Bull & Cornmeal, I'm not against these songs, but I will not foster the picture painted by Foster, if I chose to sing a song I do try to inform myself before I try to inform others, & some of his stuff was very misleading- as to how a darky would pine for the good ol life as a slave on his death bed & take comfort that his blessed being will be in the glorious company of those he played with in those peaceful cotton fields of home. I don't think I'm being sterotypical here, there were many reasons as to why Jim Crow's live was so long. Bull, I do think whites understood slavery, they didn't understand or care about the black except as a farm animal. As for colonist colonizing here, I meant they were treated better (for a invading culture) by the existing peoples, than they would've been had they tried it somewhere else. Before the last decade I hadn't notice much in the way of stage time for their song or culture. May be you could start a thread on all the songs, from these two groups, that survived & came from their culture & experence. Lomax mentioned that when he started collecting in the south, he'd get sung minstrel show stuff that would be making light or fun of the singers themselves & how he was expected to enjoy this self humiliation, because it was just as much expected from the listener as it was from the singer, and so the circle continues. Barry Finn