Spirituals

 Use of Spirituals 

The use of Spirituals was the music for the slaves to express themselves and their feelings whether it was sorrow, Joy, inspiration or hope. Songs were passed down from generation to generation throughout the time of slavery. These songs were controlled by African and religious traditions. 

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was a famous slave helper and used songs to get a message through to the slaves and help the African traped slaves to escape the border, they would go through the rivers to remove the scent because dogs could track them down. Thousands of people got saved and became free because of one lady, there were several slave helpers but the most popular was Harriet Tubman because of all of the people that she helped. They Travelled from the south to the north of America, which was the safe part of America because they could be free. The African slaves swore not to return. Harriet Tubman did this over and over again helping many more people. 

Spiritual Message (Highlights)

One of the songs that they would sing was "Wade in the Water" Sang by Harriet Tubman to tell escaping slaves to get off the trail and get into the water to make sure the dogs known as (Slave Catchers)  couldn't sniff out their trail. So Basically this song was used to help slaves escape. For the first sentence " Wade in the water, wade in the water children." Wading means walking with the effort inside water or a source of liquid and that means that when Harriet Tubman was leading children to the escape route they walked through the water to escape. In the second line "God's Gonna trouble the water." Gods going to trouble the water meant that the water was a source of healing. One of the lines says "Must be the ones that made it through" that defines the people who actually escaped and survived. 

Are These Events Still Significant today?

As you know Racism still is alive today sadly but Abraham Lincoln is the one president that made a change. He informed everyone that all the slaves shall be free forever of their prison, That was ages ago but some people didn't listen and that's why some family generations are still enslaved today. 

Listen to Wade in the water-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_euSS86dvE

Wade in the Water, wade in the water children. 

Wade in the Water. God’s gonna trouble the water.
Who are those children all dressed in Red?
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Must be the ones that Moses led.
God’s gonna trouble the water.

Who are those children all dressed in White?
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Must be the ones of the Israelites.
God’s gonna trouble the water.

Who are those children all dressed in Blue?
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Must be the ones that made it through.
God’s gonna trouble the water.

Mymaps-  We used googlemymaps.com to create this music through a time loop about the slave trading. This is what my map looks like and the information about the countries involved and all of the three passages connected to this. If you click on the highlighted parts and lines you will see what happened during these times. I decided to include the population and all about the continuous circle of traders, I explained what they traded for the slaves and about Harriet Tubman and the underground tunnel. This was our first time using this site and it is actually useful for describing facts about countries.