African American slaves in the United States created a vibrant culture of resistance and dissent, despite attempts by white slaveowners to indoctrinate them into passivity using a variant of Christianity. Slaves were not permitted to speak while working in the fields, but were permitted to sing and chant in order to alleviate tedium and to impose a rhythm on repetitive motions. This generated two distinctive African American slave musical forms, the spiritual (sung music usually telling a story) and the field holler (sung or chanted music usually involving repetition of the leader's line).