Spirituals

Religious folksong born from African enslavement in America.

Cultural Origin

Early 19th century

Prominent Artists

James Weldon and J. Rosamond Johnson, Fisk University Singers

Influenced By

Call & response, European hymns

Later Influenced

Ragtime, blues, gospel

Detail from Jubilee Singers, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee.

About The Genre

"A spiritual is a type of religious folk song that is most closely associated with the enslavement of African people in the American South. The songs proliferated in the last few decades of the 18th century leading up to the abolishment of legalized slavery in the 1860s. The African American spiritual (also called the Negro Spiritual) constitutes one of the largest and most significant forms of American folksong."
Library of Congress

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"A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing of 'O Canaan, sweet Canaan, I am bound for the land of Canaan,' something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the North, and the North was our Canaan."
Frederick Douglass