Slave+Culture

[|​] [|Esengo by Selah] - This is a link to a video on YouTube of a Congolese hymn. It was recorded and modernized by a music group named Selah which is Swahili for light. Check it out!

The Music of Slaves

To African Americans music is very important. Their style of music originated from Africa. In many tribes, music was constantly a part of their everyday lives. It was often call and response style and was used to tell a story or history. Dance was also used to tell a story or to celebrate an event such as a marriage. Drums were a big part of their music. The people believed that the drums were alive and had a spirit.

Music was also a large part of slave resistance. The slaves used song as a way to pass on messages of hope to one another. It was also used as a way to pass on other messages. For example. runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad would sing a certain song as a signal to the conductors. However, on the plantations the slave owners would not allow their slaves to sing about things such as freedom or escape. To get around this, the slaves came up with codes to replace those words. So, the slaves were still singing about freedom, but their owner's never knew. Slave Religion Religion was very important to slaves. Many of the plantation owners encouraged their slaves to hold religious meetings in a hope that this would dicourage them to run away. However, the meetings worked in the opposite way. Instead of discouraging them to run away, they used Bible stories such as Mosed and how he led the Isrealites out of slavery and onto freedom as hope that they too would find freedom someday.

Family and Community

Family was a very tricky thing for slaves. Many of them were forced into marriage by their owners in order to produce more slaves without having to buy more. Another thing that slave owners would do is marry one of their slaves to a slave in a neighboring plantation so that both plantation owners got more workers. Many of the people who were married hardly even knew or saw each other. Another issue of slave families was the threat of being seperated. Many times slave owners would sell one family memeber and not another, and that could leave a child orphaned. So, community was a big part of plantation life. Often one slave family would take care of a child whose parents were sold or dead. They would also care for another woman's children while the mothers worked in the field. Slave women would also act as midwives for other women who were having a baby. Everyone in a slave community helped on another with food, childcare, and childbirth as much as possible. This created a bond between those people that most don't experience in a lifetime.