Caging the Bird:Slave Songs of the United States

Diary, 1826-1835. Charles Heyward (American, 1802-1866) Pen and ink on paper, 5 1/8 x 5 7/8 in. Gibbes museum of Art / Carolina Art Association, Charlesotn, S.C.

Wye House PLantation

Diary, 1826-1835. Charles Heyward (American, 1802-1866) Pen and ink on paper, 5 1/8 x 5 7/8 in. Gibbes museum of Art / Carolina Art Association, Charlesotn, S.C.

“...the negroes of Port Royal, who have been so isolated heretofore that they have almost formed a dialect of their own. A stranger, upon first hearing these people talk, especially if there is a group of them in animated conversation, can hardly understand them better than if they spoke a foreign language, and might, indeed, easily suppose this to be the case.”

Allen, Introduction (i)

Collecting Sounds/Soul(s)

“The musical capacity of the negro race has been recognized for so many years that it is hard to explain why no systematic effort has hitherto been made to collect and preserve their melodies.”

Allen, Introduction (i)

“Jumpin’ Jim Crow” 1728. 1830s, published by E. Riley

“The greater number of the songs which have come into our possession seem to be the natural and original production of a race of remarkable musical capacity and very teachable, which has been long enough associated with the more cultivated race to have become imbued with the mode and spirit of European music – often, nevertheless, retaining a distinct tinge of their native Africa.” (viii)

Allen, Introduction (viii)

“Some of the best pure negro songs I have ever heard were those that used to be sung by the black stevedores, or perhaps the crews themselves, of the West India vessels, loading and unloading at the wharves in Philadelphia and Baltimore ... That plan of labor has now passed away, in Philadelphia at least, and the songs, I suppose, with it.”

Allen, Introduction (vii-viii)

The Sublimation of Suffering & Sin in Sound

in Sound

The Old Plantation (anonymous folk painting). Depicts African-American slaves dancing to banjo and percussion. Late 1700s

“I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy.”

-Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Slavery as it exists in America. Slavery as it Esits in England, 1850. Joshua P. Haven (American, n.d.), Boston Lithograph, 17 1/2 x 10 3/8 in., Harry T Peters Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

“Still, the chief part of the negro music is civilized in its character – partly composed under the influence of association with the whites, partly actually imitated from their music.”

Allen, Introduction (vi)

‘It is difficult,’ writes Miss McKim, ‘to express the entire character of these negro ballads by mere musical notes and signs. The odd turns made in the throat, and the curious rhythmic effect produced by single voices chiming in at different irregular intervals, seems almost as impossible to place on the score as the singing of birds...’

Allen, Introduction (v-vi)

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