Freedom Songs from Different Perpectives
In 1759, Francis Hopkinson wrote what is considered the first secular composition written by an American born composer. Hopkinson also designed continental paper money, was on the committee that designed the Great Seal of the United States, served as a federal judge, and he was an original signer of the Declaration of Independence. He is the true creator of the original American flag’s “stars and stripes” design.
He also wrote music, political satire, and poems that were widely circulated throughout the original 13 colonies. One of his contributions to American resistance of British rule was a satirical essay called “A pretty story”. Written in 1776, it mirrored the sentiment of the colonists and the tyrannical rule King George. The famous song mentioned earlier that he penned was titled “My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free”. My attention was drawn to its title, and it was the first result of a search for American music of the 1700s. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, and the magnitude of difference for early life in the colonies for white Americans in comparison to any other persons seemed incomprehensible. I don’t even have the time this morning to talk about how ignorant this is of the Native Americans that this completely excludes. I have to focus my energies on the American colonies.
I dug into Hopkinson’s biography, full of fire, looking to expose him as a racist, land-owning, slaver whose hypocrisies stunk to high heaven. It just isn’t true. I’m sure he was a product of the times, and had distorted views of race-relations, but they aren’t part of his biography. He was scholarly privileged, due to his station in life. However, he was also a champion for education, specifically music education. I went in, so wanting to hate this man, and while he was no doubt disconnected from the harsh realities of race disparity that ran rampant, he didn’t strike me as a contributor to discord rather than harmony. He saw the levity of his life, wrote resistance essays against tyranny, and championed music and arts in the public sphere. While hard to hate, I still couldn’t’ believe the audacity of the first secular song recognized as a native-born composition to be of this man, and of this title.
One hundred thirty years later, Fredrick Douglass would print a handbill in the spring of 1875 promoting the Fisk Jubilee Singers. On it was printed the words for a song from some fifty years earlier that he remembered being sung during his days as a slave. This was indicative of the native music of black people in America. This music was being performed well before 1759, and was likely created by many, many “native born” black Americans. These songs told a different tale of freedom. It is harder to trace the first composition of a native born American than can be found on a Google search engine. Fredrick Douglass wrote of the Jubilee Singers, “You are doing more to remove the prejudice against our race than ten thousand platforms could do.”
I don’t think Francis Hopkinson was a bad person. I don’t even find anything in his biography that could label him as a racist. I do think that if he had his eyes opened by the voices of the nation the way they are being opened today, that he would have joined in singing with Fredrick and the Jubilee Singers that night in March, when they sang the choruses of some of the earliest composer on American soil. I hope that many other white people who fall into this category are hearing the music right now. We’ve been singing a blind song for many years, and the chorus has a whole other section that it’s time we joined in with. The song of freedom is not just a tale of white northerners or black southerners. It is a combination of blind people who can now see, and muffled voices that now are heard.
The lyrics Hopkinson wrote were idyllic and carefree. Read them in the link here, but in short, they speak of careless ease and breathless gales. The song Fredrick Douglass reproduces prays for release, by either death or fleeing up north. The speak of “running to Jesus”, and how he “don’t have long to stay here. He will be our dearest friend and will help us to the end.” Click here to see a copy of the handbill from that night. Hopkinson song has an archive and can be heard, while Fredrick’s song exists only in the yellowed text of a forgotten story. Instead, lets listen to Mahalia Jackson and Nate King Cole sing another spiritual, this one from the same heart as those early American composers.