BMC BLACK VOICES PROGRAMME BOOK - Book - Page 27
The forcible enslavement of people taken from
West Africa to the Territories and States of the
American South reached its zenith in the
second half of the 18th-century. As the States
grew in number and cohesion, the practice led
to the Civil War between the northern-based
Unionists and the Confederacy of the southern
States before being abolished in the 1860s.
Traces of this deep stain on American history
have taken longer to eradicate, but the abiding
musical legacy of African-American religious
folksong—often referred to as Negro Spirituals
—is now recognised as the most signiûicant and
lasting of all the inûluential strains within
indigenous American music.
The Spirituals’ melodic lines and harmonies
were often derived from age-old folk roots.
Many were composed, complementing those
as transplanted folk music, with melodic lines
often cast from pentatonic scales, and almost
always danced. The earliest examples were
performed in what evolved as being a ‘ring
shout’—a shufling-style circular dance,
propelled with group chanting and
handclapping.
The texts of almost all Negro Spirituals derive
from Biblical sources. The term itself is clearly
inspired by St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians ‘Speak to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord.’
