Enslaved people were forbidden to speak their native languages, and were generally converted to Christianity. With narrow vocabularies, enslaved people would use the words they did know to translate biblical information and facts from their other sources into song.[3] While some slave owners believed that Christian slaves would be more docile, others came to feel that stories of Moses leading the Israelites out of bondage were counterproductive. Forced conversion only worked to a point since church attendance might be required, but control could not extend to thoughts and feelings. Some enslaved people became Christians voluntarily, either because it helped them endure hardships or because membership may have offered other benefits.[15] Many of the enslaved people turned towards the Baptist or Methodist churches.
In some places enslaved Africans were permitted, or even encouraged, to hold their own prayer meetings.[16] Because they were unable to express themselves freely in ways that were spiritually meaningful to them, religious services were, at times, the only place enslaved people could legitimately congregate, socialize, and safely express feelings.[17] During these meetings, worshipers would sing, chant, dance and sometimes enter ecstatic trances.[6] Along with spirituals, shouts also emerged in the Praise Houses. Shouts begin slowly with the shuffling of feet and clapping of hands (but the feet never cross because that was seen as dancing, which was forbidden within the church).
Drums were used as they had been in Africa, for communication. When the connection between drumming, communication, and resistance was eventually made drums were forbidden. Enslaved people introduced a number of new instruments to America: the bones, body percussion, and an instrument variously called the bania, banju, or banjar, a precursor to the banjo but without frets. They drew on native rhythms and their African heritage.[18] They brought with them from Africa long-standing religious traditions that highlighted the importance of storytelling.[19] Music was an essential element in communicating identity, shared social mores, traditional customs, and ethnic history. The primary function of the spirituals was as communal songs sung in a religious gathering, performed in a call-response pattern reminiscent of West African traditional religions.[15]
African American spirituals may also have served as socio-political protests veiled as assimilation to the white American culture.[20]
Several traditions rooted in Africa continue to the present day in African-American spiritual practices. Examples include the "call and response" style of preaching in which the speaker speaks for an interval and the congregation responds in unison in a continual pattern throughout the sermon. Speaking in tongues is also a persistent practice, as is "getting happy." Getting happy involves achieving a trance-like state and can be characterized by anything from jumping in one place repeatedly, running through the sanctuary, raising hands and arms in the air, shouting traditional praise phrases, or being "slain in the spirit" (fainting). In spirituals, there also rose what is known as the "straining preacher" sound where the preacher, during song, literally strains the voice to produce a unique tone. This is used throughout recorded spirituals, blues, and jazz music. The locations and the era may be different; but the same emphasis on combining sound, movement, emotion, and communal interaction into one focus on faith and its role in overcoming struggles, whether as an individual or a people group, remain the same.