Go Down Moses

"Go Down Moses" is an African American spiritual that describes the Hebrew Exodus, specifically drawing from the Book of Exodus 5:1, in which God commands Moses to demand the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.

[9] In the context of American slavery, that ancient sense of "down" converged with the concept of "down the river" (the Mississippi), where enslaved people's conditions were notoriously worse.

[10] Although usually thought of as a spiritual, the earliest written record of the song was as a rallying anthem for the Contrabands at Fort Monroe sometime before July 1862.

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.

[17] 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.