Mutual Reinforcement and the Origins of Spirituals

Abstract

The year 1800 marked another significant event, the birth of camp meetings, the first of which was in Kentucky. Within five years camp meetings had spread to every geographical section of the United States, and during their first few years another new species of American hymn, the camp-meeting song, appeared.2 While hymns in standard forms were probably sung at these meetings, the term camp-meeting song has come to refer specifically to items with refrains, choruses, or both. It is believed that such songs were sung responsively, that is, in call-andresponse form. Call-and-response black spirituals and camp-meeting songs are very similar. Indeed, given only printed transcriptions, many and black songs appear to be identical or nearly so. Accordingly, George Pullen Jackson's term white spirituals3 is appropriate for campmeeting songs and other American folk hymns of whites. Hereafter, spirituals, used without a modifier, is intended to embrace both black and spirituals. Since blacks and whites attended camp meetings together from the beginning,4 it is not surprising that both sang songs of camp meetings,

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