I could be wrong, but there is a mention of Mathilda Soye- the girl this song is supposedly about- in a snippet of the Louis Nizer book, which I found on Google Books when I was doing some research to try and find out more about her. And it sounded to me like people who knew Belasco believed that it was based on a true event. And the other thing that is interesting is the "based on a folk song from Martinique" claim. What is supposedly from a Martinican folk song? The melody? The lyrics? Or is the whole piece simply an adaptation of a trad song, which may have some lost variants? If it is true that it is a trad song that was adapted by Belasco, that would explain the reference in the last verse to "When Martinique was all in flames", which is a digression from a song that is practically a Creole version of "House of The Rising Sun". A final note- I wonder if anyone has sung this song in a long time, because I would love to sing it myself- only, I can't pronounce the Creole lyrics.