![]() Skeptics claim that the legend has been picked up by credulous authors and published as fact without historical documentation. Some claim that songs of the Underground Railroad is an urban legend dating from the later 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. While many believe that the stories told about the songs of the Underground Railroad are true, there are also many skeptics. At the beginning of this same paragraph, he writes that the slave owner may very well have seen through the simple code they were using: "I am the more inclined to think that he suspected us, because… we did many silly things, very well calculated to awaken suspicion." Douglass immediately goes on to discuss how their repeated singing of freedom was one of those "many silly things".Įastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves, oil on paperboard, 22 x 26.25 inches, circa 1862, Brooklyn Museum In the lips of some, it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits but in the lips of our company, it simply meant a speedy pilgrimage toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery."ĭouglass's observations here likewise do not serve as clear evidence of the successful use of coded song lyrics to aid escaping slaves he is writing here only of his small group of slaves who are encouraging each other as they finalize their plans to escape, not of widespread use of codes in song lyrics. I thought I heard them say,/ There were lions in the way,/ I don't expect to stay/ Much longer here/ was a favorite air and had a double meaning. We meant to reach the north – and the north was our Canaan. Douglass similarly offers interesting comments but not clear evidence in My Bondage and Freedom: "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. His examples are sometimes quoted to support the claim of coded slave songs. In his 19th-century autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), Douglass gives examples of how the songs sung by slaves had multiple meanings. Music is important in the religion of African Americans today, as it was in the telling of freedom.įrederick Douglass was an escaped slave and abolitionist author. The oppressor in the song is the pharaoh, but in real life would have been the slave owner. " Go Down Moses", a spiritual that depicts the biblical story of Moses in Exodus leading his people to freedom, is believed by some to be a coded reference to the conductors on the Underground Railroad. This song might have boosted the morale and spirit of the slaves, giving them hope that there was a place waiting that was better than where they were. The song talks mostly of a promised land. Matthaeus Merian, Ezekiel's "chariot vision", (1593-1650)Īnother song with a reportedly secret meaning is "Now Let Me Fly" which references the biblical story of Ezekiel's Wheels. In this song the repeated line "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd" is thus often interpreted as instructions to escaping slaves to travel north by following the North Star, leading them to the northern states, Canada, and freedom: The song ostensibly encodes escape instructions and a map from Mobile, Alabama up the Tombigbee River, over the divide to the Tennessee River, then downriver to where the Tennessee and Ohio rivers meet in Paducah, Kentucky. The pointer stars of the Big Dipper align with the North Star. The song's title is said to refer to the star formation (an asterism) known in America as the Big Dipper and in Europe as The Plough. One reportedly coded Underground Railroad song is " Follow the Drinkin' Gourd". As it was illegal in most slave states to teach slaves to read or write, songs were used to communicate messages and directions about when, where, and how to escape, and warned of dangers and obstacles along the route. Songs of the Underground Railroad were spiritual and work songs used during the early-to-mid 19th century in the United States to encourage and convey coded information to escaping slaves as they moved along the various Underground Railroad routes. "Follow the drinking gourd" may mean to use the Big Dipper to find the way north The North Star is on a line from the Big Dipper's stars Merak (β) to Dubhe (α), continued for five times its distance.
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