Introduction to Lesson 8

The African American musical genre known as the antebellum folk spiritual assumed an identifiable shape sometime after the arrival of African slaves on the North American continent but long before the American Civil War. In her initial analysis of the genre, Maultsby writes: "As a form of religious expression performed primarily in contexts free of White control, antebellum folk spirituals were outside the boundaries of consciousness for the vast majority of the White American public" (Maultsby 2015, 60). Unfortunately, before the advent of audio recordings, researchers can only surmise what these early spiritualsA style of music invented by Afro-American slaves. Spirituals are generally religious songs with elements of African rhythms, Biblical texts, and American accents. Usually the text is concerned with earthly tribulations and heavenly justice and reward. sounded like by using extant descriptions and a few recordings made decades later in isolated churches throughout the South. Still, what has survived gives us an idea of what the spirituals said and a hint of their music.