When Africans first came to this country, they brought with them a tradition of singing. Songs could serve many purposes. Those who wanted to escape slavery, songs had another important purpose as well. They could be used to communicate. Their songs, which are sometimes called spirituals, were passed from one group to another - and along with the songs came the code.

For example, some slave songs talked about "going home" or "being bound for the land of Canaan." If you heard the song, you might think the people were singing about dying and going to heaven. They were actually singing about going north to Canada and freedom.

Historian Frederick Douglass used this song as an example:

Douglass knew that people who heard that song might think that the person who was singing it was thinking about dying and going to a final reward. But, what they were really singing about was escaping slavery - traveling a dangerous route. Douglass knew what other slaves knew: the lions weren't really lions, but dangers on the road to freedom, and that the singer was probably using the song to alert others that he or she was planning to escape.

The slaves knew secret meanings these these songs, which they would use to signal many things. For example, slave Harriet Tubman used the song "Wade in the Water" to tell escaping slaves to get off the trail and into the water to make sure the dogs slavecatchers used couldn't sniff out their trail. People walking through water did not leave a scent trail that dogs could follow. Read the words of "Wade in the Water."