Azizi,

Many of the references are explicit. There were also quilts made as road maps.

Religious syncretism exists throughout the world. There is no reason to think that it isn't part of the African American experience. Dual meanings are a pattern for survival.

The white plantation owners did know the songs but not as code songs. For example,
a white owner or overseer would not know necesarily that he was the Pharoah of "Pharoah's Army Got Drownded".

"Follow The Drinking Gourd" is explicit. "Steal Away". "Down By the Riverside".
Too many references here.

I think that many of the slaveowners were clueless. They ignored the songs or read into them their meanings of conventional religious expression.

Certainly there was betrayal but I don't think it was widespread.

The issue of religion and it's role in the Black Community needs to be studied in depth,
however. There is a lot of misconceptions about how it functions here.

Frank