Some slave songs carried messages about escape. Because of the secretive nature of these songs, many were never written down. However some of the symbols and phrases made it into the Gospel repertoire - Steal Away, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and Wade in the Water all contain suggestions of escape.
One surviving song, Follow the Drinking Gourd, goes further. According to legend, a journeyman named Peg Leg Joe traveled from plantation to plantation, teaching slaves this song. The lyrics contain detailed instructions: Leave at the first signs of spring. Follow the banks of the Tombigbee River, then over a hill to the Tennessee, and finally the Ohio, always traveling north in the direction of the Big Dipper.
Follow the Drinking Gourd |
Follow the Drinking Gourd |
The journey took almost a year, bringing the refugees to the final dangerous crossing of the Ohio in the frozen days of winter - as in the Abolitionist classic, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when Eliza, fleeing her pursuers with her infant son in her arms, desperately runs across the jagged floes, losing her shoes in the icy river but struggling on with bleeding feet to the safety of the other side.
