The Slave Songs or Spirituals were a genre of music created by enslaved African-Americans during the turbulent period of the 19th century. This poignant music was both an expression of devotion to God and an expressed longing for freedom from the state of bondage. In the 20th century Black church, these songs were often included as part of devotional services that preceded the actual Sunday Service. They were often sung during communion and baptisms. They were sung by choirs in arrangements by Black composers trained in the European classical music tradition. The musical testaments that evoke from these collections of songs serve as windows of not just an exclusive history of African-Americans but indeed, part of the shared history of all Americans.
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I've never heard of African-American Spirituals being called 'Slave Songs'. They used to be called 'Negro Spirituals' but never 'Slave Songs'. I think this is because not all the people who wrote them or sand them were slaves - some were Free Blacks.
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