Frederick Douglass on Slave Songs...

Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave turned abolitionist, would say that slave songs "reveal at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains." When Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery to the North, he ran into those who believed that the songs were sung out of contentment and happiness and to this he says, "It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slaves were in a sense cathartic. Although they rarely revealed any sign of happiness, the idea of singing through their pain was like drinking away one's sorrows.