The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-Slavery Meetings — Background and Themes

(0 User reviews) 246

In Category - Music History

Authors: Brown, William Wells, 1814?-1884 [Compiler] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2003 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Slavery -- United States -- Poetry; Antislavery movements -- Songs and music; Songs, English -- United States -- Texts Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 13,307

Reading time 58 min

Text sections 2

Before opening The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-Slavery Meetings — Background and Themes, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 13,307 words, 58 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 18.7 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Slavery -- United States -- Poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #10448

William Wells Brown's 1848 songbook for anti-slavery meetings, with lyrics set to familiar tunes, reveals how abolitionists used music to rally sentiment, from maternal grief to martial resolve.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg10448

Read the Text

She was my angel, my love and pride-- Vainly to save her from torture I tried, Poor broken heart! She rejoiced as she died, Long, long ago--long, long ago!

Let me look back on the days of my youth-- Long, long ago--long ago! Master withheld from me knowledge and truth-- Long, long ago--long ago! Crushed all the hopes of my earliest day, Sent me from father and mother away-- Forbade me to read, nor allowed me to pray-- Long, long ago--long, long ago!

FLIGHT OF THE BONDMAN. DEDICATED TO WILLIAM W. BROWN _And Sung by the Hutchinsons_

From the crack of the rifle and baying of hound, Takes the poor panting bondman his flight; His couch through the day is the cold damp ground, But northward he runs through the night.

Chorus. O, God speed the flight of the desolate slave, Let his heart never yield to despair; There is room 'mong our hills for the true and the brave, Let his lungs breathe our free northern air!

O, sweet to the storm-driven sailor the light, Streaming far o'er the dark swelling wave; But sweeter by far 'mong the lights of the night, Is the star of the north to the slave. O, God speed, &c.

Cold and bleak are our mountains and chilling our winds, But warm as the soft southern gales Be the hands and the hearts which the hunted one finds, 'Mong our hills and our own winter vales. O, God speed, &c.

Then list to the 'plaint of the heart-broken thrall, Ye blood-hounds, go back to your lair; May a free northern soil soon give freedom to _all_, Who shall breathe in its pure mountain air. O, God speed, &c.

THE SWEETS OF LIBERTY.

AIR--Is there a heart, &c.

Is there a man that never sighed To set the prisoner free? Is there a man that never prized The sweets of liberty? Then let him, let him breathe unseen, Or in a dungeon live; Nor never, never know the sweets That liberty can give.

Is there a heart so cold in man, Can galling fetters crave? Is there a wretch so truly low, Can stoop to be a slave? O, let him, then, in chains be bound, In chains and bondage live; Nor never, never know the sweets That liberty can give.

Is there a breast so chilled in life, Can nurse the coward's sigh? Is there a creature so debased, Would not for freedom die? O, let him then be doomed to crawl Where only reptiles live; Nor never, never know the sweets That liberty can give.

YE SPIRITS OF THE FREE.

AIR--My Faith looks up to thee.

Ye spirits of the free, Can ye forever see Your brother man A yoked and scourged slave, Chains dragging to his grave, And raise no hand to save? Say if you can.

In pride and pomp to roll, Shall tyrants from the soul God's image tear, And call the wreck their own,-- While, from the eternal throne, They shut the stifled groan And bitter prayer?

Shall he a slave be bound, Whom God hath doubly crowned Creation's lord? Shall men of Christian name, Without a blush of shame, Profess their tyrant claim From God's own word?

No! at the battle cry, A host prepared to die, Shall arm for fight-- But not with martial steel, Grasped with a murderous zeal; No arms their foes shall feel, But love and light.

Firm on Jehovah's laws, Strong in their righteous cause, They march to save. And vain the tyrant's mail, Against their battle-hail, Till cease the woe and wail Of tortured slave!

COLONIZATION SONG. TO THE FREE COLORED PEOPLE.

AIR--Spider and the fly.

Will you, will you be colonized? Will you, will you be colonized?

'Tis a land that with honey And milk doth abound, Where the lash is not heard, And the scourge is not found. Chorus, Will you, &c.

If you stay in this land Where the white man has rule, You will starve by his hand, In both body and soul. Chorus.

For a nuisance you are, In this land of your birth, Held down by his hand, And crushed to the earth. Chorus.

My religion is pure, And came from above, But I cannot consent The black negro to love. Chorus.

It is true there is judgment That hangs o'er the land, But 't will all turn aside, When you follow the plan. Chorus.

You're ignorant I know, In this land of your birth, And religion though pure, Cannot move the curse. Chorus.

But only consent, Though extorted by force, What a blessing you'll prove, On the African coast. Chorus.

I AM AN ABOLITIONIST.

Continue Reading →

William Wells Brown, a fugitive slave, compiled The Anti-Slavery Harp in 1848 to meet a demand for “Songs of a more recent composition” for anti-slavery meetings. The collection sets new lyrics to well-known melodies—such as “Bride’s Farewell,” “Araby’s Daughter,” and “Sweet Afton”—transforming popular tunes into vehicles for abolitionist argument. Brown acknowledges debts to earlier songbooks but notes that “the larger portion of these songs has never before been published.” The result is a portable arsenal of persuasion, designed to be sung in unison at gatherings, where the familiar airs would ease memorization and amplify emotional impact.

Lyrics as Argument: The Rhetoric of the First Songs

The opening songs establish a pattern of direct moral address. “Am I Not a Man and Brother?” poses its title question as a refrain, answered by a second voice that affirms “Yes, thou art a man and brother.” The call-and-response structure mirrors the meeting format, turning the song into a communal pledge. “O, Pity the Slave Mother” shifts to a third-person lament, cataloging the “mildew of slavery” that has “blighted each blossom” in her life. The song ends with a turn to hope: “the child thou art rearing / May one day lift up its unmanacled form.” This movement from pathos to prophecy recurs throughout the collection, as each lyric first evokes suffering and then promises deliverance.

Musical Borrowing and Its Effects

Brown’s choice of familiar tunes is strategic. By setting abolitionist words to melodies associated with sentiment, patriotism, or Scottish folk song, he borrows their emotional authority. “The Blind Slave Boy” uses the air of “Sweet Afton,” a nostalgic poem by Robert Burns, to frame a child’s plea. “We’re Coming! We’re Coming” sets a martial call to “Kinloch of Kinloch,” a Scottish tune, linking the anti-slavery cause to ancestral bravery. The effect is to naturalize abolitionist sentiment: the listener already knows the tune, so the new words feel inevitable. Brown’s preface notes that many songs “have never been in print,” suggesting that some were composed specifically for this volume, yet all are anchored to pre-existing musical structures.

The Shift from Lament to Militancy

Later songs adopt a more combative tone. “On to Victory,” set to “Scots wha hae,” calls listeners “Children of the glorious dead” and declares “Light and love, our sword and shield.” The martial imagery is explicitly nonviolent: “Ours is not the tented field— / We no earthly weapons wield.” Instead, the weapons are “Truth” and moral resolve. “We’re Coming! We’re Coming” warns “tyrants beware” and promises to “put down” the “man-stealing army.” This escalation in rhetoric mirrors the growing urgency of the abolitionist movement in the late 1840s. The songs move from pity to defiance, from individual lament to collective mobilization, all while maintaining the sing-along accessibility of the chosen airs.

The Compiler’s Voice and the Fugitive Slave Perspective

Brown identifies himself on the title page as “A FUGITIVE SLAVE,” a credential that lends the collection an authenticity no white compiler could claim. His preface is brief and businesslike, but the choice of songs reflects his own experience. “The Bondman” describes a slave who “feebly … toiled” and “sadly … wept,” a figure whose interior life is rendered in the third person. Yet Brown’s own escape from slavery in 1834 gives these lyrics a biographical resonance. The collection does not include any first-person slave narrative, but the repeated emphasis on family separation—mothers, children, husbands—echoes the losses Brown himself endured. Readers encountering these songs in 1848 would have known that the compiler had lived the grief he set to music.

Reading The Anti-Slavery Harp in sequence reveals a deliberate emotional arc: from pity to hope, from lament to battle cry. The songs are best understood not as poetry but as performance—texts meant to be sung in company, where the shared melody reinforces the shared cause. Brown’s compilation offers a rare glimpse into the soundscape of the abolitionist movement, where music was not decoration but argument.

Holding this songbook, I remembered my grandmother humming hymns to steel herself before hard days. Its grief and resolve felt familiar, as did the stately order I once found in Twelve Good Musicians: From John Bull to Henry Purcell — Background and Themes—both books made music feel like quiet armor against the noise of the world.