This document discusses the history and origins of Negro Spirituals. It describes how slaves used spirituals to express their harsh conditions and encode messages of resistance. The spirituals drew inspiration from the Bible and used metaphors like "the promised land" to signify escape. After the Civil War, freedmen continued the tradition of spirituals and their dissemination through groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers. In the 20th century, the Negro Spiritual was recognized as a "National Treasure" through the Black Renaissance.

1. NEGRO SPIRITUALS AND
HISTORY.
March 2014-
Student: Adela Pérez del Viso
Oral presentation. HISTORY AND
CULTURE II.

2. THOUGHTS, HEROES AND TOPICS
•Slaves´ thoughts on their condition.
•Their heroes. Jesus. Daniel. Job.
Mosses
•Resistance.
•Survival.
•“Wade in the water”. “Tis the old
ship of Zion”. “Oh, Freedom”.

3. SITUATION AND LIFE
•Harsh conditions.
•Punishments.
•Family torn apart.
•To be sold individually “or in
lots”.

4. RELIGION.
•Attendance to the white church.
•Sit on the back pews.
•Self-called ministers. Ex: Denmark Vessay.
•Praise houses: stomp feet, clap, shout, sing
aloud, dance.

5. SINGING.
•Work songs. Chain songs (group work).
•Song only for themselves.
•No songs against the master.
•NEGRO SPIRITUALS: Lyrics linked to their
harsh condition.
•Inspired in the gospel.
•Encoded messages: My home, sweet
Canaan, the promised land, cross the Jordan
river.

6. MAMMA, IS MASSA GONNA SELL
US TOMORROW?
•“Negro spiritual”.
• Deep Sadness.
•Separation. Resignation. Faith.
•http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=L84-74iwipU (Milo land)

7. NEGRO SPIRITUALS AND
HISTORY.

8. RESISTANCE.
•Individual resistance.
•Fugitive slaves. Ways to flee away.
Swamps. Disguise.
•Harriet Tupman and Henry Box Brown.
•Collective runaways. Amistad. 1839.
The Creole 1841. (UK Bahamas)
•The Underground railroad. (UGRR).

9. SWING LOW, SWEET CHARRIOT

10. GOSPEL AND NEGRO SPIRITUALS
AFTER THE WAR
•Shame on the lyrics in 1865.
•Fisk University in Nashville (Tennessee):
educators raised funds with singing groups.
•Tours in the New World and in
Europe, and sang negro spirituals (Fisk
Jubilee Singers).
• Other universities: singers of negro
spirituals: Tuskegee Institute, etc.

11. RELIGION AFTER THE WAR
•1890s, Holiness and Sanctified
churches appeared
•Church of God in Christ.
•Influence of African traditions
•Shouts, hand clapping, foot-
stomping and jubilee songs, like it
was in plantation “praise houses”.

12. 1925 to 1985: Black renaissance
•Renaissance.
•Gospel and Negro Spiritual revival.
•New authors.
•Topic acknowledged.
•2007: Declared a “National
treasure”

13. SOURCES.
•FONER, E (2006) Give me Liberty! An American
History. New York. Norton Co.
•www.negrospirituals.com/history.htm
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L84-74iwipU
(Milo land)
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8frEt6w4G8
•http://www.thenegrospiritualinc.com/national_tre
asure.htm