Indeed Michael can be found in "Slave Songs of the United States" by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison. They include two versions with a total of 29 "verses" . W. F. Allen wrote in the introductory text:

"The same songs are used for rowing as for shouting . I know only one pure boat-song, the fine lyric, "Michael row the boat ashore"; and this I have no doubt is a real spiritual - it being the archangel Michael that is addressed... "As I have written these tune," says Mr. Ware, "two measures are to be sung to each stroke,the first being accented by the beginning of the stroke, the second by the rattle of the oars in the row-locks. On the passenger boat at the [Beaufort] ferry, they rowed from sixteen to thirty strokes a minute; twenty-four was the average. Of the tunes I have heard....'Lay this body down', 'Religion so sweet', and 'Michael row', were used when the load was heavy or the tide was against us."

rich r