INTRODUCTION.
V
who were torn by violence from their native soil, hu¬
miliated, robbed of all civil rights, often outraged by
the infliction of every conceivable wrong and cruelty,
yet not becoming, one and all, vengeful and impla¬
cable toward the white race, but, in general, preserv¬
ing their amiability and affectionateness, slowly but
surely emerging from ancestral heathenism, and, as far
and fast as opportunity was afforded, taking language
and Christian truth and civilization from those who
held them in bondage! Here we see these people
voicing as best they could the religious truths which
solaced them in their heart-breaking sorrows, softened
their natures, and kindled in them unquenchable
hopes of deliverance and joy in a life to come. Here
we see immortal, though darkened, minds grasping
with a firm faith Bible facts and truths, and weaving
them into verse—not of orderly arrangement and ar¬
tistic style, but full of energy and fervor—and creating
for that verse music which, in its plaintive tenderness,
its joyful notes, and its triumphant strains, has never
been surpassed. Here, then, we have a body of song
and music which is worth preserving, which is not
likely to lose its interest until the sad history in which
it had its origin ceases to be remembered.
These songs and melodies, as we now have them,
are obviously the growth of many years and of a great
variety of circumstances. At first the spontaneous,
unpremeditated expression of aroused sensibilities, of
truths caught up at random and imperfectly remem¬
bered, they were afterw7ard repeated and rehearsed by
multitudes of sympathetic souls—many of them gifted
in musical conceptions and expression — until they
were molded into the shapes now presented to us.
That period of growth, we must conclude, has closed.
For now a period of change, of schools and book-learn-
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