Christianity In The Life And Narrative Of Frederick Douglass

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African American response to American conditions such as the influence of christianity mostly from their masters. Those slave songs are divided into three types: work, religious, and recreational songs. First, work songs were performed during labor for two functions: for the benefit of the slaves, but also their overseer. When slaves were working on a challenging project such as carrying a heavy load, singing provided a rhythm that helped them to collaborate their movements. The activity also helped the overseer organize their work easier. Frederick Douglass was a slave who eventually earned his freedom through the help of an education. In The Life and Narrative of Frederick Douglass, (an autobiographical piece) Douglass mentions that silence among slaves was uncomfortable:
“Once on the road with an ox team, and seated on the tongue of his cart, with no overseer to look after …show more content…
Douglass felt the reason for work songs was unusual, the work songs were not spiritual; they did not sing those songs to make themselves happy, they sang work songs to get through their strenuous tasks. Second, religious songs, which expressed their belief, gave a voice to their desire to experience freedom. Even though African Americans knew nothing about Christianity when they were first captured in Africa, many slaveholders willingly took them to church in the attempt to destroy their native culture and to force their workers to have the same religion. With this practice, those slaves found the grace and freedom preached in church attractive in comparison to their lives in slavery, which eventually established their religious music. Traditional European church music was combined with traditional African dances in the slaves’ religious music.. The religious song, “Keep Me From Sinking Down” portrays how slaves relied on Christianity to tolerate their labor and pray for
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