The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4162   Message #22547
Posted By: Barry Finn
28-Feb-98 - 02:56 PM
Thread Name: slave revolts
Subject: RE: slave revolts
You might try "Slave Songs Of The U.S." by Allen, Ware & Garrison, pub. 1867 by A Simpson & in 1927 by P Smith, also try "Slave Songs Of The Georgia Sea Islands", pub 1942 by Creative Press.I couldn't find anything refering to outright protest never mind slave uprisings of any kind. I'm sure (though I can't back it up) that like other worksongs of the Afro American experence, protest was tolerated (preaching revolt-not a shot) in the confines of music as long as it helped keep the wheels of work moving. Any real threat was dealt with swiftly & hashly. Turner's revolt of 1832 gave rise to the song "Run Nigger Run" (the Patter-Roller get you), when a restriction to quarter's was instituted & if caught without a pass, all hell followed. There are few songs from U.S. slavery & fewer that deal with the issue of slavery, "Hard Times In Ol Virginna", "Many Thousands Go", "Follow The Drinking Gourd" (slaves wouldn't drink snow {white people's} water & used a vessle that whites wouldn't use-the gourd- also figures as the big dipper, north star, nav. to the north) "All The Pretty Horses" are some that speak, subtlety to mildly on the subject. Word of uprisings (though black sailors) traveled far & fast (black networking was refined, simple & well established), the new Black Goverment in Haiti, the Free slave act in England, the refuge in the North were all well known to the slave, whether or not these were options was slight & less for the child or woman. Some of the recordings of the Georgia Sea Island Singers may be of intrest to you, as well as some of Lomax's Southern Journey collections. Barry