Although it is impossible to determine with certainty when the first spirituals were created, most scholars speculate that these songs proliferated near the end of the eighteenth century and during the last few decades leading up to the end of legalized slavery in the 1860’s. During this long period of active music making, Americans fought and won a war for “independence” and “liberty,” while its rapidly expanding Black population remained enslaved, an irony that came to be reflected in the songs they created.

Despite important differences in the content and form of the music they created, all of the African communities from which slaves were captured placed functional music – in some form – at the center of their daily existence. In Africa, music was called on to mark and celebrate virtually every event in tribal life, no matter how insignificant. Daily routines of work, commerce or social discourse, as well as major life events, such as birth, marriage or participation in war, were all framed and punctuated with singing, dancing, drumming, or other forms of active music making.

In America, Africans from diverse religious backgrounds encountered Christianity. However, many slaves were initially reluctant to commit to a religion they viewed as hypocritical, a religion practiced by slave holders who espoused love and brotherhood, yet regularly mistreated and abused other human beings. Still, slaves were fascinated with the Biblical stories, which seemed to parallel many of their own experiences. By the late 1700’s, this fascination was reflected in the spiritual songs they were beginning to create, songs which – at least in the early days – also reflected a continuing identification with African cultural traditions. As growing numbers of African Americans converted and an Africanized Christianity took root, the spirituals also evolved to express and consolidate their new religious faith. Because of fear of retaliation from slave masters (who feared the association between religious faith and longings for freedom), worship often took place in secret meetings at night, sometimes signaled clandestinely by the singing of spirituals.