Ok, some of us have been going back & forth with the Foster thread & issues on slavery. How about getting some songs going here & see what comes to light. I'll start with a historical start. This comes from the transportation of convicts as slaves before England sent them to Australia. Martin Carthy does a later Aussie version of this, (slavery came to us earlier)

Come all you young fellows where'er ye may be
Come listen awhile & I will tell thee
Concerning the hardships that we under go
In this damnable place called Virginny

Such clever young fellows myself I have seen
Like scarecrows a dragging their chains on the green
Them hard hearted duties so cruel & mean
In this damnable place called Virginny

When I was apprentice in fair London town
Many's the hour I worked duly & truly
Till buxom young lassies they led me astray
My work I neglected more every day
And to maintain I went on the highway
By that I was lagged to Virginny

Back home in Ol' England I could live at me ease
Rest me head in a bed of soft feather
With a jug in me hand & a girl on me knee
I thought myself fit for all weather

But here in Virginny I lie like a hog
My pillow at night is a brick or a log
We scratch for our vittles like some hungry dog
In this damnable place called Virginny

When we came to Virginny that famous old town
That place which is so much admired
Where the captain he stands with a whip in his hand
And I with a heart full of sorrow did stand
With tears in me eyes in this dam foreign land
And was sold as slave in Virginny

Ol' England, Ol' England, I'll ne'er see you more
If I do it's 10,000 to 20
My bones they are rotten my feet they are sore
I'm burned up with fever I live at deaths door
But if I should live to see 7 years more
then I'll bid adieu to Virginny

---

HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone 12-Feb-2001.