Slave Culture

Noah Brown
History
Slave Culture

It’s very important to look at the culture of slaves since it has such a huge influence on life today. Many of our music and spiritual ways come from African American slave culture.Many slaves passed the days by singing chanties to keep each other moving and to keep everyone on beat so they didn’t get tired or fall behind. Music is the area that Slaves had the biggest influence on. Sea chanties , yodeling, and falsetto all come from african american slave roots. These have a huge effect on our lives today. African Americans in this time were also heavily religious. Many of them thought that god would come and save them from the struggle and abuse of slavery as long as they endured for the time being. They worshipped with loud songs and they had a huge stress on the Holy Spirit and emotional conversations with him. African American folklore also was important in their lives and had a considerable influence on various things today. Slaves would share these folklores with their children and they were meant to teach morals similar to Mother Goose Stories in England and the United States. These stories influenced the Brer Rabbit Tales which taught about powerless creatures who got their will not from power but from cunning. African American culture also developed a sort of jargon which later we stole those and made words like: yam,phony,jamboree,jazz, and funky. African American culture was unique and developed quietly on it’s own and once it was discovered by the rich whites we did what we usually do and we took what we wanted, changed it slightly, and claimed it for our own.