Topic: CRS Versions
Lynn Rohrbough offered a variety of songs for inclusion in his custom songbooks in 1944. A comparison of four songbooks mentioned in the post for 20 February 2022 suggests which his customers preferred.
None included the sorts of songs then sung in many camps like “Dummy Line,” [1] although CRS offered it. They were being replaced by folk songs. They constituted 45% of the master list, and 42% to 43% of the choices made by E. O. Harbin, Olcutt Sanders, and Edward Schlingman.
Only Paul Albery used a fewer number, 25%. Instead, he had more hymns, 30%. This compares with 23% by Harbin, 17% by Sanders, 15% by Schlingman, and 14% on Rohrbough’s master list. This may reflect concerns of the Methodist Church in Michigan. Douglas MacNaughton says conservative leaders within the conferences argued “evangelism and education should go hand in hand,” and more “Biblically based” materials should be used. [2]
None of the hymns were by Charles Wesley. In place of traditional Methodist lyrics, the most common religious songs, used by all four editors, were written by men who had been affected by World War I: “God of Grace and Glory,” [3] “In Christ There Is No East and West,” [4] “The New World,” [5] and “We Would Be Building.” [6]
This emphasis on universal fellowship may seem odd in the midst of World War II. In 1940, the national meeting of Methodist Youth had discussed topics like “The Christian and War,” “Christian Pacifism in Time of War,” and “Goals and Techniques for an Enduring Peace.” [7] However, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor Japanese in 1941, many enlisted. As Thomas Bergler notes, the organization changed from a shared view that war was bad to equal support for draft resistors, conscientious objectors, and men in the military. [8]
The editors of the songbooks avoided the conflict between religious tradition and current reality by looking toward the future, rather than dwelling on the present. Three editors selected only two patriotic songs from Rohrbough’s list of six, “My Country Is The World” [9] and the familiar “America the Beautiful.” This does not mean patriotic and war-time songs were not sung at meetings, but only that the editors did not feel the need to spend money printing what was commonly known. [10]
Rohrbough’s concept of a folk song was eclectic and included popular and national songs. The largest number in his 1943 list of 292 songs came from England (14), but none were Child ballads. However, he did include a number of songs from the South, especially Tennessee (12) and Kentucky (11).
The other European countries whose songs he used were Germany (8), Italy (8), and Denmark (8). He offered eight songs in Spanish from Chile and México. He also included popular work songs: six chanties, five with cowboy themes, and two railroad lyrics. Songs about farming were mixed with the international songs.
His sources still were people he had met. The Danish songs came from the Danish American Young People’s League, [11] his Bohemian ones from Victor Pisek, [12] and his southern songs from his interest in play parties and his work with Flora and Lucien McDowell, and with Edna Ritchie. [13]
He did not draw upon academic collections or popular ones like those produced by Carl Sandburg [14] and John Lomax. [15] The scholarly anthologies rarely contained tunes, and so were not useful. The others were copyrighted, so that, while they contained folklore, the lore had moved out of the public domain.
Instead, Rohrbough tended to use sheet-music folios that had folk sources, but had been arranged with piano accompaniments like those published by Augustus Zanzig [16] and E. C. Schirmer. [17] One might call these ethno-American [18] collections because they contained songs with roots in culturally distinct groups that had been altered to fit the expectation of middle-class individuals who had been trained in western aesthetics in public schools. [19] Such songs were used by subgroups within the middle class and sung in special contexts, like summer camps and club meetings. They were neither folk, as defined by academics, nor popular music, if the latter refers to songs heard on radio.
The four songbook editors who used Lynn Rohrbough’s CRS service in the early 1940s were less experimental than he. Of the ethno-American songs selected by at least two of the men, six came from Italy, [20] five from the South [21] or Czechoslovakia (including Bohemia), [22] and three came from England [23] or Germany. [24] That is, they chose 75% of those available from Italy, 55.5% of those from Czechoslovakia, and 37.5% from Germany. In contrast, only 21% were from England and 15.6% from the South.
It would appear the ethnic origin of the song was not particularly important. The trait that characterizes them is their use of the sung syllables, which are discussed in the post about Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann for 5 December 2021. Strings of vocables were used in 50% of the Italian songs, [25] 37.5% of the German, [26] and 22% of the Czech. [27] Only 3% of the Southern songs had them, [28] and none of the English ones. The use of such vocables was less common in the cultural groups who songs were selected by only one of the editors.
These men, especially Harbin and Sanders, were aware of the regional and occupation classifications used by Sandburg and Lomax. However, only one chantey and two songs with cowboy themes were selected by a plurality of the editors. As mentioned in the post for 5 December 2021, these were more likely to be selected by camps with programs that emphasized the sea or the west. It is similar to the problem with ballads mentioned in the post for 28 November 2021: they came from singing traditions that did not fit the congregational aesthetic in religious camps.
Spirituals were the other important group of songs in these collections. Although the numbers may be small, less than 10% of each songbook, [29] this was greater than the 6% of such songs in the master list. They form a special class between the ethno-American and hymns, because they, in fact, are both rooted in folk tradition and have religious content. [30]
A number of rounds appeared in each book, averaging nearly 13% of the content of each. However, it is not clear if they were selected for themselves, or were used as filler. They never occupy more than two lines of print, and could be placed at the bottoms of pages. It is hard to find any other explanation for why “To Ope Their Trunks” appeared in the hymn section of Melody in Michigan. [31] Unlike many publishers, Rohrbough did not fill empty space with artwork or texts; he delivered songs. [32]
Graces [33] use as little space as rounds, but tend to be grouped together where they easily can be found. They represent another type of song included in CRS songsters, the ceremonial ones that serve utilitarian purposes in camp programs.
End Notes
1. “Dummy Line” is an authentic American folk song. It has been collected in many variants from a number of places over a number of years. [34] Some of the oldest versions collected from African Americans have an identifying verse that begins “some say a dummy line won’t run” and a chorus. [35] However, by the time it was reported, the chorus or first verse was sung with other, common ones heard in other songs. [36] Mudcat Café has a discussion where people are sharing their versions. [37] Camp Songs, Folk Songs quotes lyrics from five variants found in camps. [38]
2. A. Douglas MacNaughton. The Methodist Church in Michigan: The Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1976. 223. This is similar to the conflicts between Lutheran ministers and Walther League discussed in post for 21 June 2020. Incidentally, the International Walther League already had published its version of Sing Again when Rohrbough made his list.
3. Harry Emerson Fosdick. “God of Grace and Glory.” Written in 1930 to music by John Hughes for the dedication of Riverside Church in New York City, [39] and included in The Methodist Hymnal in 1935. [40] Fosdick was a Baptist who accepted evolution. In his 1933 sermon on “The Unknown Soldier,” he said he had been a “gullible fool” to support World War I. [41]
4. John Oxenham. “In Christ There Is No East and West.” Written in 1908 to music by Alexander Reinagle for a program presented by the London Missionary Society for an exhibition, The Orient in London. [42] It was published in this country by The Methodist Church in 1927. [43]
5. Jay Holmes Smith. “Come Forth, Ye Men of Every Race and Nation!” Written to “The Heavens Are Telling” from Haydn’s The Creation. [44] Smith was a Methodist missionary to India who was expelled in 1940 for criticizing British rule. He founded the Harlem Ashram in New York City to promote Gandhi’s ideas. [45] The first publication known by the Hymnary website was by the Disciples of Christ in 1941. [46]
6. Purd E. Dietz. “We Would be Building.” Written to Jean Sibelius “Finlandia” and copyrighted in 1932 by the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education. [Hymnary website]
7. Letters, minutes, and other papers from the 1940 meeting of The National Council of Methodist Youth that were uploaded as a single document to the internet. Section on “Commissions,” 3–4 of section, 9–10 of packet.
8. Thomas E. Bergler. “Youth, Christianity, and the Crisis of Civilization, 1930–1945.” Religion and American Culture 24(2):259–296:Summer 2014. 266.
9. Robert Whitaker. “My Country Is the World.” Written to “America” and published in My Country and Other Verses. San Francisco: James H. Barry Company, 1905, copyrighted 1904. [47] He was born in England, where “America” is “God Save the Queen.” During World War I, he was a Pacifist. [48] CRS credited a Farmer Union Song Book. [49] It may be from the group who sponsored Selected Songs with the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture.
10. This also may be the reason the editors included few standard hymns, nineteenth-century popular songs, or humorous children’s camp songs. What was known did not need to be printed. The collections were not intended to replace existing hymnals, but supplement them with material not yet in the canon. In this sense the hymn choices, like the collections, reflected ideals to be passed on to youth in senior institutes, not realities.
11. For more on Rohrbough’s contact with the Danish American Young People’s League, see the post for 26 September 2021.
12. For more on Pisek, see the post for 19 September 2021.
13. The McDowells and Ritchie are discussed in the post for 12 December 2021.
14. Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag is discussed in the post for 5 May 2019. The CRS list includes the following songs also published by Sandburg: “Cielito Linda” (4), “Down in the Valley” (3), “Sourwood Mountain” (3), “I Ain’t Gwine Study War No More” (3). Sandburg’s version of “Down in the Valley” was from Frances Ries of Batavia, Ohio.
15. John and Alan Lomaxes’ American Ballads and Folk Songs is discussed in the post for 12 May 2019. The CRS list includes the following songs they also published: “Down in the Valley” (3), “Sourwood Mountain” (3), and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (3).
16. For more on Augustus D. Zanzig, use the keyword in the index at the right.
17. E. C. Schirmer is mentioned in the posts for 5 September 2021, 19 September 2021, and 5 December 2021.
18. When I checked with Google on 16 January 2022, I did not find any academic was using the term “ethno-American.” It was used on YouTube by Walter Maksimovich for recordings of polka music. This music is another example of the broad class of music I mean with the term.
19. A 1924 advertisement for folk-song collections intended for grades five and six promised: “Great care has been exercised in collecting the folk tunes that are used in these books. It is not enough that a tune is merely folk music; it must possess definite racial characteristics; it must be obvious enough in rhythmic and melodic content to interest a child, it must present no unreasonable difficulty, it must tell its own story without help of the harmonic arrangements, and above all it must possess melodic beauty and charm.” [50]
20. “Marianina” (4), “Tiritomba” (4), “Funiculi” (3), “My Banjo” (3), “The Silver Moon Is Shining” (3), and “Santa Lucia” (2).
21. “Down in the Valley” (3), “Sourwood Mountain” (3), “Mingo Mountain” (2), “Pretty Saro” (2), and “Shuckin’ of the Corn” (2).
22. “Came A-Riding” (4), “Over the Meadow” (4), “Walking at Night” (4), “Good Night Beloved” (3), and “The Lover’s Quest” (2).
23. “The Keeper” (4), “Green Grow the Rushes Ho” (3), and “John Peel” (3). “The Keeper” and “Rushes” are discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
24. “The Generous Fiddler” (3), “The Foot Traveler” (2), and “Holla Hi, Holla Ho” (2).
25. “Marianina” (4), “Tiritomba” (4), “Funiculi” (3), and “My Banjo” (3). The first three are discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
26. “The Generous Fiddler” (3), “The Foot Traveler” (2), and “Holla Hi” (2). “Foot Traveler” is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
27. “Came A-Riding” (4), “Walking at Night” (4), and “The Lover’s Quest” (2). “Riding is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020. “Walking” is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
28. “Sourwood Mountain” (3).
29. “Jacob’s Ladder” (4), “Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit” (3), “I Ain’t Gwine Study War No More” (3), “I Want To Be Ready” (3), “Lord, I Want To Be a Christian” (3), “O Nobody Knows” (3), “Steal Away” (3), “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (3) and “Go Down Moses” (2). The words to James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” also were selected by all four editors.
30. I plan to discuss Rohrbough’s use of spirituals at a later date, and so will not speculate now on why they were so popular.
31. “To Ope Their Trunks.” 38 in First Years in Song-Land, edited by George F. Root. Cincinnati: John Church, 1879. In Melody in Michigan, it appeared on page 12 with “Make Me a Captive Lord” by George Mathewson. The latter was set to “Leonminster.”
32. See the placement of the round “Where Is John” in the illustration in the post for 20 February 2022.
33. “O Give Thanks” (4); “Praise for Bread” (4), which begins “Morning has come”; “A Round of Thanks” (4), which begins “For health and strength,” and “Chimes Grace” (2), which begins “Hark to the chimes.”
34. Louise Pound. “Introduction.” xii–xxxvi in American Ballads and Songs. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922. xii–xvi. This is cited in the post for 12 May 2019.
35. Dorothy Scarborough. 244–245 in On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Collected from Dr. Moore of Charlotte, North Carolina.
E. C. Perrow. “Songs and Rhymes from the South.” Journal of American Folklore 26:123–173:1913. In the 1909 W. P. Bean manuscript from Mississippi Negroes.
The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. 521 in Volume 3, Folk Songs from North Carolina, edited by Henry M. Belden and Arthur Palmer Hudson. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1952. From Eura Mangum of Durham, North Carolina.
36. Perrow. In the 1908 W. O. Scroggs manuscript from Alabama Negroes.
37. “Lyr Add: The Dummy Line (additional verses).” Mudcat Café website, thread begun by Owlkat on 28 October 1999.
“Origins: The Dummy Line - What’s a dummy train?” Mudcat Café website, thread begun 2 January 2001 by Chris Seymour.
38. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 107–108, 283–284, 289, 321–322.
39. Michael Hawn. “History of Hymns: ‘God of Grace and God of Glory’.” United Methodist Church Discipleship website.
40. 279 in The Methodist Hymnal. New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1935. [Hymnary website.]
41. “Harry Emerson Fosdick.” Wikipedia website.
42. “In Christ There Is No East or West.” Hymnology website.
43. Great Hymns of the Church, Selected from the Methodist Hymnal, edited by Wilbur P. Thirkield. New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1927. [Hymnary website.]
44. “Come forth, ye men of every race and nation.” Hymnary website.
45. “Jay Holmes Smith.” Hymnary website.
46. “Come Forth, Ye Men of Every Race and Nation!” 487 in Christian Worship, edited by Fred Wise. Saint Louis, Missouri: Bethany Press, 1941.
47. WorldCat entry. This was brought to my attention by Alfred J. Waterhouse. “Robert Whittaker’s ‘My Country’.” Sunset: The Magazine of the Pacific and of All the Far West 16:106:November 1905.
48. Martha Jenks. “Inventory of the Robert W. Whitaker Collection.” Graduate Theological Union Archives, Berkeley, California, website.
49. Citation from Songs of Many Nations, page 35.
50. Advertisement for Marie Teresa Armitage. Folk Songs & Art Songs for Intermediate Grades. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1924. The ad appeared on the back cover of Music Supervisors’ Journal 10(5):May 1924. This collection is mentioned in the post for 20 February 2022.
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Cooperative Recreation Service’s Repertoire
Sunday, February 20, 2022
CRS Custom Songbooks
Topic: CRS Versions
The term “custom songbook” came to have a particular meaning for Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS). In 1944, he told potential customers that he understood “copyright restrictions” and engraving costs prevented many from producing their own songbooks, but Cooperative Music Publishing had a solution.
“A score of organizations have pooled their resources, arranged for use of scores of copyrights and have assembled over 300 engravings for cooperative music service.”
As a result, “an organization can select its favorite songs, organize them to suit, and have its own title and imprint at a very moderate cost.” He also said, “new plates can be made if desired” for songs if they were not copyrighted. [1]
Larry Holcomb says the Evangelical and Reformed Church and American Country Life Association [2] were the first to avail themselves in 1940, followed by Methodists in Maine and Michigan in 1941. [3] Edward Schlingman oversaw the first and Paul Albery was the likely editor of Melody in Michigan. Maine leaders were renting Tanglewood [4] from the Bangor YMCA. [5] Holcomb says the Tanglewood Songster was prepared for the Eastern Maine Senior Institute. [6]
Rohrbough’s advertisement was inserted into a version of Joyful Singing he issued for the national office of the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF). He intended the collection to be a template customers could use to create their own anthologies. He compiled it by collating the choices of 32 groups who had used his service in 1942. [7] E. O. Harbin was the one who probably oversaw the custom version.
The Joyful Singing advertisement was followed by a list of songs in the CRS library. I have been able to locate early copies of the Evangelical and Reformed and Michigan Methodist songbooks. A comparison of those two songbooks, along with the MYF version of Joyful Singing and the earlier collection by Olcutt Sanders for conscientious objectors shows the continued evolution of his company.
At this time, Rohrbough still was using an outside printer, so added the MFY songs into the middle of Joyful Singing. Instead of numeric page numbers, the blue-colored pages were identified by letters. [14] In the 1944 edition of Songs of Many Nations, the first and last three pages are heavier stock than the rest, and the first two pages are not numbered. All the pages in Melody in Michigan are the same dark-goldenrod yellow and numbered.
Rohrbough had begun to standardize on a single melody line. More than half in the Michigan booklet still used two staffs, but two-thirds of those were hymns or arranged spirituals. [15] The six without music either were religious, familiar like “Just a Song of Twilight,” [16] or copyrighted, like “Funiculi, Funicula.” [17]
Equally important, Rohrbough was having plates remade so the musical notes were the same size. The version of “Shuckin’ of the Corn” in Sanders’ songbook had been redone by the time Schlingman used it in 1944.
Rohrbough also credits his immediate source, not the original one. Thus, the YWCA’s “Each Camp Fire” comes from “A World of Song.” [21] In his defense, it was much more difficult to track down authorships then than it is now, and, whenever anyone gave him more accurate information, he changed the plate. [22] He changed Mrs. L. L. McDowell to Flora McDowell in the above example. The Camp Fire Girls’ “Canoe Round” now is described as “Arr. by Vera Hollenffer” rather than “contrib. by” here. [23]
Still later, Rohrbough published the revised template. The 1962 songster has none of the CFG songs. Not only did he reuse songs from his inventory, but he recycled the cover art. The design on the back cover of Melody in Michigan was used on the title page of Handy II reproduced in the post for 12 December 2021. He already had reused the songbook title: Joyful Singing was the title he use for his social songs Kit S in 1938, according to Holcomb. [28]
Book: Joyful Singing, for The National Convocation of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Custom Printed Songs.
Book: Melody in Michigan, for Detroit Area of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. Delaware, Ohio: Coop. Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service.
Book: Pocket Songster, edited by J. Olcutt Sanders for Fellowship of Reconciliation. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Custom Printed Songs.
Book: Songs of Many Nations, for Evangelical and Reformed Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Custom Printed Songs, 1944.
Graphics
1. Joyful Singing, MYF.
2. “Shuckin’ of the Corn,” recorded by Flora McDowell and first published by CRS in Tennessee Folk Songs. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1939.
“Where Is John” to a melody by Friedrich Smetana. Uncredited, but first published by Teresa Armitage in 1924. [29]
Left: Pocket Songster, page 25.
Right: Songs of Many Nations, 32.
3. “Each Camp-fire Lights Anew.” Reprinted on page 56 of Melody in Michigan. “From A World of Song, Copyright, 1941, D.A.Y.P.L.” This song is reproduced in the post for 28 November 2021 and is mentioned in the post for 5 December 2021 and 13 March 2022.
4. Left: Melody in Michigan.
Right: Joyful Singing. Delaware, Ohio: World Around Songs, Informal Music Service, 1962 revised edition.
End Notes
1. “Cooperative Music Publishing.” 57 in Joyful Singing, MYF. Holcomb said: “One of the keys to the growth of this service was the requirement that new song plates made for a given group had to be added to the pool of CRS songs available to other groups.” [30] This is not mentioned in the MYF booklet.
2. The Country Life Association is mentioned in the post for 28 November 2021.
3. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 104.
4. Elwin L. Wilson. “The Long Road to Mechuwana.” Mechuwana website.
5. Tom Groening. “Tanglewood 4-H Camp Celebrates 30th Year.” Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine, 26 August 2012.
6. Holcomb. 104. A senior institute would have been a session for high-school-aged students.
7. Rohrbough listed the songbooks he used, perhaps as another form of advertising in the form of testimonials. He included one outside book in his list of sources: Let’s All Sing the Same Songs, edited by Augustus D. Zanzig. New York: National Recreation Association. The cover has a “V” for victory symbol, and the only non-American songs are the Canadian “Alouette” and the Mexican “Cielito Lindo.” The rest, primarily, are chanties (4), spirituals (3), and nineteenth-century songs (3). “The Star-Spangled Banner” is balanced by “Dixie.” The only hymn is the Dutch “We gather together.”
8. In 1974, Adahi was a Camp Fire Girls’ camp being run by Reading-Berks County Council in Reading, Pennsylvania.
9. Selected Songs for the Farmer’s Union and Manitoba Federation of Agriculture; Songs for Sings for Rural Youth of Illinois, and Pan America Sings for Minnesota State Agricultural Extension.
10. One was Epworth Forest Sings, published for the “N. Indiana Conf.” Epworth Forest is discussed in the post for 30 May 2021.
11. Eight customers were from Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, or Pennsylvania; six from other Midwestern states, three from the West, Northeast, or Border South, and one from the Deep South or Canada.
12. “Methodist Church (USA).” Wikipedia website.
13. A. Douglas MacNaughton. The Methodist Church in Michigan: The Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1976. 195.
14. As mentioned in the post for 28 November 2021, Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann did the same thing with their early customized books. The use of an insert was an easy solution to the difficulties and costs of working with a printer. It is not likely Rohrbough copied them, but came up with the idea himself.
15. My copy of Melody in Michigan is missing the middle eight pages, 37–44. They contain 13 songs. Of the remaining, 53% have two staffs and 40% have one. Of those with two staffs, 69% are religious. The index has three titles that have been replaced in the innards. [31] “Just a Song of Twilight,” “Kookaburra,” and “MacNamara’s Band” appear in the text but not the index. The second was published in this country in 1939. [32] The last was introduced into British music halls in 1889. [33]
16. James Lynam Molloy and G. Clifton Bingham. “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” London: Boosey and Company, 13 October 1884. [36] Reprinted without music as “Just a Song at Twilight” on page 60 of Melody in Michigan.
17. Luigi Denza and Peppino Turco. “Funiculì, Funiculà.” Milan, Italy: Ricordi, 2 October 1880. [37] Reprinted without music as “Funculi, Funicula!” on page 58 of Melody in Michigan.
18. Since most CRS songbooks are undated, these variations are helpful, if one has enough books to arrange a sequence. Otherwise, they may lead to false conclusions. In 1957, the YWCA said Rohrbough had “published several editions of SING ALONG for us. While each revision has been an improvement, there is confusion when old and new books are used the same time. This edition will not be changed for several years. Users may depend upon it for some time to come.” [38] Little did the editors know that, while the content was fixed, the plates were not. Each time CRS made a slight change in “Kum Ba Yah,” it appeared in the next printing.
19. Melody in Michigan. 34.
20. Melody in Michigan. 49.
21. Melody in Michigan. 55. Camp Songs, Folk Songs identifies Hollenhoffer on page 515.
22. See the version of “Each Camp Fire” in the post for 13 March 2022.
23. The composer of “My Paddles Keen and Bright” is mentioned in the posts for 14 October 2020 and 5 December 202. Margaret Bradshaw McGee is profiled in Camp Songs, Folks Songs, 445 and 565.
24. They were prepared for The Campfire Outfitting Company, New York City, and contain songs arranged by Leonhard Deutch in 1946. These were produced before 1955 when I ordered a copy of Music Makers, which mentioned the Camp Fire Girls, Supply Division.
25. These editions include three CFG songs: Katherine Court’s “Campfire Goodnight,” Abbie Gerrish-Jones’ “Song of Flame,” and Jean Taylor’s “Now the Day Commences.” The second added the “Canoe Round.”
26. Joyful Singing, Campfire Girls Edition. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service. Light colored cover.
27. Joyful Singing, Campfire Girls Edition. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service. Dark colored cover. Copy provided by Josephine Weber of the Winnebagoland CFG Council, Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
28. Holcomb. 59. It is discussed in the posts for 19 September 2021 and 26 September 2021.
29. Aber Horne. “Where Is John” to a melody from The Bartered Bride by Friedrich Smetana. 23 in Folk Songs & Art Songs for Intermediate Grades, Book 1, edited by Marie Teresa Armitage. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1924. Book I is for grade 5.
30. Holcomb. 102.
31. Songs that appear in the index but not in my copy of the book are “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “Taps,” and “Wesley Grace.”
32. “Kookaburra” was written in 1934 by Marion Sinclair for the Girl Guides in Australia. Janet Tobitt published it in 1939 in Yours for a Song. “Kookaburra” is one of the featured songs in Camp Songs, Folk Songs, 115–121, 650–653. It is reprinted on page 61 of Melody in Michigan.
33. Shamus O’Connor and John J. Stamford. Written for a music hall owned by Billy Ashcroft. [34] Arrangement by Alta May Calkins reprinted on page 79 of Melody in Michigan. Calkin’s husband, Gilman Calkins, worked for the Ohio Farm Bureau. [35]
34. Wikipedia, McNamara.
35. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 58.
36. James J. Fuld. The Book of World-Famous Music. New York: Dover Publications, 2000 edition. 342–343.
37. Fuld. 240.
38. Mary Wheeler, Lura Mohrbacher, and Augustus D. Zanzing. Sing Along, for the YWCA. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1957. 1.
Sunday, February 13, 2022
CRS Personalized Songbooks
Topic: CRS Versions
Lynn Rohrbough believed a songbook edited by Olcutt Sanders for World War II conscientious objector camps “was the first of the special edition books” produced by Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS). [1] Sanders was raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and went to the University of Texas where he became active in recreation and music. [2]
It probably was in this period that he became aware of the CRS collections of square dances. He sent Rohrbough a version of the “Needle’s Eye” that was included in a 1940 anthology of play parties. It is reproduced in the post for 12 December 2021.
While he was in Austin, Texas, Sanders became a Quaker. This was not like the late-nineteenth century conversion of followers of Phoebe Palmer who joined the Friends when the Methodist hierarchy proscribed her teachings. As mentioned in the post for 1 March 2020, the ones in Indiana were not pacifists.
Sanders, on the other hand, was against war. He worked for the American Friends Service Committee after he graduated in 1939. [3] In 1942, when Larry Holcomb believes the Pocket Songster was issued, [4] he was supporting the Civilian Public Service camp in Magnolia, Arkansas. [5] It was run by the Brethren Service Committee. [6] The government provided facilities and work, but private groups were responsible for providing meals, medical care, and recreation. [7]
“Special edition” had a particular meaning for Rohrbough. Sanders remembered:
“This is where he expressed the idea of personalizing a book for a local use. In other words, even after we edited a book for the camps across the country (a hundred or more . . .), he would put the number and name of the camp on the front of the book.” [8]
The copy I have is transitional in many ways. The format is the one Rorhbough was using in the 1930s, shown in a reproduction of Handy II in the post for 12 December 2021. This thin cardboard cover is 3 3/4" x 7". The 80 pages are held together by two staples.
Sanders believed Rohrbough was just beginning to realize the potential of “all those plates that he had already published.” [12] On the back cover, above the company name, Rohrbough identifies the Pocket Songster as part of the CRS “custom printed songs” service.
While he had a glimmer of the possibilities, Rohrbough had yet to recognize the need for a uniform style. The songs in the Pocket Songster appear in the formats of their original publications.
It was not just differences in typography. The songs represent different singing traditions. “Shuckin’ of the Corn” is from a Flora McDowell songbook discussed in the post for 12 December 2021. Traditional Appalachian singing is solo singing, or unison if sung by groups at events like play parties. Youth camp singing is group music.
“The Happy Plowman” first appeared in the 1938 Joyful Singing kit mentioned in the post for 26 September 2021. This still is influenced by the arrangements for voice and piano produced by E. C. Schirmer and other music publishers. Few youth camps have pianos, and those that do rarely have people who can accompany informal singing.
Four-part arrangements are more common in hymnals, where instrumental accompaniments are available. Since this collection was intended for conscientious objectors, the interest in religious songs may have been higher than in typical youth camps. Nearly 30% of the songs are hymns, spirituals, or patriotic hymns like “America the Beautiful.” While most use the regular fonts of “The Happy Plowman,” some are compressed to make room for all the verses between the staffs.
“there were a few plates made especially for this books, including some of the more established songs that he really hadn’t included in his own books, but I felt the collection should have some familiar songs that people would respond to as well as the ones that he had collected from less well known sources.” [13]
The largest number of new songs seem to be chanteys. [14] Sanders knew he was working with men in their twenties, and he wanted to provide songs known to be sung by men. He also included cowboy songs.
Once those two genres were publicized by folklorists, outsiders assumed every occupational group had songs about its craft, or, if not, would like them. The Magnolia camp was housed in an old Civilian Conservation Corp camp, and the men worked on local farms. [15] Labor had become scarce in the area after natural gas was discovered in 1938, and industry developed in the town during the war. [16] The illustrated pair of songs is from the section “Men of the Soil.”
When James Olcutt Sanders was drafted, he was assigned to the conscientious objectors’ unit in Norwich State Hospital in Connecticut. Most of the men worked in wards of the mental institution. [17]
After the war, Sanders alternated his interests in music with his commitment to service. He spent two years in Puerto Rico, [18] then married Phyllis Rae Aden in 1947. [19] Her parents were Methodist missionaries in Argentina when she was born, and she had earned a degree in music at Occidental College in 1941. [20] In 1948, they published a collection of Spanish-language songs [21] through CRS as one of the independent anthologies mentioned in the post for 12 December 2021. [22]
While they were living in Austin, he continued to publish articles of square dancing, perhaps in hopes of an advanced degree. [23] By 1949, he was the regional executive director for the American Friends Service Committee, [24] and, in 1954, went to work for the national office in Philadelphia. Next, he spent time between 1960 and 1961 [25] working for Rohrbough, before going to the Quaker’s Wilmington College in Ohio. That led to his work for an interracial theater and arts project in Cleveland in 1963. [26]
The Peace Corps beckoned, and he moved the family to Bogotá, Colombia for two years. [27] In 1969, they returned to the States where he became executive director of the Council for Arts in Westchester County, New York. [28] Sanders developed lymphoma in 1976, and died in 1983. [29] He spent the last three years of his life editing the Friends Journal. [30]
After he died, the Mennonite Central Conference began documenting the conscientious objectors’ camps. In 1990, Paul Wilhelm sent a questionnaire asking former CO’s what they most remembered. One, who had been at Norwich, recalled:
“One evening in a dorm bull session on a variety of topics, it was mentioned that the camp’s Recreation Director, Olcutt Sanders, was a Phi Beta Kappa. The conversation wound down, lights were turned off, there was silence for a few moments. In the dark silence, a new inductee exclaimed, ‘Say, I thought Sanders was a Methodist!’” [31]
Graphics
1. Pocket Songster, edited by J. Olcutt Sanders for Fellowship of Reconciliation. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Custom Printed Songs. Personalization from back cover.
2. Front cover design by Phil Galliers.
3. “The Happy Plowman.” Swedish Folk Song, translated by Mrs. Albert Magnuson; copyrighted 1940. Reprinted on page 24.
“Shuckin’ of the Corn.” Tennessee Folk Song, recorded by Mrs. L. L McDowell, 1939. Reprinted on page 25.
4. “America the Beautiful.” Words by Katharine Lee Bates, 1904; music by Samuel A. Ward, 1892. Reprinted on page 19.
5. Olcutt Sanders, around 1958. Photograph courtesy of Donald Davis, Archives, American Friends Service Committee, Philadelphia.
End Notes
1. Olcutt Sanders. Interviewed by Larry Holcomb, 2 June 1972. Quoted in Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 105.
2. “The Guest Editor.” motive, Boston University School of Theology, April 1944. 2.
3. motive.
4. Holcomb. 105.
5. Fred Feild. “Square Dancing in the 1800s.” His WordPress website.
6. “Civilian Public Service.” Civilian Public Service website. This was the formal name for conscientious objectors.
7. “Civilian Public Service.” Wikipedia website.
8. Olcutt Sanders. Quoted by Holcomb. 106. This is similar to the personalization done by Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann, [32] but probably was an independent invention. Companies providing promotional materials specialized in this type of name identification.
9. Fellowship of Reconciliation was organized in 1915 by people interested in “peace and justice.” They did not operate camps for conscientious objectors. [33]
10. motive.
11. W. LeRoy Neubrech and Arnold G. Schumacher. “The Pulp and Paper Industry in War and Peace.” 10–18 in Survey of Current Business, December 1942. The freeze order took effect on 1 November 1942. Book paper and newsprint were separate categories with different rules.
12. Olcutt Sanders. Quoted by Holcomb. 106.
13. Olcutt Sanders. Quoted by Holcomb. 106.
14. Eleven were not from Joyful Singing, the Concord group, or songbooks I know were published at the same time. Some may have been in another early songbook I have not seen.
15. “Camp Magnolia.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas website, last updated 1 August 2017.
16. “Magnolia, Arkansas.” Wikipedia website. It is located near the border with Louisiana in the western part of Arkansas.
17. “CPS Camp Number 068.” Civilian Public Service website.
18. Holcomb. 100.
19. “Phyllis Aden Sanders.” 41–42 in Friends Journal, May 2000. 41.
20. “Occidental College Alumni Awards Recipients.” College website.
21. Amigos Candando, edited by Phyllis Aden Sanders and Olcutt Sanders. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service; copyrighted 15 October 1948. [34]
22. Holcomb. 100.
23. Feild. In October 1946, Olcott told readers of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly that he was planning a book on Texas dance. [35]
24. “Partners To Your Places.” 215–230. In The Sky is My Tipi, edited by Mody C. Boatright. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1948. Last page reproduced on Square Dance History website. “Olcutt Sanders is Regional Director of the American Friends Service Committee with headquarters in Austin.”
25. Feild.
26. Item in “Class Corral.” Alcalde, University of Texas, September 1963. 24.
27. Liz Zazzi interview with Olcott’s son, Jay O. Sanders. 6–7 in “I Am a New York Actor.” SAG-AFTRA, Spring 2005. 6.
28. Item. Scarsdale Inquirer, Scarsdale, New York, 17 April 1969.
29. Eleanor B. Webb. “He ‘Dwelt in Possibilities’.” Friends Journal 29:2:August 1/15 1983. Date of cancer calculated from statement he had been fighting it six years.
30. “Former Editors.” Friends Journal, June 1995. 3.
31. Vance E. A. Geier. Quoted by Paul A. Wilhelm. “Civilian Public Servants: A Report on 210 World War II Conscientious Objectors.” Washington, DC: National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors, 1990. Republished by Civilian Public Service website.
32. Zander and Klusmann are discussed in the posts for 28 November 2021, 5 December 2021, 13 March 2022, and 20 March 2022.
33. “Fellowship of Reconciliation (United States).” Wikipedia website. This Fellowship is mentioned in the post 20 March 2022.
34. United States Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. 1949. 172.
35. Quoted by Renee J. Laperriere. “The Varsovienne in the Southwestern United States.” Masters thesis. Texas Tech University, May 1955. 45.
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Barbados Early Slaves
Topic: Gullah History
Richard Ligon claimed slaves did not rebel on Barbados because “they are fetch’d from several parts of Africa, who speak several languages, and by that means, one of them understands not another.” [1] He added, in the late 1640s, Africans arrived “from Guinny and Binny, some from Cutchew, some from Angola, and some from the river of Gambia.” [2] If Cutchew was Cacheu in modern day Guinea-Bissau, [3] then Africans indeed were coming from every post where Portugal had established trade. [4]
One suspects Ligon was referring to communication between plantations. It is hard to believe that slaves, indentured servants, owners, and possibly overseers did not converse in some way. However, the fragmented nature of the slave trade, described in the post for 30 January 2022, reinforced the class system on the island. Those planters who bought one or two slaves at a time would have had more diverse groups and different linguistic challenges than those who bought a number of individuals from a single shipment. [5]
Among the large growers, Ligon mentions two ethnic groups. He describes James Drax’s slaves as “these Portugal Negroes.” [6] If they, or their leaders, spoke Portuguese, then they may have come from Angola or any of the colonies with Luso-African populations where Portuguese was spoken by some.
Henry Walrond had slaves on his plantation who hung themselves. Ligon had been told they “believe in resurrection, and that they shall go into their own country again, and have their youth renewed.” [7] He added, Walrond stuck one of the heads on a pole and told them the body had not returned home, but still was in Barbados. [8]
Ligon did not mention a tribe, but, more than likely, they were Igbo. Michael Gomez says that, in “sixteenth-century Mexico, the Igbo were described as ‘difficult to manage and disposed to committing suicide when subjected to the slightest punishment or ridicule’.” [9] Something this well known would be lore passed on by sailors in ports as well as among planters.
Igbo are native to what Ligon called Binny, the area east of the Niger river in modern-day Nigeria. However, slaves from that area also were shipped to other areas that supplied slaves to the New World. The Portuguese sent them to São Tomé’s sugar plantations. [10] When they proved to be poor workers, they were reshipped to the Gold Coast. [11] When the Dutch took São Tomé in 1641, they destroyed the sugar mills and exported the slaves. [12] They would have been in the market just as Barbados was beginning to buy slaves.
Ligon, himself, was living on a plantation Thomas Modyford purchased from William Hilliard. It came with 96 slaves, 28 indentured servants, and 3 Indian women and their children. [13] Hilliard, as mentioned in the post for 30 January 2022, had acquired his land through a number of real estate transactions. In 1645, he joined a partnership with Samuel French to establish a sugar plantation. Hilliard supplied the land and French was required to send ninety slaves. [14] Where the Bristol merchant acquired them is not known. The slave community on the plantation probably was no more than three-years old when Ligon arrived, if the slaves included the ones Hilliard purchased in 1644.
Communication on the plantation seems to have been through men who acted as translators. Ligon identified Sambo as “The Orator” [15] and was able to explain some of the workings of the compass to him. [16] Gomez says the name is Fulani for “second son.” It was perhaps more significant than Ligon realized that Sambo, who had a Moslem name, [17] wished to be baptized. [18]
The other slave with whom Ligon could communicate was Macow. [19] He probably was an Igbo. When his wife gave birth to twins, he wanted to kill her for adultery. [20] Since Igbo believe the chi (roughly translated as soul) [21] of a dead individual enters a new born, [22] they have a particular aversion to twins. [23]
Ligon describes Macow as the “chief musician” and the keeper of the plantain grove [24] where food was grown by and for the African-born. One day, Macow came upon Ligon while he was playing a lute-like theorbo. Ligon recalled:
“he hearkened very attentively and when I had done, he took the Theorbo in his hand, and struck one string, stopping it by degrees upon every fret, and finding the notes to vary, till it came to the body of the instrument; and that nearer the body of the instrument he stopped, the smaller or higher the sound was which he found was by the shortening of the string.” [25]
The next day, Ligon found Macow constructing a marimba-like instrument in the plantain grove. “I took the stick out of his hand, and tried the sound, finding the six billets to have six distinct notes, one above another, which put me in a wonder, how he of himself, should without teaching do so much. I then showed him the difference between flats and sharps, which he presently apprehended, as between Fa and Mi.” [26]
Communication between two intelligent men with a shared interest [27] was conducted through demonstration supplemented by words in English. This probably is how workers learned their tasks and were given assignments.
When someone like Sambo or Macow was not able or was not willing to discuss something, then Ligon remained uninformed. He said the slaves played music and danced on Sundays, and after an hour or so “the men fall to wrestle.” [28] He later described their physical games, before admitting he could learn nothing of their games “because they wanted language to teach me.” [29]
The translators may have gained their skills while they were in Africa. Erich Nunn thinks the instrument Macow was constructing was a balafon. [30] That instrument is native to the Mandinka of western Africa. [31] None of the websites with information on Igbo music, mention anything like a marimba. [32] This suggests Macow saw one before he left Africa, perhaps at some Portuguese post like El Mina.
If that were true, Macow may have become bilingual within the context of a Portuguese slave colony in Africa, a milieu that was being destroyed by the Dutch, and was not recreated when the Portuguese regained their territories. [33] The use of language on Barbados in the 1640s, then, may be no indicator of how slaves and planters communicated in the early years in South Carolina, beyond the obvious fact that translators were used.
What may have been transferred were beliefs about Igbo. In the 1760s, a slave trader in Charleston, South Carolina, asked a partner not to send any Igbo. However, he admitted that they “were easily transferable to the markets of Virginia.” [34]
The fact Igbo apparently did not commit suicide in Virginia, but were unreliable in South Carolina, suggests more than beliefs about Igbo was transferred from Barbados. [35] Ligon warned planters not to threaten slaves, lest they “go and hang” themselves. [36] Poor treatment was more important than Igbo psychology, and poor treatment of laborers had become a hallmark of the way Barbados treated its white indentured servants, as mentioned in the post for 23 January 2022. This method of management may be what was transferred from whites to Africans, and from Barbados to South Carolina.
End Notes
1. Richard Ligon. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes. London: Peter Parker, 1673. 46.
2. Ligon. 46.
3. “Cacheu and Cape Verde Company” and “Cacheu.” Wikipedia website.
4. See the post for 30 January 2022 for more on the early slave trade in Barbados.
5. This may be analogous to the differences in slave life on large and small plantations in the United States before the Civil War. The ratio of whites to slaves may define patterns of communication, with separate languages only able to develop on large plantations. For more information, see Salikoko S. Mufwene. “The Emergence of African American English.” 57–84 in the Oxford Handbook of African American Language, edited by Sonja L. Lanehart. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
6. Ligon. 52. The original is: “these Portugal Negroes.” Russell Menard wonders if they “were perhaps Afro-Brazilians who had worked in the fields and mills at Pernambuco or Bahia” and Drax had deliberately purchased “workers who knew its ‘secrets’ and ‘mystery’.” [37] He provides no evidence and may have been thinking of Thomas Spalding, who did this when he brought Bilali from the Bahamas to start his Sapelo Island, Georgia, cotton plantation in 1802, [38] or the South Carolina planters, who preferred slaves from rice-growing areas of western Africa. [39]
7. Ligon. 51. The original is: “believe in Refurrection, and that they fhall go into their own Countrey again, and have their youth renewed.”
8. Ligon. 51. Ligon seemed to think they stopped committing suicide because they recognized the error of their thinking. [40] In fact, Walrond had violated a more serious taboo, because he maimed the bodies and prevented them from having a proper burial. Igbo believed such individuals were condemned to wander the earth, unable to enter the body of a newborn. [41]
9. Michael A. Gomez. “A Quality of Anguish: The Igbo Response to Enslavement in the Americas.” 82–95 in Repercussions of the African Slave Trade: The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora, edited by Carolyn A. Brown and Paul E. Lovejoy. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2010. 85. His source may have been Gonzalo Aguirré Beltrán. La población negra de México: estudio ethnohistórico. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1972 edition. 186–187.
10. Hugh Thomas. The Slave Trade. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. 80.
11. Thomas. 107.
12. “History of São Tomé and Príncipe.” Wikipedia website.
13. Ligon. 22.
14. Michael D. Bennett. “Merchant Capital and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1627-1672.” PhD dissertation. The University of Sheffield, June 2020. 198–199.
15. Ligon. 54.
16. Ligon. 49.
17. Michael A. Gomez. Exchanging Our Country Marks. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998. 69. It is possible “Sambo” was used as a common word and had no relevance to this individual. However, he does not seem to have been part of the community, since he was the one who betrayed plans for a rebellion. [42]
18. Ligon. 49–50.
19. Macaws are colorful parrots found in Peru. I have no idea if this was the origin of his name.
20. Ligon. 47.
21. The concept of chi is mentioned in the post for 13 March 2019.
22. Divining the origin of an infant is mentioned briefly in the post for 11 November 2020 on religious rites in Sumter County, Alabama.
23. Arthur Glyn Leonard. “The Destruction of Twins.” 458–461 in The Lower Niger and its Tribes. London: Macmillian and Company, 1906. He says: “although two energies are requisite to produce a unit, the production of two such units is out of the common groove, therefore unnatural, because it implies at once a spirit duality, or enforced possession by some intruding and malignant demon. [43] More recently, Stuart Edelson said the belief had become entwined with children with sickle cell anemia who torture their parents because they die young. [44]
24. Ligon. 47.
25. Ligon. 48–49. The original is: “he hearkened very attentively to: and when I had done, he took the Theorbo in his hand, and ftrook one ftring, ftopping it by degrees upon every fret, and finding the notes to varie, till it came to the body of the instrument; and that nearer the body of the inftrunlenthe ftopt, the fmaller or higher the found was which he found was by the fhortning of the ftring”
26. Ligon. 49. The original is: “I took the ftick out of his hand, and tryed the found, finding the fix billets to have fix diftinct notes, one above another, which put me in a wonder, how he of himfelf, fhould without teaching do fo much. I then fhewed him the difference between flats and fharps, which he prefently apprehended, as between Fa, and Mi.”
27. Their shared interest in music appears to extend to sharing the same notions of pitch.
28. Lignon. 50.
29. Lignon. 54. The original is: “And this is all I can remember concerning the Negroes except: of their games, which I could never learn, becaufe they wanted language to teach me.”
30. Erich Nunn. “‘A Great Addition to Their Harmony’: Plantation Slavery and Musical Exchange in Seventeenth-Century Barbados.” The Global South 10(2):27–47:Fall 2016. 36.
31. “Balafon.” Wikipedia website.
32. George Ibenegbu. “Igbo Musical Instruments and Their Names.” Legit, a Nigerian website, 22 September 2017.
“Igbo Traditional Music Instruments.” Music Africa Awake Media website, 9 August 2016.
33. William Gervase Clarence-Smith and Gerhard Seibert. “History of Sao Tome and Principe.” Encyclopædia Britannica website.
34. Henry Laurens. The Papers of Henry Laurens: Sept. 1, 1763-Aug. 31, 1765, edited by George C. Rogers, Jr. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1974. 558. Quotation from Gomez, Anguish, 84. Citation from Walter Edgar. South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. 65. Daniel Littlefield has quoted more of Laurens’ letters with more detailed citations from the 1750s. [45] Laurens is discussed in the post for 13 January 2019.
35. Elizabeth Donnan was the first to note this view of Igbo in 1928. She was using Laurens’ papers and advertisements for slave sales in Charleston’s newspaper, the South Carolina Gazette. [46] Philip Curtin’s attempts to quantify slave imports used her data to show 37.7% of Virginia’s slaves came from the Bight of Biafra, but only 2.1% of South Carolina’s. [47]
36. Ligon. 50.
37. Russell R. Menard. Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006. 17.
38. Ray Crook. “Bilali—The Old Man of Sapelo Island: Between Africa and Georgia.” Wadabagei 10(2):40–55:Spring/Summer 2007. For more on Spalding and Bilali, see the post for 9 June 2019.
39. For more on the use of slaves from rice-growing areas, see the post for 13 January 2019.
40. The original is: “Being convinc’d by this fad, yet lively fpectacle, they changed their opinions: and after that, no more hanged themfelves.”
41. Leonard. 142. “All Ibo place great faith in the due and proper observance of the funeral ceremony for they are of opinion that it enables the soul to go to God, and to its final destination, and that without this sacred rite the soul is prevented by the other spirits from eating, or in any way associating with them, and, in this manner, from entering into the Creator’s presence. So in this way it becomes an outcast and a wanderer on the face of the earth, haunting houses and frequenting burial-grounds, or is forced perhaps to return to this world in the form or body of some animal. Among the souls who are obliged to return to this world are those belonging to men who have died unnatural or violent deaths, and whose bodies have not therefore received the funeral obsequies.”
42. Ligon. 54.
43. Leonard. 458.
44. Stuart J. Edelstein. The Sickled Cell: From Myth to Molecules. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986. 13.
45. Daniel C. Littlefield. Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave trade in Colonial South Carolina. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981. Chapter 1, especially 8–10.
46. Elizabeth Donnan. “The Slave Trade into South Carolina Before the Revolution.” The American Historical Review 33(4):804–828:July 1928. 817, 821.
47. Philip D. Curtin. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. 157.