their songs produce to how slaves might have felt while listening to or singing their own protest songs.
- Draw students into a quick wrap-up discussion to answer the essential question: How did slaves express forbidden feelings and desires, such as anger, resentment, or a longing for freedom?
ACTIVITY: SONGS OF SLAVERY How did slaves express forbidden feelings and desires, such as anger, resentment, or a longing for freedom? One way was through music and the use of coded language. Like many people throughout history, slaves often sang songs to pass the time as they worked from dawn till dusk. These songs relied heavily on African musical traditions, incorporating rhythm, call-and-response patterns, drumbeats (since most plantation owners prohibited slaves from using actual drums, many learned to make similar sounds with their feet), and banjos. Because slaves were almost always in the presence of their white masters or overseers, they learned to disguise the true meaning of their songs, hiding politically challenging content behind seemingly innocuous words. Scratch beneath the surface of many of these songs and you will find coded messages about plans to escape, directions for how to head north on the Underground Railroad, derisive comments about white people, and soulful lamentations about life under slavery. As one of the only emotional and spiritual outlets available to slaves, these songs contain the hopes and dreams, frustrations and fears, of generations of African Americans. Taken together, they form an especially rich resource for studying the lived experience of slavery. We will work on deciphering the first song together as a class. After that, you will work in groups of three or four to analyze the following songs and answer the corresponding questions. Be prepared to discuss your conclusions with your classmates.
"Follow the Drinking Gourd" This song is often attributed to a man known as "Peg Leg Joe," a former sailor who lost part of his leg in an accident at sea. While working as an itinerant carpenter and handyman, he often spent his winters in the South, traveling from plantation to plantation and teaching slaves this song. Unfortunately, we know nothing more about the mysterious Peg Leg Joe. When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,
Follow the drinking gourd.
For the old man is waiting to carry you to freedom,
If you follow the Drinking Gourd. Scholars believe that the words, "When the sun comes back," refers to the transition from winter to spring. Quail are migratory birds that fly south for the winter and north for the summer. The drinking gourd is the Big Dipper and the old man is Peg Leg Joe. Despite white southerners' best efforts, most slaves knew that they could obtain their freedom by escaping to the North. From the time they were old enough to understand, many slave children were taught to use the stars of the Big Dipper to locate the North Star, which lies almost directly north in the sky. Slaves referred to the Big Dipper as the Drinking Gourd because they used hollowed-out gourds to scoop water from buckets rather than metal dippers. This verse taught slaves to leave their homes in winter and to follow the North Star north. Eventually, they would meet a guide who would escort them on the rest of their journey. Abolitionists connected to the Underground Railroad knew that most slaves would have to cross the Ohio River before they could successfully reach the North. After several disastrous attempts, they eventually concluded that the river was too wide and swift for most people to swim across. As a result, they began to advise fugitive slaves to cross it during the winter months when it was frozen. The riverbank makes a very good road,
The dead trees show you the way,
Left foot, peg foot, traveling on
Follow the Drinking Gourd. This verse taught listeners to follow the bank of the Tombigbee River out of Alabama. They were to look for dead trees that were marked with drawings of a left foot and a peg foot, which would help them distinguish the Tombigbee from the other north-south rivers that flow into it (thus preventing them from walking in circles and heading back into Southern territory). The river ends between two hills,
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
There's another river on the other side,
Follow the Drinking Gourd. Where the great big river meets the little river,
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
For the old man is waiting to carry you to freedom,
If you follow the Drinking Gourd. This verse informed slaves that the Tennessee River eventually joins the "great" Ohio River. After crossing the Ohio, they would meet a guide from the Underground Railroad who would accompany them on the rest of their journey. - What is this song about? How do you know?
- What knowledge does the listener or reader need in order to understand this song?
- Why do you think the composer created this song?
- If you were a slave, how do you think you would feel while listening to or singing this song? What would you think if you were a white Southerner?
- What genre does this song belong to?
"Canaan" O Canaan, sweet Canaan,
I am bound for the land of Canaan,
O Canaan, it is my happy home,
I am bound for the land of Canaan!
[Untitled Song] I thought I heard them say,
There were lions in the way,
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here. Run to Jesus - shun the danger -
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here.
Source: Douglass, Frederick. My bondage and my freedom (New York: Miller, Orton, & Mulligan, 1855). - According to Frederick Douglass, these songs had double meanings for slaves. What do you think they are about? How do you know?
- What knowledge does the listener or reader need in order to understand these songs?
- What kind of language is used in these songs? Why do you think the composers chose to use this language?
- How are various groups of people portrayed in these songs?
- Why do you suppose slaves sang these songs? How do you think they made them feel?
"All the Pretty Little Horses"[Note: The key to understanding this song is that there are two babies.] Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep my little baby,
When you wake, you shall have, all the pretty little horses,
Blacks and bays, dapples and grays, all the pretty little horses.
Way down yonder, in the meadow, lies my poor little lambie,
With bees and butterflies peckin' out its eyes,
The poor little thing crying Mammy. - What is this song about? How do you know?
- What knowledge does the listener or reader need in order to understand this song?
- Why do you think the composer created this song?
- How are various groups of people portrayed in this song? Whose perspective is privileged? Whose perspective is excluded?
- If you were a slave, how do you think you would feel while listening to or singing this song? What would you think if you were a white Southerner?
"Let My People Go" When Israel was in Egypt's Land,
Let my people go,
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go. [Chorus] Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharaoh,
Let my people go. Thus saith the Lord, bold Moses said,
Let my people go,
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead,
Let my people go. No more shall they in bondage toil,
Let my people go,
Let them come out with Egypt's spoil,
Let my people go. The Lord told Moses what to do,
Let my people go,
To lead the Hebrew children through,
Let my people go. What is this song about? How do you know? - What knowledge does the listener or reader need in order to understand this song?
- What kind of language is used in this song? Why do you think the composer chose to use this language?
- How are various groups of people portrayed in this song? Whose perspective is privileged? Whose perspective is excluded?
- If you were a slave, how do you think you would feel while listening to or singing this song? What would you think if you were a white Southerner?
Your Turn Now it's your turn. Compose a song with at least three verses and a chorus. It can be about anything you want (war, the use of sweatshop labor, religious freedom, school, your parents, etc.), as long as it is something that matters to you and you feel you have something important to say about it. Since this is a protest song, you will want to disguise your lyrics somewhat so that outsiders (or maybe just the subjects of your song) won't be able to understand what you are talking about. You may work in groups of up to four people and use any musical style you'd like. Be prepared to present and explain your song to your classmates. You must turn in a "translation" of your song at the end of the class period.
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