Slave Songs of the United States
Compiled by three Northern abolitionists, this collection of spirituals represents the first publication of African American music in the United States. These songs professed the hopes and fears of enslaved communities and served as a form of protest, urging enslaved people to escape to freedom. Historians speculate that some spirituals included codes that assisted in the Underground Railroad during the mid-19th century.
Before the Civil War, these songs were an oral tradition, passed down from generation to generation until emancipation, where the songs were written down and printed. Subsequently they were popularized by ensembles such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers which brought them to an international audience.
Douglass spoke of singing spirituals in My Bondage and My Freedom (1855): “A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing of 'O Canaan, sweet Canaan, I am bound for the land of Canaan,' something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the North, and the North was our Canaan."