1

Kathleen Fitzgerald
St. John—America
Final Paper

Slave Songs: A Balm in Gilead and Slave Agency

A Balm in Gilead (Slave Version) A Balm in Gilead (Book of Jeremiah)

There is a balm in Gilead, Is there no balm in Gilead,
To make the Spirit whole. No physician there?
There is a balm in Gilead, Why grows not new flesh
To heal the sin sick soul. Over the wound of the daughter of my people?

In the fifty years following the American Revolution, “it cannot be denied that

slavery expanded in the United States.”1 With more than 1.5 million slaves living in the

U.S. by 1820, and many of those slaves sold to the harsh Deep South as a part of the early

nineteenth century’s “disgraceful traffic in human flesh,” masses of blacks were forced to

labor in this new region, under an extremely radical system that viewed them as

“valuable property” given by God.2 Treated as commodities, the black slaves of the

newly structured Deep South withstood abuses ranging from whippings to hangings.3

Unlike their more successful Haitian contemporaries, who in 1804 established the “first

independent black nation-state in the Americas,” every time American slaves attempted a

similar form of public rebellion against the ungodly white rule, they were thwarted.4

Unable to control any part of their slave labor lives, the slaves turned to the evangelical

1
Rothman, Slave Country (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), ix.
2
“To their owners, enslaved people were valuable property, worth on average $200 each. One early
nineteenth-century statistician estimated that slaves accounted for 12.5 percent of the country’s total wealth
in 1800.”
p. 29, John Breckenridge, a confidant of Thomas Jefferson, even remarked during a public debate in 1799,
“Where is the difference whether I am robbed of my horse by a highwayman or of my slave by a set of
peopled called a Convention?”
3
Lecture.
4
Rothman, p. 21, 62.
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Christianity that Protestant missionaries brought to the Deep South beginning in the

1790s.5 However, even in the religious egalitarianism and “biracial collaboration”

supposedly offered by Christianity, slaves were repeatedly punished for any attempts to

take public control of their fellow black community of believers. Unable to publicly

rebel or escape from white rule, the zealously Christian slaves had no choice but to find

ways of latent communal rebellion. In early Negro hymns like “A Balm in Gilead,”

American slave songsters were able to alter the white man’s biblical language in clever

ways that enabled the slave community to publicly laugh in the face of their slave drivers

without being punished; by embedding mockery and hope within Christian slave hymns,

the Deep South slave community essentially de-comodified itself and exerted agency

over their situation through the only means remaining available to them—religious song.

One of the cleverest and most powerful acts of defiance within the private realm

of Christian slave subversion occurred when slave songsters purposefully altered the

diction of the white-taught biblical verses (upon which most hymns were based) to reflect

the hopes and previously latent communal agency of the entire slave community; based

on a passage in the biblical Book of Jeremiah, the Deep South Negro hymn, “A Balm in

Gilead” perfectly exemplifies the power of action slaves finally attained by altering a

white man’s verse during a time when white society held complete agency over blacks.

Unlike rhythm and melody, which “tend to deal [only] with the external effect of the

songs upon the listener,” diction (aka: word choice) actually spoke “to the singer.”6

Countless tales of the visceral power that surrounded a cluster of slaves singing their own

5
Rothman, p. 62.
6
Thurman, prologue
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hymns dot early 19th century American history. Such primary sources support the claim

that “many weary, spiritually and physically exhausted slaves found new strength and

power gushing up into all the reaches of their personalities, inspired by the words.”7

Therefore, when slave songsters altered hymns like 19th century’s “A Balm in Gilead” in

such a way that the slave community realized it was subverting the white community by

publicly singing privately subversive words, the slaves were finally able to rebel against

white society publicly without violent repercussions (e.g. whippings and hangings). For

instance, in the early 19th century Deep South slave hymn, “A Balm in Gilead,” black

slave songsters transformed the interrogative biblical verse, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

into the declarative, “There is a balm in Gilead.”8 By erasing the question mark, slaves

were loudly singing a “note of creative triumph” that regardless of their seemingly

permanent abusive enslavement, there was no question that they themselves, through

moral, Christian living, would certainly experience the soothing balm of the kingdom of

heaven (i.e. their Gilead).9 The songsters also altered words from Jeremiah 8, 22 so that

they better reflected hope for liberation in a future, spiritual place rather than the physical

realm. By changing words like “physician” and “flesh” to “spirit” and “soul,” slaves

were referencing God’s New Covenant with Jeremiah’s people that did not necessarily

promise physical liberation, but instead was a covenant by which God placed His “law

within them, and [wrote] it upon [those believers’] hearts; [The Lord said,] I will be their

God, and they shall be my people.”10 Similarly, American slaves could not necessarily

7
Thurman, p. 1.
8
Thurman, p. 26.
9
Thurman, p. 26.
10
Jer. 31, 32-34. The New American Bible, Saint Joseph edition. (New York: Catholic Publishing Co.,
1992)
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physically liberate themselves from slavery, but they could freely choose to focus on the

imminent soothing freedom that would arrive when God’s final judgment finally sent

them to eternal life.

Powerful certainty in their own communal redemption stood in contrast to slaves’

doubt about many of the non-Christian, white farmers and planters who remained

indifferent toward religion, and therefore, were not guaranteed the ultimate, soothing

balm of Christianity’s Gilead.11 This tone of slaves’ communal optimism transcended all

the pessimism with which the white slave holders were continually bombarding the slave

community.12 The ability of the Negro slave to faithfully laugh and sing in the face of

adversity “is vital and dynamic, leaping out of an elemental faith in life itself which

makes a sense of ultimate defeat, not only unrealistic but impossible.”13 Quietly laughing

in the faces of unbelieving whites without the whites’ knowledge reflects the continual

empowerment the slave community received from publicly proclaiming that like

Jeremiah’s story of Gilead, God’s last judgment “cannot be fooled however powerful and

clever the individual may be.”14 By communally singing “A Balm in Gilead,” which

reaffirmed the belief that slaves’ ultimate destiny was good despite their earthly chains,

the slave community actually asserted their own dominance over those unbelieving

whites who would be chained in hell as the slaves were chained in life. With slaves

communally bond over hymns like “A Balm in Gilead,” their ante-bellum slave songsters

effectively took control of that community’s sense of hope.

11
Rothman, p. 64.
12
Thurman, p. 27.
13
Thurman, p. 27.
14
Thurman, p. 27.
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In order to better understand how the slave community had to discover a mode,
such as song, by which they could rebel without punishment, it remains necessary to
show how slaves’ more overt and publicly rebellious acts were not very successful and
not worth the resultant violence. By doing so, I hope to showcase how the white, Deep
South community essentially drove slaves to latent forms of rebellion, and how important
subversive songs like “A Balm in Gilead” became to the slave community.

Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, white society

violently punished any attempt at agency made by slaves, essentially forcing slaves to

find a seemingly innocuous conduit, like Christian hymns, to exert their own free will.

Much of white America remained fearful of the possibility that slaves might align

themselves with French officials or the former slaves of St. Domingue to plan a large-

scale American slave revolution. 15 In fact, “many white Americans [even] concluded

that slaves were … the inveterate enemies of their masters, and if given a chance, would

avenge themselves”; this warlike mentality only encouraged slave owners’ violent,

reactionary responses to any rebellious activities by slaves.16 The clamp down on slaves

is evident throughout the early 19th century. Between 1799 and 1802, “a series of real

and alleged slave conspiracies” occurred in Virginia and North Carolina, with one alleged

plot to take over Richmond resulting in 17 slaves being immediately hanged.17 In April

1810, a runaway slave in Georgia was captured and hanged because he was accused of

murdering a white man.18 Other responses to rumored slave insurrections included

deportation outside the United States and intense whippings, as was the case for John

Palfrey’s slave Harry who “occasionally ran away but never got very far.”19 Enduring

15
Rothman, p. 16.
16
Rothman, p. 21.
17
Rothman, p. 22.
18
Rothman, p. 66.
19
Rothman, p. 22, 52, 54.
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bad weather, sickness, and oftentimes starvation, slaves like Harry who attempted to

liberate themselves from the control of their white masters by running away were usually

captured and violently whipped as a means of deterring future attempts. After hearing

stories of lashings and worrying about supporting themselves while on the run, most

slaves decided not to run away; consequently, “fugitives [like Harry] were exceptional,”

and most slaves resigned themselves to find other ways to subvert the slave system.

Realizing, as Thomas Jefferson had, that one should give up “the expectation of any early

provision for the extinguishment of slavery among us,” the slaves of the Deep South

sought an outlet for their seemingly permanent castrated agency, and they found that

opportunity in the only non-labor realm encouraged by whites—evangelical Christianity.

By fervently teaching Christianity to the slaves at the same time they were also

clamping down on physical rebellion, Christian slaveholders set the perfect stage for the

black community’s most clever act of mental rebellion yet. “Beginning in the late 1790s,

a host of public officials, economic entrepreneurs, and evangelical Protestants struggled

to “civilize” [the sugar and cotton producing Deep South] region, [which] they

considered wild and benighted.”20 While the slaves were able to actively participate in

this spread of evangelical Protestantism, the conflict and violence with the white slave

holders continued to tinge relations between slaves and others in the cotton frontier.21 For

the powerful whites who were guiding the country and enforcing Jefferson’s “civilizing”

mission, spreading the Good News of the New Testament was an act of “spiritual

dimension”; however, for the slave audiences who heard the message preached, it was the

20
Rothman, p. 37.
21
Rothman, p. 38.
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first time men in authority positions ever told them they were the equals of whites. As

preachers explained to groups of slaves that Christ “loves poor blacks as well as others,”

the slaves quickly became quite attached to the idea of religious egalitarianism.22 That

Christian slave owners like James Gunn “prayed with [his slaves] and taught them

reading and catechism” was perceived as an equal empowerment by his slave audience.

Similar tales of perceived religious equality spread as slaves from homes like that of

James Gunn were sold through the interstate slave trade. As a result, slaves who had

previously been stripped of any freedom of action (following news of violently thwarted

freedom attempts) were now able to cling to the power of the Bible “as if it were a rope

pulling them from quicksand.”23 At last, slaves had a semblance of empowerment while

they frenetically worked, usually under the harshest of conditions, to pick 37,000 pounds

of cotton per plantation in a year.24 Influenced by their beliefs and a sense of slave

“domestication,” Christian slave holders usually allowed slaves to meet for worship.

Under that Christian semblance of freedom, Southern blacks like Joseph Willis, born a

free man of color, were able to be ordained ministers and head their own churches around

1816.25 Groups like the Mississippi Baptist Association even tried to discipline those

Christian slave holders who engaged in “unscriptural” treatment of their slaves, though

these groups eventually failed to have any real effect.26 Christian slaves sensed a

newfound agency over the system because they could form their own interpretations of

the Gospel at the same time they were ‘beating the slave system’ by scheduling worship

22
Rothman, p. 63.
23
Rothman, p. 63-64.
24
Rothman, p. 53.
25
Rothman, p. 64.
26
Rothman, p. 65.
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meetings around their work schedule.27 For the first time, it appeared as though the

slaves were exerting their individual and communal agency in the Deep South.

The reality of the slave and free blackman’s status in the South, however, soon

became remarkably clear as white society forcefully responded to publicly subversive

acts and statements made by a few black Christians; the slave owners made it clear that

there was a line of power, the slaves had illegally crossed it, and “their antics would not

be tolerated.”28 When a slave named Phil questioned a decision made by a white,

Moravian Christian leader to house a murderer, Phil made it unequivocal that he

interpreted the “racial egalitarianism in the Moravian [community]” as making him the

equal of the white Moravian leaders within the congregational arena.29 Phil spoke to the

other Christian slaves of the Moravian community claiming he knew the Bible as well as

the white Moravians did, and he should preach to them since the Moravians were

obviously sinful in harboring a murderer.30 Although some slaves believed in the

message of equality preached by Christian evangelists like the Moravians, the Christian

world punished those who publicly criticized the white status quo just as severely as the

more traditional slave holders had punished slaves who ran away or who were rumored to

organize public revolts. Phil and his collaborator were “tied to a tree and whipped,” a

scene reminiscent of so many traditional punishments. By supporting the whipping of

Christian black revolutionaries like Phil, the U.S. government and the powerful slave

holding elite continued to support the status quo that overt, “radically subversive” acts by

27
Rothman, p. 66.
28
Rothman, p. 68.
29
Rothman, p. 69.
30
Rothman, p. 68. Phil said, “I will preach to you, I know the Bible as well as they.”
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slave leadership, whether or not they were accomplished in the name of Christianity,

would not be tolerated.31 Once again, the southern slaves were stripped of any agency

since the whites controlled what they said and did within the religious realm as well as

the work realm. Further reducing the Christian slave community’s newfound sense of

equality under Christianity, the Moravian Conference proclaimed in 1809 that “black

brothers and sisters” could no longer participate in the immensely meaningful ‘washing

of the feet’ ritual.32

A few years into their newfound Christian religion, the southern slave community

finally understood that public power plays made by slaves in defiance of their white

owners and the white social order would always be severely punished. Consequently,

slave communities naturally progressed toward a more subtle, latent form of rebellion

against their harsh masters. Combining their ever-zealous Christian practices with their

newfound awareness of the need for subversive discretion, Christian slaves continued to

revolt quietly through acts of defiance like continuing to reenact the washing of the feet

and altering the Bible into Gilead-like hymns of quiet protest.

Bibliography

Act of Congress. Slave Songs of the United States. (New York: A. Simpson & Co.,
1867)

31
Rothman, p. 68.
W.E.B. Dubois, “The Talented Tenth.” “What is slavery but the legalized survival of the unfit and the
nullification of the work of natural internal leadership?”
32
Rothman, p. 69. The practice was inspired by John 13.
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New American Bible, Saint Joseph edition. (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co.,
1992)

Rothman, Adam. Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep
South.

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005)

Thurman, Howard. Deep River: An Interpretation of Negro Spirituals. (California: The

Eucalyptus Press, Mills College, 1945)