Go Down, Moses

"Oh! Let My People Go"
Sheet music cover, 1862
Song
Published	1862
Genre	Negro spiritual
Songwriter(s)	Unknown

"Go Down Moses" is an American Negro spiritual. It describes events in the Old Testament of the Bible, specifically Exodus 8:1: "And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me", in which God commands Moses to demand the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. The opening verse as published by the Jubilee Singers in 1872:

When Israel was in Egypt's land
Let my people go
Oppress'd so hard they could not stand
Let my People go

Refrain:
Go down, Moses
Way down in Egypt's land
Tell old Pharaoh
Let my people go

In the song "Israel" represents the African-American slaves while "Egypt" and "Pharaoh" represent the slavemaster. Going "down" to Egypt is derived from the Biblical origin; Moses was up on the mountain of God when God commanded him to go to Egypt (Exodus 3:1-12). Also, the Bible generally recognizes Egypt as being at a lower altitude than Jerusalem and other core areas of Israelite territory; thus, going to Egypt means going "down" while going away from Egypt is "up". In the context of American slavery, this ancient sense of "down" converged with the concept of "down the river" (the Mississippi), where slaves' conditions were notoriously worse, a situation which left the idiom "sell [someone] down the river" in present-day English.

Although usually thought of as a spiritual, the earliest recorded use of the song was as a rallying anthem for the Contrabands at Fort Monroe sometime before July 1862. Early authorities presumed it was composed by them. Sheet music was soon after published, titled "Oh! Let My People Go: The Song of the Contrabands", and arranged by Horace Waters. L.C. Lockwood, chaplain of the Contrabands, stated in the sheet music the song was from Virginia, dating from about 1853. The opening verse, as recorded by Lockwood, is:

The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go
Oh! go down, Moses
Away down to Egypt's land
And tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go