The song “My Father, How Long?” is a slave song from around 1865 that was documented in Florida (National Humanities Center). African Americans were legally slaves for white people in the United States for several centuries until slavery was abolished after the Civil War (Duiker 535). The African people were not always the devout Christians that the religious songs imply, however. For many years, Africans resisted conversion to Christianity and maintained their belief in their African ancestors’ “Old World religion" (Sambol-Tosco). By the 19th century, though, most slaves had converted to Christianity to please their white masters (Sambol-Tosco). Doing so also offered the slaves a diversion from thinking about brutal conditions they had to live with and provided them with an outlet for hope. During the time that they were subject to abuse and forced to do grueling labor, slaves sang religious songs to pass the time and distract them from their depletion (Eastern Michigan University). Many of these songs were spirituals that praised Jesus and sought his guidance to help them through the hardships of slavery (University of Richmond).
Several phrases in “My Father, How Long?” show that the song was a source of hope for the slaves who sang it. The first stanza illustrates the misery slaves endured when it asks how long the “Poor sinner[s] must suffer” (National Humanities Center). The next four lines answer that question hopefully with, “it won’t be long.” The song goes onto talk about their journey “home…where pleasure never dies” and where they will all “soon be free” (National Humanities Center). This refers to heaven, where the singers believed they would go to be free of slavery after they died. The slaves put their faith into the Lord to “call them home” one day and allow them to leave behind the harsh reality of their lives (National Humanities Center). African American slaves saw death as the only path to liberation because at the time, there was no other escape from slavery and nothing else to turn to for comfort except for the prospect of eventually reaching heaven. It is evident in this song that African Americans used religion, specifically Christianity, to help them get through lives filled with long days of intense work. Believing in an afterlife of pleasure and happiness eased the pain of an earthly life of mistreatment. The African American slaves of the United States are an example using faith to help cope with adversity; the consistency of religion and sense of equality in death that Christianity offered caused the slaves to turn to faith in the mid-19th century.
Duiker, William J. and Speilvogel, Jackson J., Eds. World History. 5th ed. Belmont, CA:
Thomas Wadsworth, 2007.
Eastern Michigan University. “Slave Songs.” 18 Apr. 2011.
National Humanities Center. “African American Songs Documented in Florida and
North Carolina, ca. 1865.” 18 Apr. 2011.
University of Richmond. “Songs in Slave Society.” 18 Apr. 2011.
Sambol-Tosco, Kimblery. “Slavery and the Making of America: The Slave Experience:
Religion.” Pbs.org. Online. 1 May 2011.
who was the author of this?
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