This article was contributed by Rev. Dr. Donna Cox.
Footnotes
[1] Ralph H. Metcalfe, "The Western African Roots of Afro-American Music," The Black Scholar 1.8 (1970): 17, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41206250.
[2] Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, edited by Benjamin Quarles (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, [1845]1960), 99.
[3] Claudia Sutherland, “Stono Rebellion (1739),” Black Past.org, September 18, 2018, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/stono-rebellion-1739/.
[4] Banning of drums was not consistent throughout young America. African drumming continued unabated in places like Congo Square in New Orleans. See Drumming for Peace, “African Drumming in Early America (Part 1),” Drumming for Peace, January 1, 1970, http://drummingforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/02/african-drumming-in-early-colonial.html.
[5] “What Is the Underground Railroad?,” National Parks Service (U.S. Department of the Interior), https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/what-is-the-underground-railroad.htm.
[6] Bradford, Sarah (1886). Harriet The Moses of Her People, Lockwood & Son, NY. 28
[7] Douglass, An American Slave, 98.
[8] Archaeologist Daniel Sayers has explored and written about many of the remaining 112,000 acres of swamp and shares his discoveries. See Sandy Hausman, “Fleeing To Dismal Swamp, Slaves And Outcasts Found Freedom,” NPR (NPR, December 28, 2014), https://www.npr.org/2014/12/28/373519521/fleeing-to-dismal-swamp-slaves-and-outcasts-found-freedom#:~:text=Most%20Americans%20know%20about%20the%20Underground%20Railroad%2C%20the%20route%20that,Virginia%20and%20northeastern%20North%20Carolina.
[9] Communities of people of African descent not born on the continent have been formed with the intention of reclaiming what was lost in the middle passage. They continue to create new songs using African languages even as the members attempt to learn to speak different African tongues
[10] Kenyatta D. Barry, “Singing in Slavery: Songs of Survival, Songs of Freedom,” PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), http://www.pbs.org/mercy-street/blogs/mercy-street-revealed/songs-of-survival-and-songs-of-freedom-during-slavery/.
[11] Michael Cohen has written a rich article on the social history of contraband song. See Michael Cohen, “Contraband Singing: Poems and Songs in Circulation During The Civil War,” American Literature 82. 2 (2010): 271-304.
[12] Sacvan Bercovitch and Cyrus R. K. Patell, eds, Nineteenth-Century Poetry, 1800-1910, Vol. 4 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 202; “Image 2 of The Song of the Contrabands,” The Library of Congress, accessed June 10, 2021, https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.200001991.0/?sp=2. The song was arranged by Thomas Baker and published by Horace Waters, New York, 1861.
Additional Reading
Cox, Donna M. “The Power of a Song in a Strange Land.” The Conversation, September 3, 2020. https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-a-song-in-a-strange-land-129969.
