Minerva Willis

	Minerva Willis Minerva Willis ( – ?) was a Choctaw freedman and musician, also known as Aunt Minerva, who contributed to spirituals alongside her father, Wallace Willis. Their compositions, including "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and " Steal Away to Jesus," gained international recognition through performances by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Early life Minerva Willis, often referred to as Aunt Minerva, was likely born . She was enslaved in the Choctaw Nation area, now part of Oklahoma, and lived on a plantation owned by Britt Willis, an Irishman became a citizen of Choctaw Nation via his marriage to a Choctaw woman. Willis, along with her father Wallace Willis, was transported from Mississippi to Indian Territory during the Trail of Tears. She had no formal education, but her exposure to music through her father became the foundation for her future contributions to spiritual music. Music During her adult life, Willis worked alongside her father, Wallace. The Willis family was periodically hir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]
	Wallace Willis Wallace Willis was a Choctaw Freedman living in the Indian Territory, in what is now Choctaw County, near the city of Hugo, Oklahoma, US. His dates are unclear: perhaps 1820 to 1880. He is credited with composing (probably before 1860) several Negro spirituals. Willis received his name from his owner, Britt Willis, probably in Mississippi, the ancestral home of the Choctaws. He died, probably in what is now Atoka County, Oklahoma, as his unmarked grave is located there. Before the Civil War, Willis and his daughter, Aunt Minerva, were sent by their owner to work at the Spencer Academy where the superintendent, Reverend Alexander Reid, heard them singing. In 1871 Reid was at a performance of the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University and thought the songs he had heard the Willises singing were better than those of the Jubilee Singers. He furnished them to the group, which performed them in the United States and Europe. Many are now famous, including " Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]
picture info	Spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged varied African cultural influences with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs", work songs, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs in church. In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s, the emancipation altering mainly the nature (but not continuation) of slavery for many. Many new derivative music genres such as the blues emerged from the spirituals songcraft. Prior to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]
	People Enslaved In Mississippi The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. In contrast, a people is any plurality of Person, persons considered as a whole. Used in politics and law, the term "a people" refers to the collective or community of an ethnic group or nation. Concepts Legal Chapter One, Article One of the Charter of the United Nations states that "peoples" have the right to self-determination. Though the mere status as peoples and the right to self-determination, as for example in the case of Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous peoples (''peoples'', as in all groups of indigenous people, not merely all indigenous persons as in ''indigenous people''), does not automatically provide for independence, independent sovereignty and therefore secession. Indeed, judge Ivor Jennings i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]