"Roll, Jordan, Roll" (Roud 6697), also "Roll, Jordan", is a spiritual created by enslaved African Americans, developed from a song written by Isaac Watts in the 18th century which became well known among slaves in the United States during the 19th century. Appropriated as a coded message for escape, by the end of the American Civil War it had become known through much of the eastern United States. In the 19th century, it helped inspire blues, and it remains a staple in gospel music. History The tune known as "Roll, Jordan, Roll" may have its origins in the hymn "There is a Land of Pure Delight" written by Isaac Watts in the 18th century. It was introduced to the United States by the early 19th century, in states such as Kentucky and Virginia, as part of the Second Great Awakening, and often sung at camp meetings. The song soon became popular with enslaved people. According to Ann Powers of NPR, it became a "primary example of slaves' claiming and subverting a Christian message to express their own needs and send their own messages". The River Jordan of the song became a coded message for escape, calling to mind the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers, both of which led to the slave-free northern United States and thus freedom. The song was collected and arranged by Lucy McKim in 1862. In the same year, she sent a letter with some recordings from her trip to St. Helena Island to Dwight's Journal of Music, where it was published in 1863. The American war journalist Charles Carleton Coffin, who heard a performance of the song in Blythewood, South Carolina, in 1863, described "Roll, Jordan, Roll" as already having become a favourite song, with many versions to be found. A year later, a version was published in Slave Songs of the United States (compiled by abolitionists William Francis Allen, Lucy McKim Garrison, and Charles Pickard Ware). The editors, who positioned the song "in a place of honor" as the first entry in the book, noted that the song could be found from South Carolina down to Florida, and described it as "one of the best known and noblest" of Black spirituals. By 1920 over fifty publications had reproduced or referenced the song. "Roll, Jordan, Roll" influenced a variety of songs. The refrain of Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races", for instance, is considerably similar to the spiritual, and