Go Down, Moses (Historical Context)

Historical Context

In many American history books, 1620 is singled out as an important date. That was the year when the Mayflower landed at Plymouth colony, bringing a shipload of Pilgrims who had left their homes and set sail for a new world hoping to find the religious freedom which had been denied them in Europe. Those same books seldom record an equally momentous event which occurred one year earlier: in 1619, a Dutch man-of-war arrived in Jamestown, bringing the first African slaves to the land which would become the United States. These two events prefigure a divisive split in our nation’s history: between those who settled the land looking for freedom, gain, or adventure and those who were violently ripped from their own country and forced into bondage to suffer for another’s dream.

In the decades immediately following 1619, there was little increase in the slave trade in the English colonies. The small towns and farms did not require intensive labor, and thus did not provide a profitable market for the traders. Work was frequently performed by indentured servants, workers who committed themselves to serve a master for a period of several years, after which they received their freedom. In addition, many settlers hoped to enforce the native Indian population into either indentured servitude or slavery. Thus, the slave trade in the Americas first flourished in the West Indies and the Caribbean where large sugar plantations were established.

Gradually, however, slavery was extended throughout North America. At first, slaves in these English colonies were considered the same as indentured servants. Eleven Angolans who had been brought to work as slave laborers in New Amsterdam in 1626 were released from their servitude by the governor of the colony in 1644. However, this attitude quickly changed. By the later part of the seventeenth century, codes were established which legalized a system of slavery allowing a slave to be considered as chattel or property. As the large plantations of the southern United States developed, so did the increased demand for slaves. Soon a triangular trade route flourished. Ships would leave England loaded with goods and sail to Africa. There the goods were traded for slaves. Ships then made the infamous Middle Passage to the West Indies or the colonies. Slaves were exchanged for sugar and other commodities, after which the ships returned to England to begin the process again. Such continual trade meant the number of slaves increased by the thousands almost every year. In Africans in America, the authors state: “By the mid-1750s, one in every five Americans was a slave — nearly 300,000 out of a total population of a million and a half. And five thousand new captives arrived from Africa or the Caribbean each year.”

Thus, from 1619 until the slave trade ended, almost 15,000,000 Africans were wrenched from their homes and brought to the New World under appalling conditions. Many died en route. Those who survived found themselves totally ripped from family and tradition, often without even the presence of someone who spoke the same language. Nevertheless, slaves formed communities with common dreams and goals. They adapted aspects of Christianity which allowed them to retain many African religious overtones. They struggled against their oppressors, mentally and physically. In The Black Spirituals and Black Experience, James Cone proclaims that “Black slaves were not passive, and black history is the record of their resistance against the condition of human bondage.”

Many slaves struggled against the harsh conditions. Several stories have been passed down about slaves who threw themselves off the ships if possible, preferring death to life in captivity. During the 230 years when slavery flourished in North America, there were many slave rebellions. Over sixty-five have been documented. One of the first occurred in the north, in New York City in 1711, when a group of runaway African slaves burned several buildings. In 1739, a man named Jeremy, a recent arrival from Angola, led over twenty slaves in a rebellion in Stony River, South Carolina. Word of a large-scale slave rebellion in Haiti in 1791 reached the United States, inspiring fear in slave-owners and hope in many slaves. One man who was encouraged by this example was Gabriel. He hoped to force the white slave-owners of Richmond Virginia, to negotiate with him. Both poor weather and a traitor in his ranks helped to defeat his troops, but not before his rebellion received national attention, including that of the president-elect, Thomas Jefferson.

However, armed rebellion was not the only method of seeking freedom for slaves. Many fled North, either on their own or aided by the Underground Railroad, a loose connection of individuals who provided guidance and shelter for runaway slaves. One of the best known figures of the system was a former slave, Harriet Tubman. After reaching the relative safety of the northern states, she decided to help others escape. Her role was that of a conductor on the railroad. She ventured into the South, escorting groups of fleeing slaves back North with her. Her passion and success were so overwhelming that she became known as Moses, or at times the Black Moses. Spirituals were a prime means of communication on the Underground Railroad, and she would frequently signal her presence by singing, “Go Down, Moses.” Word then spread through the slave cabins that Moses had arrived to make the words of the spiritual a reality. Thus the spirituals held out the hope of freedom, not just in the afterlife, but in the present also.

The importance of such songs in providing hope is vividly demonstrated in The Music of Black Americans by Eileen Southern. She describes a meeting of black men held on December 31, 1862, in Washington, D.C. As they waited for the stroke of midnight, when the Emancipation Proclamation would “bring freedom to the slaves in the secessionist states the assembled blacks sang over and over again: “Go Down, Moses Let my people go.”

Compare & Contrast

• 1800: Gabriel’s revolt, an attempt by several slaves to call attention to the injustice of slavery, takes place in Richmond, Virginia.
  1963: Martin Luther King delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., calling for civil rights for all citizens.
  1995: Louis Farrakhan and Benjamin Chavis organize the Million Man March to combat negative stereotyping of black men, attacks on affirmative action, and hostile practices by governmental authorities.
• 1800: Thomas Jefferson is elected third president of the United States.
  1998: DNA evidence confirms that Jefferson was the father of at least one of the children of his slave, Sally Hemings.
  2000: The Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which runs the tours of Jefferson’s home, Monticello, decides to include information about Hemings and the DNA tests in its literature.