Saturday, February 11, 2012

Reflection: Slave Hymnals




Swing Low Sweet Chariot by Anonymous is about the pitfalls of being a slave Pre-Civil war era. This hymnal expresses the endurance of the average slave who wants to escape the pains of injustices. This slave sees the hope of taking the chariot to where its friends and family member may lie.

Keep Your Hands on the Plow by Anonymous describes a slave who is forced to keep working throughout dire circumstances.
Paul and Silas, they begin to shout   
Jail doors opened and they walked out  
Keep your hands on the plow, hold on. 

This quote exemplifies what happens when a slave, for example, takes his or her hands off of the plow. Paul and Silas were two slaves who got sent to jail when they took their hands off of the plow. No one was there to bail them out.  This gives the other slaves motivation to keep their hands on the plow because if they took their hands off the plow, they would be sent to jail and they would not have anyone around to bail them out.

Go Down Moses is an African American slave hymnal that was sung during slavery times as they were working in the fields on those long, hot Southern days. It is also a song of freedom of the slaves. They are waiting for the day that Moses goes down and that they will all be saved and no longer have to live their days in slavery. Egypt in the song is symbolizing the confederate states in the Civil War (Anonymous). The songs are similar to Henry David Thoreau because the song is about slavery and freedom. Thoreau wanted the freedom. Slavery was controlled by government which is not okay with Thoreau because he was not fond of the central government.

These three slavery hymnals show the resemblance between the Civil War era and the ear of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; the philosophies being: civil disobedience and self reliance.

Emerson, Ralph W. "Self-Reliance." Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm>.

Anonymous. "Go Down, Moses." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 345. Print.


Anonymous. "Keep You Hands on the Plow." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 346. Print.

Anonymous. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 344. Print.

No comments:

Post a Comment