It surprised me that Dex, in his Staff Report on the song “Michael Row your Boat Ashore”, didn’t say anything about the “Jordan River” in the song (other than the simple observation that it’s a religious reference). It always seemed fairly obvious to me, that when slaves were singing of the Promised Land being on the other side of a “deep and wide” river, they were refering to the Ohio, and freedom in the North. Certainly, at least some spirituals had significance to the Underground Railroad: Harriet Tubman is said to have identified herself to her “passengers” by the songs she sang.
Chronos Any statistics on what per centage of slaves got to freedom by crossing the Ohio?
My person view is that is was simply a spiritual reference to the vast majority.
The actual River Jordan is, in fact, not very deep and not very wide in physical or geographic reality. However, sthere is no river that is deeper spiritually and emotionally and in terms of literary symbolism.
But to respond to Chronos’s question, no, I deliberately did NOT try to “interpret” the song much beyond ithe question of who was Michael and why was he rowing.
As mentioned in the other thread about this, in Catholic hierarchy Archangel Michael is also the patron saint of Israel, http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintm06.htm , as well as the patron saint of boatmen and sailors. A song about him helping someone across a river would make allusions to the Promised Land.
Seems like an anti-slavery spiritual to me.
He is also the patron saint of Security Guards, and Micheal Jordan played guard…