American Roots Music - African-American Spirituals

 Just last year in her blogpost, Sister Mary Morajeyo Okewola said "As an African, dance is as much a part of my life as eating, drinking and working, but it is also an important part of our worship" (https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/spirituality/column/role-dance-african-culture). Sister Mary went on to express in greater details, the role music plays in even the very mundane in the life of a West African. Reading her blog certainly helps in understanding how the onset of the African American Spirituals came about on the shores.  The Negro Spirituals, as they are also called, was naturally developed out of the situation that the West Africans found themselves in, when they were enslaved in America.

"Corn ditties" as they were first called, were the slaves' response to the slaveholders' refusal to allow dancing and the playing of drums within the church. In the late 1700s, rural slaves would stay after worship services in order to get back to what come naturally; singing and dancing. Almost all of the Africans that were enslaved and brought to the Americans were West Africans.

The corn ditties were closely linked to the slaves' lives. Some were songs that the slaves sung while working, and others were the spirituals. Those were inspired by the Gospel. The video inserted above is one of Bessie Jones' songs. She learned her songs from her grandfather who was a slave that was born in Africa. The rhythm from the stomping of the feet and the beats from the clapping of the hands that mimicked the drums that were now absent from the lives of the enslaved West Africans, was the only best solution to the maintaining what is second nature to them, music and dancing, to get through the injustices they faced.

Turn into a reference properly- (https://sonichits.com/video/Bessie_Jones/Sheep_Sheep_Don't_You_Know_the_Road)

Stopped here:

other sites I used or plan to use (need to turn them into a proper reference too):

1. https://www.negrospirituals.com/history.htm

2. https://spirituals-database.com/the-negro-spiritual/