Music Through Time: Slavery

Hello, in this blog post I will be talking about the use of spirituals and the hidden messages that helped the slaves escape.

1. Explain the use of Spirituals and what they were 

2. Explain who Harriet Tubman and what the Underground Railroad was

3. Write about a spiritual you chose and highlight some lyrics and the hidden messages behind them 

4. How are these events still significant today

Spirituals are songs that slaves used to uplift other slaves and to give them hope, they can also be used in church, funerals and if the slave 'owners' allowed them to, it can be used in weddings. And lastly, they used spirituals to escape, without letting the English know what they are trying to do.

Harriet Tubman, a woman born into slavery. She helped 70 enslaved people escape using the underground railroad. As a child she suffered a head injury that gave her hypersomnia for the rest of her life, the underground railroad was a network of secret routes used in the 19th century for the slaves around America to escape their captors, and leave to Canada. At night people would go out and move slaves from their camps

"When Israel was in Egypt's land

Let my people go
Oppress'd so hard they could not stand
Let my people go

Refrain:
Go down, Moses
Way down in Egypt's land
Tell old Pharaoh

Let my people go"

They sung this song to signal the slaves that friends were in the area, Tubman used this song as well. These events are very important even now with things like BLM, and every new Kanye West song being about slavery.