Coming for to carry me home Essay

Solomon Northup was born free, in Minerva, New York in 1808. Northup became known in his community as an exceptional fiddle player. When two men approached Northup and offered him good wages to go to Washington DC, to play in a travelling music show, he quickly accepted. Solomon Northup was drugged, kidnapped, captured, and sold into slavery. He served for many masters; some were violent and cruel while others treated him humanely. Solomon Northup experienced shear torture, cruelty, and the loss of his dignity, throughout his many years as a slave. After many years, he came in contact with an abolitionist, who sent letters to Northup’s family to notify them of his life and status. He was soon rescued from Louisiana and freed as a slave.

While work songs dealt only with their daily life, spirituals were inspired by the message of Jesus Christ and his Good News (Gospel) of the Bible, “You can be saved”. They are different from hymns and psalms, because they were a way of sharing the hard condition of being a slave. Many slaves in town and in plantations tried to run to a “free country”, that they called “my home” or “Sweet Canaan, the Promised Land”. This country was on the Northern side of Ohio River, that they called “Jordan”. Some negro spirituals refer to the Underground Railroad, an organization for helping slaves to run away.

In the time period of slavery, many famous slave songs were produced, and most of the slave owners and others found their singing as a form of joy. In reality, singing was the slave’s form of sadness, and emotion. Slaves got through the day by singing about their hardships and troubles. Fredrick Douglass in the quote above explains that through all of his hardships, he got through it with his “sorrow songs” to pacify him and his fellow slaves to be able to complete their

With rhetorical tact, Douglass uses his narrative to underscore the overwhelming desperation inherent to slave songs. Says Douglass, “The singing of a man cast away upon a desert island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.” Driven by an all-consuming

“You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angel, and that fly round the word; I am confined in the bands of iron!” He compares himself to the boats. He depicts how the boats are able to move freely whereas he is held in lifelong bondage. It is evident that he also uses parallel sentences with antithesis. He conveys some sense of complexity in himself and a greater insight to his feelings. The exclamatory sentences intensify Douglass’s statements about his feelings as a slave which reinforces the author’s rhetorical

As Douglass began to acquire a greater understanding of his condition through reading, he felt as if “the silver trump of freedom had roused [his] soul to eternal wakefulness.”20 Douglass’s use of the word silver helps express the precious nature of freedom, as well as the idea that it’s beckoning the enslaved with its gleam. Through the contrast between the purity of freedom and the corruption of slavery, Douglass’s choice of words humanizes himself because it demonstrates his attention to detail as he constructed this narrative. Likewise, he expresses that “[the slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm] would make [woods] reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joys and the deepest sadness.”21 Douglass's usage of juxtaposition to draw attention to the vastness of emotion expressed by these songs demonstrates his own humanity, for this selection highlights Douglass's talent to capture the emotional peaks and troughs that are endured by

After this Douglass explains the emotions that he feels looking back on the situation and the real meaning of the songs. Douglass uses words like “deep(26)” and “ineffable(26)” when explaining the emotions that the slaves are expressing through these songs. The word deep is showing how the slaves are stuck in their situation, when I hear this word it makes me think of a mile deep hole that the slaves are stuck in and they cannot get out. They were put in a situation where they are bred to make sure that they are not educated nor aware of what's really going on around them. By putting the slaves in this “ineffable” situation it gives them a loss of hope and a feeling of helplessness. Douglass is showing the reader the depressing feelings of the slaves and it makes the reader to feel for the slaves and repel from the thought of slavery and its affects on people.

Hebrew slaves are being oppressed in this song because they are talking about Pharaoh and Egypt which is mention in the bible as the Hebrew who soon were freed by Moses. The oppressed people in this song has a strong connection with the slaves because they share the same feeling, history tends to repeated its self and this is a great example of this.

A spiritual journey dominates these songs, but the concern for physical freedom is there as well. The most pervasive image in the spirituals is that of the chosen people for the slaves believed that they had been chosen by God just as the Israelites had. They also believed that they understood better than anyone what freedom truly meant in both a spiritual and physical sense. The Old Testament characters that the slaves referred to in their songs experienced deliverance by God. The slaves believed that the same God that had granted them spiritual freedom would someday loose the chains of slavery. The wonderful flexibility of the spirituals allowed for that double meaning of freedom. For example, Frederick Douglass claimed that the line” I am bound for Canaan” in one of the songs he frequently sang meant that he was going North, not just that he would experience the freedom of the promised land in a spiritual sense. The flexibility and multiplicity of meanings also allowed for slaves to use these sacred songs as secret communication. Some songs, such as “Steal Away to Jesus,” were used to call a secret meeting where the people could worship without the supervision of the whites. Other songs, such as “Wade in the Water” served as coded directions for runaway slaves. With the eventual emancipation of the slaves, religious music of African Americans became prominently

Douglass corrects white reader’s misconceptions about the slave’s assumed happiness by illustrating the song’s true meaning through his personal experience “within the circle.” Douglass is astounded that northerners believed they were singing songs out of happiness; he says, “I have often been 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” (26). Douglass explains that the songs create a common experience among all slaves. Therefore, those outside the circle are ignorant to believe that their songs are out of happiness or contempt. In actuality, “slaves sing most when they are the most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears” (26). Douglass makes it clear that slaves are actually evident on a sub-conscious level of deep unhappiness. The singing is a coping mechanism, per say, to the aching hearts. The songs are not a pastime

Nick Young makes an allusion to swing low sweet chariot a negro spiritual song how does he use it here ? what is the effect of his rephrasing?

In the book 12 Years A Slave written from a primary source by Solomon Northup based on a true story describes the triumphant journey Solomon Northup goes through as he never lost hope of regaining his freedom and resisted the dehumanization of enslavement in many ways. Solomon was born a free black man in New York in 1808 while his father, Mintus was born a slave and gained his freedom as their master passed away also inheriting their masters last name "Northup". Growing Solomon worked on a farm with his dad and soon after his dad died in 1829 he soon married a women named Anne Hampton in which they soon moved to Saratoga Springs, New York and had three children of their own. They were living like any other free person was and soon Solomon was working in many industries and Anne established herself as a cook and in the 1830 's Solomon had a reputation of being a well played violinist. In 1841 Solomon had became unemployed and was looking for an occupation, he ran into Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton in who then offers him a job in a circus playing the violin. As they arrive in Washington D.C. which is slave territory, he begins to become sick and passes out which was planned by Merrill and Abram to poison and kidnap him in the slave territory and sell him in which he soon wakes up in chains in a slave pen. Solomon 's first master was James H. Burch who he was sold by the two men who had

The song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” is a spiritual protest song written in the past to bring awareness to slavery and how the slave feels. This songs audience can be for either slaves or owners of slaves. This is because the author of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” could be trying to find people that feel the way he does or he could be trying to get the slave owners to understand the perspective of slaves in general, os they can stop keeping them as slaves and instead, let them be free.

It is talking about the war in Vietnam and religious wars. Also young men were sent to war at 18 and weren’t allowed to vote until they were 21. This didn’t seem fair as they had no say in what was happening to them. The 2nd verse is about the very real possibility of nuclear war.

The poet uses different techniques to bring the out the impacts of slavery on the affected individuals (the slaves). The “grave/slave(s)” rhymed couplet recurs at