I have a relative taking a course, Introduction to Southern Roots Music, who has been told the following:"Folk music was first collected for publication in William Francis Allen's "Slave songs of the United States" (1867). Black spirituals got most of the attention until an Englishman named Cecil traveled southern Appalachia.."
I know that versions of some of the songs Sharp collected appear in earlier US publications, for example, Henry Shoemaker's "North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy" or J Fingers, "Cowboy Songs and Sea Chanties," but I admit these publications were not specifically about Appalachian music. What's your feeling about what my relative is being taught?