"Swing Low Sweet Chariot" is a Negro spiritual. On the surface, it is a comforting song about death and the afterlife. The "chariot" that "swings low" is God's chariot, which will take the singer to heaven, or "home."
For African American slaves it was also a song of defiance. As Douglass points out in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves sang not because they were happy, as whites liked to believe, but to express their grief. Singing this spiritual asserts that the slaves are as worthy of heaven as white people, no matter how degraded they are in white culture. God is going to come for them, perhaps in the afterlife. But perhaps he will offer them deliverance from bondage in this life too.
"Home" can mean many things in this spiritual. It could mean a new, free home through fleeing slavery, and the...
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"band of angels" doing the carrying in the stanza below could represent abolitionists :
I looked over Jordan, what did I see
Coming for to carry me home
A band of angels coming after me
Coming for to carry me home
This song is a Negro spiritual, and we are unsure who actually wrote it. Many of the spirituals were created by groups of slaves who needed comfort while working, or commisserated on their plight as slaves at the end of the day.
The purpose of the spiritual is to comfort those in slavery, but it also has a double meaning. In the line, "Comin' for to carry me home/", home can be a heavenly place, or it can be northward, perhaps to Canada, where slavery didn't exist. The Southern slaves had very little, but religion was extremely important in their lives. The belief that they had a heavenly home to go to comforted them as well. After living such a difficult life as a slave, it gave them hope that they would be with God in death.
There are so many levels to the song. Please go to the sites below to find out more details about the song.