Editing Go Down Moses (section)

=="Oh! Let My People Go"==
{{see also|Songs of the Underground Railroad}}
{{Infobox song
| name          = Oh! Let My People Go
| cover         = LetMyPeopleGo1862.jpg
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| caption       = Sheet music cover, 1862
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| written       = 
| published     = 1862
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| genre         = [[Spiritual (music)|Negro spiritual]]
| length        = 
| label         = 
| writer        = Traditional
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}}

Although usually thought of as a spiritual, the earliest written record of the song was as a rallying anthem for the [[Contraband (American Civil War)|Contrabands]] at [[Fort Monroe]] sometime before July 1862. White people who reported on the song presumed it was composed by them.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=July 1862|title=Editor's Table|url=http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cont;cc=cont;view=toc;subview=short;idno=cont0002-1|journal=The Continental Monthly|volume=2|pages=112–113|quote=We are indebted to Clark's School-Visitor for the following song of the Contrabands, which originated among the latter, and was first sung by them in the hearing of white people at Fortress Monroe, where it was noted down by their chaplain, Rev. L.C. Lockwood.|via=Cornell University}}</ref> It became the first spiritual known to be recorded in sheet music.

While the Reverend Lewis Lockwood, the chaplain of the Contrabands, was visiting Fortress Monroe in 1861, he heard runaway enslaved people singing the song, transcribed what he heard, and eventually published it in the ''National Anti-Slavery Standard''.<ref>Graham, S. (2018). Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry. University of Illinois Press.</ref> Soon after, sheet music was published titled "Oh! Let My People Go: The Song of the Contrabands", arranged by [[Horace Waters]]. Lockwood stated in the sheet music that the song was from Virginia, dating from about 1853.<ref>Lockwood, "Oh! Let My People Go", p. 5: "This Song has been sung for about nine years by the Slaves of Virginia."</ref>

However, the song was not included in ''Slave Songs of the United States'', despite its being a very prominent spiritual among enslaved people. Furthermore, the original version of the song sung by enslaved people almost definitely sounded very different from what Lockwood transcribed by ear, especially following an arrangement by a person who had never heard the song as it was originally sung.<ref>Graham, S. (2018). Spirituals and the Birth of a Black Entertainment Industry. University of Illinois Press.</ref> The opening verse, as recorded by Lockwood, is:
{{poemquote|The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go
Oh! go down, Moses
Away down to Egypt's land
And tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go}}

Sarah Bradford's authorized biography of [[Harriet Tubman]], ''Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman'' (1869), quotes Tubman as saying she used "Go Down Moses" as one of two code songs used with fugitive enslaved people to communicate when fleeing Maryland.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/bradford/bradford.html|title=Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman|last=Bradford|first=Sarah|publisher=Dennis Brothers & Co.|year=1869|pages=26–27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170613211657/http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/bradford/bradford.html|archive-date=June 13, 2017|via=University of North Carolina: Documenting the American South}}</ref> Tubman began her underground railroad work in 1850 and continued until the beginning of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], so it is possible Tubman's use of the song predates the origin claimed by Lockwood.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/bradford/summary.html|title=Summary of Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman|website=docsouth.unc.edu|access-date=January 25, 2017}}</ref> Some people even hypothesize that she herself may have written the spiritual.<ref>Darden, R. (2004). People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music. Bloomsbury.</ref>  Others claim that [[Nat Turner]], who led one of the most well-known slave revolts in history, either wrote or was the inspiration for the song.<ref>Newman, R. S. (1998). Go Down Moses: A Celebration of the African-American Spiritual. Clarkson N. Potter. </ref>