Slave Songs of the United States was a collection of African American music consisting of 136 songs. Published in 1867, it was the first, and most influential,[1][2] collection of spirituals to be published. The collectors of the songs were Northern abolitionistsWilliam Francis Allen, Lucy McKim Garrison, and Charles Pickard Ware.[3] The group transcribed songs sung by the Gullah Geechee people of Saint Helena Island, South Carolina.[4] These people were newly freed slaves who were living in a refugee camp when these songs were collected.[5] It is a "milestone not just in African American music but in modern folk history".[6][7][8][9] It is also the first published collection of African-American music of any kind.[10]
The making of the book is described by Samuel Charters, with an emphasis on the role of Lucy McKim Garrison.[11] A segment of History Detectives explored the book's history and significance.[12]
^Maultsby, Portia K.; Mellonee V. Burnin; Susan Oehler. "Overview". The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. pp. 572–591.
^Ramsey, Jr., Guthrie P. (Spring 1996). "Cosmopolitan or Provincial?: Ideology in Early Black Music Historiography, 1867–1940". Black Music Research Journal. 16 (1). Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1: 11–42. doi:10.2307/779375. JSTOR779375.
^Charters, Samuel. 2015. Songs of Sorrow: Lucy McKim Garrison and "Slave Songs of the United States". Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN978-1-62846-206-7