Jean Toomer was inspired to write Cane after spending two months in Georgia. The lyrical quality of his novel—as well as the evocation of the legacy of slavery, of religion, and of the Southern landscape and its concomitant associations with violence, sensuality, and sorrow—has led many critics to discuss the work in light of slave spirituals. Indeed, some of Toomer’s poems included in the novel are in the form of slave spirituals.
Spirituals are religious folksongs associated with African slaves in the American South, and were notable during the late 1700s and the first half of the 1800s. The term comes from the King James translation of the Bible verse Ephesians 5:19: “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord."
Slaves would gather informally to sing and dance, embracing religion as well as the “ring shout” style of singing and dancing brought over from Africa. Many white slaveowners were wary of these gatherings because the behavior seemed idolatrous. Over time, though, slaves began to embrace Christianity, or at least certain parts of it such as the teachings of Jesus and the Jews’ exile from Egypt. They wove these themes into their songs and thus were able to sing them more openly. Yale scholar Yolanda Smith writes, “Certainly, the oral tradition was central to the education system of the enslaved community. Enslaved Africans, prohibited from learning to read and write, passed on valuable life lessons from the Scriptures and other wisdom sources through the spirituals. Slaves learned these lessons in the fields as they labored from sunup to sundown, in the privacy of their living quarters, and in clandestine worship services. Indeed, for the masses of slaves who could not read, the spirituals were their channel to the word of God.’’
Many have a call-and-response form meaning that a leader improvises a line and a chorus provides the refrain in unison. Some were very slow and melodic because they expressed melancholy themes. In his Narrative, Frederick Douglass wrote of his impressions of such songs: “I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception.” Other spirituals, though, were called “jubilees” or “camp meeting songs,” and were joyful and energetic. There was a great deal of hand-clapping because slaves were generally not allowed to play instruments.
Spirituals contain within them sentiments of protest. Some indicate how to flee from slavery; for example, there were songs that were codes to help slaves looking for Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Douglass also identified the biblical Canaan as the North; others meant Canada by this. Another potent reference was the River Jordan, which could metaphorically mean death or literally mean a river to cross to escape to freedom.
Spirituals began to be published in the 1860s. In subsequent decades musical scholars and historians gathered these folk songs. Occasionally some were played on concert hall stages. Marian Anderson in particular included them in her repertoire in the 1920s and 1930s. With the advent of recording technology, spirituals began to be preserved.
