A peculiar plantation fantasy of love & liberation…
Tag: plantation
Here I Am as You Diskiver (1860)
Blackface minstrel tune conflating plantation slavery, the “Indian Nation” (& associated issues of Removal), & antebellum militarism in public space:
Ring, Ring De Banjo (Foster, 1851)
Frederick Douglass (1845) ~ “Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears…”
Kingdom Coming: “It was a proud moment for Robert” (1863)
Esther Hill Hawks ~ Diary (February 1863) ~ “It was a proud moment for Robert when he placed a guard of colored soldiers around the house of his former owner…”
Angelina Baker (Foster, 1850)
Stephen C. Foster ~ Letter to E. P. Christy (May 25, 1852) ~ “As I once intimated to you, I had the intention of omitting my name* on my Ethiopian songs, owing to the prejudice against them by some, which might injure my reputation as a writer of another style of music…”
Babylon is Fallen (Work, 1863)
After the Emancipation Proclamation changed the face of the Civil War, Henry Clay Work released this sequel to his popular “Kingdom Coming”:
