"Way, haul away—haul away, Josey—
Way, haul away—haul away, Joe!"

It occured to me when I read Guest Gibs post that I know a woman whose name is "Josie". "Josie" used to be a far more common nickname for Josephine than it is now, probably because the name "Josephine" is rarely given now). As it happens, this African American woman's given name is "Josie" and not "Josephine".

But this thought made me wonder about the name "Josey" as a personal name for a man as found in that old dance song. In particular, I thought of how a non-Spanish speaking person might pronouce tghe name "Jose" as "Joe-see". Given that some crews came from the Caribbean, has the Spanish language influence on chantey songs-and on other African American/Black Caribbean dance songs been identified?

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With regard to this verses found in Jim Dixon's 15 Sep 06 - 06:52 AM post to this thread:

Dey try it on at de chalky whites ball
But de indimpendent n***** beat dem all
He can so cum de toe point heel brush fling
An like a riglar roarin hi win sing.

I wonder if the "chalky whites ball" is a put down vernacular reference to the creole balls or the quadroon balls.

I've not found this phrase used elsewhere. Is anybody familiar with it?

Btw, here are links to three interesting online articles about the Louisiana Creoles of Color:

Plaçage - Wikipedia article

and

Ph.D in History fails Creole Test

and

Creoles Of Color from Louisiana immigrated to Mexico

Here's an excerpt of that second article:

"I did have to correct Mr.PHD who just finished bragging about being published in some law review over an amendment and spoke for 3 hours on his own resume, that Creoles arrived in Lower South East Louisiana, including Greater New Orleans and up to Central-West La. completely separate from Cajuns. The white French-Creole settlers were the first to arrive and then more white Creoles fled from the slave revolts in the French Caribbean colonies and were followed by the wealthy mixed race-Creoles of Color-and both built the city and state of Louisiana from a swamp into the cultural Southern mecca that it is known by today."

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In my next post to this thread I'll suggest a meaning for another phrase that is found in that example that Jim Dixon shared.