1. Negro Spirituals and Code Songs and
Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass –
1- Copy the five pages of this assignment. Read the article entitled “Spirituals and Code
Songs” excerpted from The Elements of Litereature. On your lined paper, take notes for
each of the following questions and label them appropriately.
a. What are general characteristics of spirituals?
b. Quote several selections in which Frederick Douglass describes spirituals.
c. In “Go Down Moses,” what are some symbolic representations?
d. Why is “Follow the Drinking Gourd” considered a code song?
2- Read and annotate the article entitled “Negro Spirituals: Songs of Survival” by Tom
Faigin
3- Read the excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass found on pages
563-570 in your Language of Literature anthology. Quote and cite five to seven
selections which provide the reader with a sense of the life of a slave during the mid
1800s in the American South.
NOTE: to cite quotes from a single source, provide just the page number in parentheses
after the final quotation marks and before the end mark of punctuation. You may use the
ellipsis to indicate additional words which you have excluded.
EXAMPLE:
“ … went to live with Mr. Covey , on the 1st of January, 1833” (563).
“Spirituals and Code Songs” excerpted from The Elements of Literature
The moving and intensely emotional songs known as spirituals largely developed
from the oral traditions of Africans held in slavery in the South before the Civil War.
Spirituals, like other kinds of folk literature and music, were composed by anonymous
artists and passed on orally. They were inevitably altered and refined, so numerous
versions of a particular spiritual might exist. Many spirituals combine African melodies
and rhythms with elements of white Southern religious music.
In this passage from My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass writes
eloquently about songs of slavery – called sorrow songs by the later African American
writer W.E.B. Dubois.
Slaves were generally expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave is not liked
by masters or overseers. “Make a noise, make a noise,” and “bear a hand” are the words
usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence among them. This may account for
the almost constant singing heard in the southern states… On allowance day, those who
visited the great house farm were peculiarly excited and noisy. While on their way, they
would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild notes. These
were not always merry because they were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a
plaintive cast, and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most boisterous outbursts of
rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of deep melancholy. I have never heard any
songs like those anywhere since I left slavery, except when in Ireland. There I heard the
same wailing notes, and was much affected by them. It was during the famine of 1845-46. In
all the songs of the slaves, there was ever some expression in praise of the great house

2. farm; something which would flatter the pride of the owner, and, possibly, draw a favorable
glance from him.
…I cannot better express my sense of them now, than ten years ago, when, in
sketching my life, I thus poke of this feature of my plantation experience:
…The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirits, and filled my heart
with ineffable sadness. The mere recurrence, even now, afflicts my spirit, and while I am
writing these lines, my tears are falling. To those songs I trace my first glimmering
conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception.
Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for
my brethren in bonds. If anyone wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul-killing
power of slavery, let him got to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on allowance day, place
himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, thoughtfully analyze the
sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it
will only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”
- Frederick Douglass
Spirituals were concerned above all with issues of freedom; spiritual freedom in the form of
salvation and literal freedom from the shackles of slavery. Many people during the time of slavery
were called Moses by those looking for a deliverer to loose their chains. Harriet Tubman, for
example, used Moses as her code name in her work with the Underground Railroad. A Methodist
minister named Francis Asbury was also known as Moses, and according to some scholars, the
spiritual “Go Down, Moses” really is a plea for Asbury’s help. Ultimately, of course, the name
Moses refers to the man who, according to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, delivered the ancient
Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Some of the songs were code songs, or signal songs – that is details in the songs provided
runaways with directions, times, and meeting places for their escape. For example, the drinking
gourd in “Follow the Drinking Gourd” is the Big Dipper, a group of stars; the two stars in the bowl of
the Big Dipper point to the North Star. A drinking gourd is actually the shell of a vegetable related
to the squash or melon, dried and hollowed out for drinking.

5. Go Down Moses Follow the Drinking Gourd
When Israel was in Egypt's Land, When the Sun comes back
Let my people go, And the first quail calls
Opressed so hard they could not stand, Follow the Drinking Gourd,
Let my people go. For the old man is a-waiting for to carry
Chorus you to freedom
Go down, Moses, If you follow the Drinking Gourd
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah, The riverbank makes a very good road.
Let my people go. The dead trees will show you the way.
Left foot, peg foot, travelling on,
Thus saith the Lord, bold Moses said, Follow the Drinking Gourd.
Let my people go,
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead, The river ends between two hills
Let my people go. Follow the Drinking Gourd.
There’s another river on the other side
No more shall they in bondage toil, Follow the Drinking Gourd.
Let my people go,
Let them come out with Egypt's spoil, When the great big river meets the little
Let my people go. river
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
For the old man is a-waiting for to carry
to freedom
If you follow the Drinking Gourd.