The "xxxx" in my last post doesn't mean anything (just a marker in my notes).
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1835        Atkinson, Samuel Coate, ed. "Going to Bed without Your Dinner (from Leave From a Log: A West India Story)." Atkinson's Casket 1 (January 1835).

Published Philadelphia.
Commenting on a sight in "the West Indies" – Trinidad? Calls Black work songs "a kind of Creole chaunt."

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1 now passed the estate belonging to Monsieur Honnemaison: the field-gang were cutting canes, and the muleteers loading their animals,—all were chaunting a short song. Negro songs are always short; it was what on French estates is called a "belle air," a kind of Creole chaunt, almost agreeable enough to merit its appellation.
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