Jack Yeamans in South Carolina

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
The first settlement in the Carolina land grant was made at Cape Fear by a group from New England in 1661.  When they abandoned their efforts, they left their cattle with local Natives. [1]  John Vassal led a rogue group from Barbados to settle the same area in 1664. [2]  As mentioned in the post for 26 June 2022, this was a time when the island was suffering from attempts by Charles II to assert his authority.

Soon after, John Yeamans led an authorized group that landed on Cape Fear in November 1665.  The voyage had been stormy, and many of their provisions were lost. [3]  Yeamans sent one ship to Virginia to get supplies, and, in late December, rode another back to Barbados, where he stayed. [4]

The colony failed in 1667.  Timing was bad.  Even before Yeamans set sail, Charles had declared war on the Dutch in March 1665.  That diverted ships away from trade, as well as forcing one of the proprietors, Anthony Ashley Cooper, to spend his time financing the war effort. [5]

The plague returned to England in June, [6] which gave some respite to the Dutch. [7]  Next, another proprietor, George Monck and Cooper were expected to handle the consequences of the fire that ravaged London in 1666. [8]

The Dutch won in 1667.  Edward Hyde, a third proprietor, was blamed, while Monck retired. [9]  The multiple roles assigned the proprietors of the Carolina grant suggests too few people were given too many responsibilities by Charles.

The only ones to profit from the Cape Fear venture were ship owners from New England [10] and Yeamans.  He gained a title.  Some like to see his baronetcy as the reward for his or his father’s loyalty to Charles I, [11] while others believe it signified his membership in the planter elite of Barbados. [12]  In fact, it was conferred because the charter for Carolina required that whoever served as a governor had to be an aristocrat. [13]

Cooper began developing new plans for a colony after a fourth proprietor, John Colleton, died in 1666. [14]  People in Barbados were less interested in investing in a second venture.  Large planters were changing their methods to make themselves less reliant on timber. [15]  As a consequence of the war, England had gained control of some Caribbean real estate which could provide wood and provisions while they were being prepared to grow sugar. [16]

In addition, Francis Willoughby had died in 1666, and his brother, William Willoughby became the island’s governor in January 1667.  He treated planters with more respect, so men no longer felt pressured to escape. [17]

One of the few who still had problems was Yeamans.  William Willoughby stripped him of his judgeship in 1668 after the Barbadian assembly investigated rumors Yeamans had murdered his wife. [18]  That same year, a son of John Colleton killed one of his sons in a duel.  If Yeamans hoped to gain by the forfeiture of the younger Colleton’s assets, he was disappointed.  John had placed the Barbados land in a trust. [19]

In 1669, Cooper persuaded the current proprietors to invest in sending three ships to Port Royale.  Joseph West was named governor and commander of the fleet until it reached Barbados. [20]  The proprietors specifically did not name Yeamans as governor, but sent a blank commission with instructions for him to provide a name. [21]

Yeamans sailed with the fleet from Barbados to Bermuda on a stormy voyage. [22]  He entered the name of Bermuda’s governor, William Sayle, in the commission, [23] and returned to Barbados. [24]

He finally moved to Carolina in 1671, when it was a burgeoning colony.  Why he chose that moment to immigrate is unknown, but again it may have been related to his continuing problems in Barbados.  Everyone notes he arrived with his slaves. [25]  His will, which he wrote just before embarking, indicated he only owned outright one woman and her three children. [26]  The rest had been gained through his marriage to the murdered man’s widow. [27]  He may have felt it prudent to remove them from the reach of Barbadian law.

Sayles died in March 1671, [28] and the colony’s council chose West as their governor.  By then, Monck had died and John Berkeley acceded to the position of head proprietor. [29]  When Yeamans arrived in May, he expected to become governor, [30] both because of his Cape Fear commission [31] and because he outranked all the settlers. [32]  When the council ignored him, he retreated [33] to his seventy-acre claim on Wappoo Creek [34] at its junction with the Ashley river south of Charles Town.

He finally became governor in August 1671 because of the constitution Cooper had written governing the colony. [35]  Few have been willing to suggest Yeamans did much to advance plantation agriculture in that role.  His history is too well known.  By the time of the Civil War, William James Rivers knew Yeamans did not establish a plantation colony with a slave work force.  Instead, “the toil of cultivating the fields was borne chiefly by white servants from England, or Indian slaves purchased from their enemies.” [36]

While still governor, West had ordered settlers to grow their own provisions instead of relying on stores sent by the proprietors. [37]  Further, he expected those who did not pay for their supplies to provide labor felling trees for shiploads of timber that could be sold to reimburse the proprietors. [38]

Yeamans saw those crops and stores, which still were controlled by West, as items to be exploited.  He bought produce from planters, who needed money, and expected West and the proprietors to feed them while he gained money shipping their goods to Barbados.  In 1672, Copper had written: “if to convert all things to his private profitt be the marke of able parts Sir John is without question a very judicious man.” [40]

The proprietors fired him, but Yeamans died in August of 1674 before the letters were received in Charles Town. [40]

Yeamans remains a cipher who has been used to advance theories.  Cooper knew Yeamans’ character, but still needed a governor, and he was being recommended by Peter Colleton.  Harriott Horry Ravenel knew “he was a bad Governor, oppressing the people by his extractions,” [41] but still needed a hero to justify the Civil War. [42]

Walter Edgar knew Yeamans’ personal ethics were materialistic, [43] but he turned that to his purpose: “for wealthier planters, such as Sir John Yeamans the chance to gain thousands of acres of land and a title, even if it be in the Carolina nobility, might have been appealing.” [44]

Lou Roper claims historians have followed Bernard Bailyn’s lead in emphasizing the desire for cheap land. [45]  In fact, it was Yeamans’ widow who claimed 1,070 acres. [46]

Few look at the actual man.  Yeamans was not born to the landed aristocracy in England, but was descended from a family of tradesmen in the port city of Bristol.  He was described as a merchant when he was given rights by the city. [47]   His behavior in South Carolina was that of a trader, not a planter, and certainly not that of an administrator imbued with principles of noblesse oblige.

End Notes
Histories by William James Rivers and Edward McCrady provide the best narratives.  Later historians may add details, but they do not devote the space they do to details.

1.  Wm. Jas. Rivers.  A Sketch of the History of South Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: McCarter and Company, 1856.  70.  Rivers is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.

2.  “Barbadians Upon the Cape Fear.”  North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources website, 29 May 2016.

3.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  80.  He is discussed in the post for 5 June 2022.

4.  McCrady.  81.

5.  L. H. Roper.  Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots, 1662–1729.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.  19.

6.  “London Plague.”  Wikipedia website.
7.  “Anglo-Dutch Wars.”  Wikipedia website.
8.  Roper.  19.
9.  Roper.  20.
10.  Rivers.  82.

11.  McCrady.  63.  “After the success of the Parliamentary forces, he retired to Barbados.  There he still maintained the Royalist cause, and upon the Restoration, with twelve other gentlemen of the island, among them Sir John Yeamans [. . .] were knighted.”

Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel.  Charleston, the Place and the People.  New York: Macmillan, 1906.  7.  “He himself had warmly supported the royal cause in Barbados, already a thriving colony.  For so doing, he and Sir Peter Colleton, and some other gentlemen of like principles, had been made baronets.”  She is discussed in the post for 5 June 2022.

12.  Richard S. Dunn.  Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972.  81.  “Five Barbados sugar planters received knighthoods or baronetcies between 1658 and 1665.”  Dunn is profiled in the post for 19 June 2022.

Michael D. Bennett.  “Merchant Capital and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1627-1672.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Sheffield, June 2020.  224–225.  “Perhaps the best example of the work this did to improve reputations is how several planters and merchants who had made fortunes on Barbados were knighted by both Cromwell and Charles I:  [...] John Yeamans, and Thomas Modyford who was made a baronet in 1664.  Of course, the wealth generated on Barbados is not the only reason why these men were knighted and made baronets: several of them were longstanding royalists and some lent money to the Crown soon after the Restoration.  But the prestige enjoyed by Barbados merchants and planters in London is part of the explanation behind their knighthoods.”

13.  Lords Proprietors of Carolina.  Letter to Sir John Yeamans, 11 January 1665.  “We have in the first place prevailed with his Majesty to confer the honor of a knight Baronet upon you.”  University of North Carolina, Documents of the South website.  The original is:

“Haveing receaved a good carrector of your abillityes and Inteagryty and of your loyalty to the kinge from Sir John Colleton, with an assurance that you will viggorously attempt the setling of a Collony or plantation to the southward of Cape Romania [. . .] wee have in the first place prevaled with his Majestie to conferr the honor of a knight Barronet upon you and your heires, to whome wee have given assurance that you will deserve the same.”

14.  Walter Edgar.  South Carolina.  Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.  41.  Edgar is mentioned in the post for 19 June 2022.

15.  Laura Hollsten.  “Controlling Nature and Transforming Landscapes in the Early Modern Caribbean.”  Global Environment 1: 80–113:2008.  106–107.  She mentions burning bagasse, a “fibrous by-product left over after the canes had been pressed,” and more efficient distilling methods.

16.  Hollsten.  99–100.

17.  Charles Harding Firth.  “Willoughby, Francis.”  62:31–35 in Dictionary of National Biography.  Volume 62, edited by Leslie Stephan.  London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1900.  62:34.

18. P. F. Campbell.  “Editor’s Note” for E. M. Shilstone.  “Nicholas Plantation and Some of Its Associations.”  The article appeared in The Barbados Museum and Historical Society Journal 9:120+:1942 and was reprinted by Campbell in Chapters in Barbados History.  Saint Ann’s Garrison, Barbados: Barbados Museum and Historical Society, 1986.  59.  This is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.

19.  J. E. Buchanan.  “The Colleton Family and the Early History of South Carolina and Barbados 1646-1775.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Edinburgh, 1989.  81–83.  One wonders how this affected Yeamans relationship with John’s eldest son, Peter.

20.  Rivers.  92.  Peter Colleton inherited the proprietorship when his father died.  His brother Thomas handled supplying the fleet with it arrived in Barbados.

21.  McCrady.  116.
22.  McCrady.  122.
23.  McCrady.  124.
24.  McCrady.  123.

25.  Rivers.  109.  “He was the first who introduced slaves into Carolina, whom he brought from Barbados, in 1671, to cultivate his plantation on the Ashley River.”

Dunn.  115.  “Starting with Sir John Yeamans in 1671, members of the big sugar-planting families brought gangs of Negroes with them.”

Wood.  23.  “Yeamans arrived from Barbados, bringing eight black servants.”  He adds these were not the first slaves in South Carolina.

26.  John Yeamans.  Will, 20 May 1671.  Reprinted by M. Alston Read.  “Notes on Some Colonial Governors of South Carolina and Their Families.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 11(2)107–122:April 1910.  “I doe bequeath allsoe dureing my deare wifes life natural life these negroes following (vide) old Hannah & hir children Jupiter, little Tony & Joane.”

27.  Yeamans.  Reprinted by Read.  113.  “I give and bequeath unto my said wife all the negroes young and old that ..Berringer died possessed of and came to her afterwards by right of Administcon and to me by intermarriage.”

28.  Meaghan N. Duff.  “Sayle, William.”  South Carolina Encyclopedia website.  1 August 2016; last updated 26 October 2016.

29.  McCrady.  138.
30.  McCrady.  155.
31.  McCrady.  158.
32. Yeamans had been made a landgrave in March. [48]
33.  McCrady.  162.

34.  Henry A. M. Smith.  “Old Charles Town and Its Vicinity, Accabee and Wappoo Where Indigo Was First Cultivated, with Some Adjoining Places in Old St. Andrews Parish (Continued).”  Historical and Genealogical Magazine 16(2):49–67:April 1915.  61.

35.  McCrady.  158.
36.  Rivers.  111.
37.  Rivers.  106–107.
38.  McCrady.  164.

39.  Anthony Ashley Cooper.  Letter to Peter Colleton, 27 November 1672.  416 in Landon Cheves.  “The Shaftesbury Papers and Other Records Relating to Carolina and the First Settlement on Ashley River prior to the Year 1676.”  South Carolina Historical Society Collections 5:1897.  Quoted by M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 2663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  28.

40.  Henry A. M. Smith.  “Sir John Yeamans, an Historical Error.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 19(3):152–156:July 1918.  153–154.

41.  Ravenel.  7.

42.  The post for 5 June 2022 has more on Ravenel’s views of Yeamans as the son of a martyr to a noble cause.

43.  Edgar.  132.
44.  Edgar.  44.

45.  Roper.  9.  He wrote historians have followed Bernard Bailyn’s lead in arguing “the availability of land” provided “new individual opportunities—for investment as well as livelihood—that were supposedly unavailable in the metropolis.”  He cited an article by Bailyn [49] and one about him. [50]

46.  “Yeamans Hall Plantation – Hanahan – Berkeley County.”  South Carolina Plantations website.

47.  Yeamans’ early life is discussed in the post for 12 June 2022.
48.  Rivers.  103.

49.  Bernard Bailyn.  “Politics and Social Structure in Early Virginia.”  90–115 in James Morton Smith. 17th-century America.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.  115.

50.  Gordon S. Wood.  “The Creative Imagination of Bernard Bailyn.”  16–50 in James A Henretta, Michael Kammen, and Stanley N. Katz.  The Transformation of Early American History.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.  23.

Frederick Hilborn Talbot - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Frederick Hilborn Talbot was a talented man lucky enough to attract the attention of people outside his family.  Like many parents, his mother thought he was special and worked to earn the money for his school fees. [1]  His uncle was the minister at the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in British Guiana’s capital city of Georgetown [2] where Talbot became a soloist in the choir. [3]

While he was an adolescent Talbot began singing in Vesta Lowe’s choir, where again he became a soloist. [4]  His exposure to her led him to organize a youth choir named for the then current AME district bishop.  When William Reid Wilkes heard the group, he arranged a scholarship for Talbot to study at Allen University, the premier AME school in the United States. [5]

This led to a fellowship to the Yale Divinity School where he did field work for the Wesley Foundation.  Talbot recalls the foundation’s head, Douglas Cook, “made it possible for me to attend several ecumenical conferences and I soon developed a special interest in collecting folk tunes from around the world.” [6]  One of the conferences was the meeting of the Student Volunteer Movement in Athens, Ohio, where he became aware of the work of Lynn Rohrbough. [7]

Talbot’s first job after Yale was at Shorter College in Arkansas, [8] where he took over the English department when his cousin left for another position. [9]  Talbot then took classes at the Pacific School of Religion. [10]  It was in this period that he worked on the Guinea Sings project described in the post for 7 August 2022.

His musical style still was influenced by the arranged spirituals sung by Lowe [11] and by Allen University. [12]  Paul Robeson was the ideal when Talbot was young in British Guinea.  Vibert Cambridge said Cheddi Jagan used his recordings in his 1953 election campaign. [13]  Talbot’s bass-baritone voice [14] fit the aesthetic.

At this point, Talbot seems to have been pursuing an academic career.  His next position was with AME’s Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio.  However, while he was at Payne, his uncle died in Georgetown and he volunteered to return to Guiana to serve the Saint Peter congregation. [15]  He said, when he returned, he began “incorporating Caribbean music and art forms into the liturgy.” [16]

Talbot had left British Guiana while independence was more a chimera than a reality, and had been “acculturated in the United States.” [17]  His wife was from the Virgin Islands with a master’s degree in Public Health from Yale. [18]  He obviously returned to visit his family, or else he would not have been involved with the Guinea Sings recording.

He returned to a country plagued by riots between descendants of African slaves and Indian indentured servants.  The United Kingdom introduced a new electoral system in 1964, and a Black, Forbes Burnham, led the government through independence in 1966. [19]  In 1971, Burnham asked Talbot to represent Guyana in the United Nations. [20]

Since the late 1940s, the AME hierarchy had been pressured to elect bishops born outside the United States, and, in 1948, elevated Ormonde Walker and Joseph Gomez. [21]  However, neither was assigned to the Caribbean district.  Wilkes was from Georgia. [22]

In 1971, someone sent a letter to the AME newsletter, The Christian Recorder, demanding a native bishop.  Talbot was elected in 1972, and assigned the Caribbean district. [23]  It was in this position that he hosted a district youth conference in 1973.  The church issued a commemorative album that included performances from artists from member countries.  An unidentified trio sang “Kum Ba Yah.”

Title
Kum Ba Yah

Performers
Vocal Soloists: unidentified young male trio
Vocal Group: children’s choir [24]
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano with stringed instrument

Credits
None given

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: even stress on syllables

Verses: those published by Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) – kumbaya, praying, crying, singing

Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: verse-burden

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5; same melody as that published by CRS
Tempo: quick

Basic Structure: solist supported by humming group alternates with group singing

Singing Style: one note to one syllable

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano provides rhythmic accompaniment

Ending: sung slowly in chordal harmony, with divergent harmony on last line

Notes on Performance
Occasion: first meeting of the Caribbean Conference of Churches, 20–22 June 1973 

Location: Guyana

Microphones: The album cover says it was recorded live and that Radio Demerara made “their recording facilities available.”  It probably was taped using the station’s equipment, and then edited for the recording in their building.  Dave Braithwaite, who worked on projects for Ray Charles, [25] was the re-mix engineer.  The album itself was produced by The Dave Nelson Company in Los Angeles.

Cover: green with photograph of girl and flags of participating countries

Notes on Performers
Talbot served two four-year terms in the Caribbean, the maximum allowed by the church.  He then was assigned to the Georgia-South Carolina district.  After eight years, he spent four devoted to ecumenical affairs.  From 1992 to 1996 he was in the Arkansas-Oklahoma district, and for the eight years before he retired in the Tennessee-Kentucky jurisdiction. [26]

With the move into the bureaucracy in the United States he sacrificed some of his freedom to organizational politics.  When he was serving both the church and Guyana in the 1970s, some had complained he was “mixing religion and politics.” [27]  While he was in Georgia, he began working on a PhD from Columbia Theological Seminary.  He remembered this “radical and unprecedented step” was met with “consternation or wonderment, and it even strained the credulity of many.” [28]

It was while he was in Little Rock that Talbot published a book on liturgy, which included a résumé that tied his professional advances to his involvement with different forms of worship. [29]  In 2016, I contacted him to confirm he had heard “Kumbaya” at the Athens meeting.  When I asked him if he has sung “Kumbaya” elsewhere, he told me:

“I do recall leading a version of ‘Come by Here’ which is often referred to as ‘Kumbaya’.  ‘Come by Here’ is the American version sung in small rural American churches.  I often led both versions in the song as a young pastor in South Carolina and elsewhere. [30]

Talbot died in 2019. [31]

Availability
Album: “Kum Ba Yah.”  Partners in Mission.  16th A.M.E. Records 1001.  Released 1974.

End Notes
I would like to thank Andrew Franklin of Yale who helped me identify Frederick Talbot as the one Rohrbough called “B.Talbot” on the carbon copy of his letter that was reprinted in the post for 31 July 2022. [32]  I would also like to thank the Allen University alumni office who forwarded my inquiries to him.

1.  “Frederick Talbot.”  Lewis and Wright Funeral Directors website, April 2019.

2.  “Retired Bishop Frederick Hilborn Talbot, S.T.M., D.Min Appeal for St. Peter’s AME Church Restoration Fund.”  The Christian Recorder Online, 16 October 2015.  His uncle was David Patterson Talbot.

3.  Frederick Hilborn Talbot.  African American Worship.  Lima, Ohio: Fairway Press, 1998.  Reprinted by Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2007.  18.

4.  Talbot, Worship.  18.  Lowe is discussed in the post for 7 August 2022.
5.  Lewis and Wright.
6.  Talbot, Worship.  20.  Cook became head of SVM in 1958. [33]
7. The Athens meeting is discussed in the post for 31 July 2022.
8.  Talbot, Worship.  20.

9.  “Dr. David Arlington Talbot.”  Texas A&M University Commerce website.  David was the son of David Patterson Talbot.

10.  Talbot, Worship.  21.

11.  Talbot, Worship.  18.  He recalled that “along with great anthems and other choral arrangements, the choir interpreted Negro spirituals in a very moving way.”

12.  Talbot, Worship.  19.  At Allen, Talbot studied “voice and conducting” with John Wesley Hunter.  Hunter had graduated from Juilliard, and emphasized “high class music.”  Talbot remembers “excerpts from operas and a variety of anthems from famed composers were sung with style, but he also interpreted the Negro spirituals with pathos.”

13.  Vibert C. Cambridge.  Musical Life in Guyana: History and Politics of Controlling Creativity.  Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015.  126.  Jagan brought recordings back after he was a student at Northwestern University. [34]  Perhaps this contributed to the British view that Jagan was too close to the Communists.  Robeson’s association with the Soviet Union is mentioned in the posts for 17 August 2017 and 12 October 2017.

14.  Talbot, Worship.  23.  While at Saint Peter’s, Talbot entered the National Music Festival and won the “national award as bass soloist and later an award in the baritone class.”

15.  Talbot, Worship.  22.

16.  Talbot, Worship.  22.  This was after the Vatican changed its view of the liturgy in 1964 and folk elements were given legitimacy in masses.  This first is mentioned in the post for 25 November 2017.

17.  Dennis C. Dickerson.  The African Methodist Episcopal Church: A History.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.  492.

18.  “Sylvia Ross Talbot Ed.D Bio.”  The AMEC Supervisors Council website.  She later earned a PhD in Health Education from Teacher’s College, Columbia.

19.  “History of Guyana.”  Encyclopædia Britannica website; revised by Heather Campbell and Jack K. Menke on 12 November 2009.

20.  Talbot, Worship.  23.
21.  Dickerson.  488–489.

22.  Item on 1948 AME convention.  Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Indiana, 29 May 1948.

23.  Lewis and Wright.

24.  The last side of the double album includes songs from each country.  While a few performers are named, most are not.  It is possible the base group was the United District Choir.

25.  “David Braithwaite.”  Rate Your Music website.
26.  Lewis and Wright.
27.  Talbot, Worship.  23.

28.  Talbot, Worship.  25.  He noted that after he had broken the barrier, other pastors also pursued advanced degrees.

29.  Talbot, Worship.  15–26.

30.  Frederick Hilborn Talbot.  Letter, 18 October 2016.  As soon as he was ordained a deacon, Talbot was assigned the Little Mountain Circuit with churches in Chapin and Little Mountain. [35]  Chapin is a rail town about 25 miles from Columbia, where Saint John’s AME church was organized before 1892. [36]  Little Mountain is five miles farther on the rail line.  It has been the home of a folk festival sponsored by Newberry College since 1882. [37]  As mentioned in the post for 27 July 2022, Thomas H. Wiseman learned a variant of “Come by Here” in an AME church in Columbia, South Carolina.

31.  Lewis and Wright.

32.  Andrew Franklin.  Email, 21 September 2016.  “The man you’re looking for is Bishop Frederick H. Talbot.  He graduated from YDS with an M.Div. in 1957, which would mean he matriculated in 1955.  He is an AME Bishop in the Virgin Islands.”

33.  “Student Volunteer Movement.”  The Christian Scholar 41(3):433–434:September 1958.
34.  Cambridge.  118.
35.  Talbot, Worship.  19.
36.  “Chapin, South Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.
37.  “Little Mountain, South Carolina.”  Wikipedia website.

Guiana Sings - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough planned to send his Song Sampler “to music people of 200 organizations in every state and to correspondents in 60 overseas countries. [1]  The first consequence may have been a letter from Claire Lovejoy Lennon that disputed “Kumbaya” was from Angola.  As mentioned in the post for 18 October 2020, she was the first to tell him it was an African-American song.  She learned it before World War I in Georgia. [2]

The first surviving consequence of the 1955 Student Volunteer Movement convention, which was mentioned in the post for 31 July 2022, is a 1959 songbook associated with Frederick Hilborn Talbot.  I have no idea if Rohrbough remembered him from the convention before they began work on Guiana Sings.  I rather suspect that Talbot reminded him, and that is the reason Rohrbough told Shawnee Press that Talbot was the meeting’s song leader. [3]

The songbook was a more ambitious project for Rohrbough, perhaps stimulated by the activities of Vesta Lowe and others in British Guiana.  Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) also issued a recording with an extract of Guianese songs. [4]  Some of the pages in the songbook, like the one above, have line drawings.

British Guiana, now Guyana, is located on the northern coast of South America.  It began as a Dutch colony that attracted English and Scots planters. [5]  Control of the area changed several times during the American Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, but finally was taken by the British in 1814. [6]

Sugar plantations dominated the lowlands from the beginning.  Since they were entering the business after methods had been perfected on Barbados and other Caribbean islands, owners were able to import the most modern equipment and be more competitive. [7]

Slave labor was used until Britain outlawed the practice in 1834.  During the next five years, before emancipation was complete, owners overworked their crews, since they no longer had an incentive to treat them well.  With abolition, African workers left and plantations returned to using indentured servants. [8]  After experiments with men from different areas, owners important help from India. [9]  Many stayed after their five-year terms and moved closer to the coast where they grew rice.  Today, descendants of African slaves make up 40% of the population of Guyana, and offspring of Indian servants represent 50%. [10]

The next major change occurred when sugar beets contributed 65% of the world’s sugar supply in 1900, up from 40% in 1875. [11]  Planters in British Guiana responded to lower prices by cutting wages and introducing more machinery.  The economic dislocations led to riots in 1905, [12] which, Vibert Cambridge said, accelerated the migration from the countryside into Georgetown.  This, in turn, led to changes in musical styles. [13]

The genesis of the song project probably was India’s independence from the British Empire in 1947.  Cambridge recalled the British governor began preparing the colony for its own liberation.  The local African and Indian elites believed it only would succeed if it were “constructed upon a foundation of cultural confidence. [14]

A new constitution in 1953 led to Cheddi Jagan’s election.  Britain considered him to be pro-communist and declared martial law. [15]

It was during this period when Guiana was occupied by British troops that the program director of the colony’s radio station, Rafik Khan, recorded some of the songs that appear on the record with introductions to some.  Although the liner notes give no information, the tapes may have been meant for a program on Radio Demerara. [16]

The songs were re-recorded in 1959 under Talbot’s direction, but Khan’s comments were retained.  Abbreviated versions appear with some of the songs in the CRS book.

Guiana Sings preserves the traditions derived from Africa.  The first group are work songs, primarily related to crewing boats or boat races.  These began developing in the late nineteenth century when Afro-Guyanese men worked in gold fields upriver from Georgetown and on timber grants in the interior. [17]

Many texts in the second half of Guiana Sings are gwe-gwe, also spelled “kwe-kwe,” [18] “Kweh-Kweh” [19] and “queh-queh.” [20]  Gwe-Gwe is a wedding ritual that developed from African roots in the colony.  “There is no known equivalent in African society and it is a practice that evolved in Guyana.” [21]

After the Guianese songs, Guiana Sings has religious songs, American Negro spirituals, and international songs.  The first ones are from Indonesia [22] and India. [23]  The rest come from a number of countries, not just the German-Czech tradition that dominated earlier CRS books.  “Kum Ba Yah” appears in the section of spirituals, and shares a page with “Jacob’s Ladder.”  The other two from the Song Sampler are the German “Echo Yodel” and the Palestinian “Shalom Chaverim.”

Title
Kum Ba Yah, with no mention of “come by here.”

Credits
The headnote has been changed to “Spiritual.”

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English

Pronunciation: the pronunciation note has been removed as John Blocher, Jr., requested. [24]

Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying; same verses and same order as those published in Indianola Sings, which is reproduced in the post for 29 May 2022

Pronoun: Someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5; the melody is the same as Indianola Sings
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: slowly
Key Signature: no sharps or flats

Guitar Chords:  C F G7; the second line chords are different from the tablature distributed at the Buckeye Recreation Workshop, shown in the post for 24 July 2022.

Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Ending: none

Notes on Performance
Occasion: “this little book is dedicated to the 4-H Clubs of British Guiana”

Cover: parallel diagonal lines create diamond patterns, with some breaks to create large spaces; some of the larger spaces are filled with drawings; rows without large diamonds are filled with horizontal lines

Color Scheme: both cover and inside pages use green ink on light green paper; the Guianese songs are printed on heavier stock at the beginning and end of the songbook

Plate: made with music typewriter

Audience Perceptions
Cambridge remembered that

“about 15 years ago, one of my colleagues at Ohio University gave me the LP Guiana Sings that was used by his mother when she taught school in rural Ohio.  This is one of the most treasured items in my Guyana collection.  On that album we have recorded for posterity the voice of Rev. Fred Talbot.  The LP also features the voice of a young Rafiq Khan, then Programme Director of the British Guiana United Broadcasting Company, providing descriptions of the 13 folk songs on the LP.” [25]

Notes on Performers
The inside cover of Guiana Sings has a photograph of Vesta Lowe and a note she was a “collector of Guiana Folk Songs” and had been a “Rural Youth Instructor (4-H) in Agriculture Department, since 1956.”

Vesta Hyacinth Winifred Lowe [26]  was born in 1909  and lived in Manchester, [27] a rail stop on the Corentyne Coast Road from New Amsterdam to the Surinam border. [28]  She was one of the first graduates of the Teachers’ Training Center, [29] which was found in 1928. [30]  The young woman was working as a student-teacher in 1931 when she was sent to Tuskegee Institute by the Negro Progress Convention. [31]

Her parents were members of church choirs, and she was part of Tuskegee’s first choir. [32]  Previously, the school had sponsored male quartets that had recorded for Victor from 1914 to 1916 and again from 1926 to 1927. [33]  When she returned to Guiana, Lowe formed her first choir in 1939, which she named for Tuskegee’s choir director, William Dawson. [34]

She also began collecting songs, some of which her choirs sang.  In 1947, she presented a program “of Guyanese Folk Songs, in which the Qweh-Qweh Dancing [was] accompanied by African Tom-Toms.” [35]  Like Lydia Parish, she had found the best way to preserve traditions was to present them in publically acceptable venues. [36]

The Negro Progress Convention had sent her to Tuskegee to study Home Economics in hopes she could improve the lot of members.  However, the British colony was so poor, “she was never able to obtain a tenured position in the British Guiana civil service.” [37]  She worked on a number of projects, especially through 4-H, [38] until it was disbanded by the government in the early 1960s. [39]

Guiana Sings gives special thanks to two people besides Talbot on the inside cover.  Stanley Sutton was a county agent from Maryland.  He and his wife, the former Helen Shriley, spent the years from 1955 to 1957 in Guiana. [40]  He may be the one who hired Lowe, and also may have provided the money needed to pay CRS.

Charlotte Vandiver Churaman, then the Assistant Superintendent for Rural Youth Work, was from Burlington, West Virginia.  She met her husband, Oscar Churaman, when he was an agricultural student in the United States. [41]  His grandfather had been a cane cutter who migrated from Maharashtra, India. [42]  The couple lived in Guyana from 1949 to 1962.  She later was a professor in the Home Ecology Department of the University of Maryland. [43]  She may have done the detail work necessary to putting together the recording and songbooks.  Talbot did not, because his name is misspelled. [44]

Talbot is discussed in the post for 14 August 2022.

Availability
Book.  “Kum Ba Yah.”  23 in Guiana Sings.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service; individual songs copyrighted in 1959.

Graphics
“Where Me Go.”  Guiana Folk Song.  58 in Guiana Sings.  It includes a drawing of the sugar plant when it most resembles grass.

End Notes
1.  Song Sampler number 1, January 1956.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956.  B.

2.  Claire Lovejoy Lennon’s photograph appears on the Photo K tab, and references to her can be found in the index at the right.

3.  The post for 31 July 2022 quotes Rohrbough’s reference to Talbot.

4.  Guiana Sings.  7.5" recording at 33 1/3 rpm issued by World Around Songs, Informal Music Service of Delaware, Ohio.  Choral group led by Fran Thomas, with guitar by Prentiss Choate.  Talbot is one of the 12 singers, and may be the uncredited soloist.  The liner notes only say he was a “one time soloist of the Vesta Lowe Choir.”  Cambridge hints he was the singer.

5.  “Demerara.”  Wikipedia website.
6.  “British Guiana.”  Wikipedia website.
7.  Library of Congress.  “Guiana: History of the Economy.”  Country Studies website.
8.  Library of Congress.

9.  “History of Guyana.”  Encyclopædia Britannica website; revised by Heather Campbell and Jack K. Menke on 12 November 2009.

According to Wikipedia:

“Most Indo-Guyanese are descended from indentured laborers who migrated from North India, especially the Bhojpur and Awadh regions of the Hindi Belt in the present day states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.  A significant minority of Indo-Guyanese are also descended from indentured migrants who came from the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.  However, among the immigrants there were also labourers from other parts of South Asia, such as Afghanistan, Nepal and northwestern India.” [45]

10.  Library of Congress.

11.  Charles S. Griffin.  “The Sugar Industry and Legislation in Europe.”  The Quarterly Journal of Economics 17(1):1–43:November 1902.  5.

12.  Mellissa Ifill.  “The 1905 Protests in British Guiana.”  Stabroek News website, 13 August 2009.

13.  Vibert C. Cambridge.  Musical Life in Guyana: History and Politics of Controlling Creativity.  Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015.  34.

14.  Cambridge, Guyana.  120.
15.  Britannica.
16.  Liner notes.
17.  Cambridge, Guyana.  35.
18.  Cambridge, Guyana.  12–13.

19.  Gillian Richards-Greaves.  Rediasporization: African-Guyanese Kweh-Kweh.  Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2020.

20.  Al Creighton.  “Kwe Kwe traditons in Guyana.”  Guyanese Association of Barbados website, 9 August 2009.

21.  Creighton.

22.  “Sarimandé.”  Indonesian Folk Song sung by Noramaj Sumakano of Java; English by Katherine Ferris Rohrbough; copyrighted in 1956 by Cooperative Recreation Service.  25 in Guiana Sings.

23.  “Chol Chol (On! On!).”  Old Bengali Song; translated by Amrit Varuah; English verse by Augustus D. Zanzig.  27 in Guiana Sings.

24.  This is discussed in the post for 15 July 2022.

25.  Vibert C. Cambridge.  “Vesta Lowe (1907 -1992).”  Stabroek News, 14 September 2003.  Ohio University was the site of the Student Volunteer Movement meeting mentioned in the post for 31 July 2022.  By one of those coincidences that dot history, Cambridge earned his PhD there in 1989 and has remained on the faculty.

26.  “Tenth Annual Assembly of Negro Progress Convention 1931.”  Reprinted on Guy Gen Bio Society website, 28 July 2006.

27.  Cambridge, Lowe.

28.  “Contract for Construction and Working of Steam Tramway in British Guiana.”  The Railway News 62:472:29 September 1894.

29.  Cambridge, Lowe.
30.  “Cyril Potter College of Education.”  Wikipedia website.

31.  Negro Progress Convention.  The NPC was an improvement organization in the tradition of Marcus Garvey. [46]

32.  Cambridge, Lowe.

33  According to the University of California, Santa Barbara, two of the six spirituals in Guiana Sings were recorded by Tuskegee vocal groups. [47]  Tuskegee Institute Singers, a double male quartet, recorded “Steal Away” in 1914 [48] and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in 1915. [49]  The Tuskegee Sextet had recorded both spirituals in 1914. [50]  The male Tuskegee Institute Quartet recorded “Steal Away” in 1927. [51]

34.  Cambridge, Lowe.  The group was the Dawson Music Lovers’ Club.
35.  Cambridge, Lowe.

36.  Parrish is discussed in the post for 2 October 2018.  She wanted to do more than collect spirituals from Saint Simons Island in Georgia; she wanted to overcome the shame people felt about the past so they could value their heritage.  To this end, she organized singing societies that performed before appreciative white audiences.  Her hope was the praise would overcome the debasement that came from living in a racially stratified society. [52]  This is not meant to imply Parrish influenced Lowe.  Instead, it suggests that similar ideas emerge from similar conditions.

37.  Cambridge, Guyana.  110.
38.  Cambridge, Lowe.

39.  “A champion of community development…Waveney Dorsett is a ‘Special Person’.”  Kaieteur News Online website, 14 February 2016.

40.  “Stanley Sutton, Was County Agent.”  The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, 7 March 1984.  51.  Posted to internet by pekastal on 18 Mar 2019.  The United States had bases on the territory in World War II; [53] in 1955 it opened an office of the US Information Service. [54]

41.  “Charlotte Vandiver Churaman.”  Greenbelt News Review, Greenbelt, Maryland, 57(22):4:21 April 1994.

42.  “Oscar Churaman.”  Gini website, 15 December 2014.
“James Churaman.”  Gini website, 31 December 2014.  Oscar’s father.
“James Churaman, Singh (Sr).” Gini website, 10 January 2015.  Oscar’s grandfather.

43.  Greenbelt News Review.
44.  “Special Thanks To [. . .] Mr. Fred Talbutt.”

45.  “Demographics of Guyana.”  Wikipedia website.  Its sources are:

Helen Myers. Music of Hindu Trinidad.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.  30.

“Indian Diaspora.”  Indian Diaspora website.

46.  Nigel Westmaas.  “The Negro Progress Convention of Guyana (1922 – circa 1938).”  Stabroek News website, 22 August 2021.

47.  “Discography of American Historical Recordings.”  University of California, Santa Barbara Library website.

48.  Tuskegee Institute Singers.  “Steal Away.”  Victor B-15172.  31 August 1914.

49.  Tuskegee Institute Singers.  “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”  Victor B-16512.  20 September 1915.

50.  Tuskegee Sextet.  “Steal Away.”  Victor, not released.  23 June 1914.

Tuskegee Sextet.  “Swing Low.”  Victor, not released. documented, 23 June 1914.

51.  Tuskegee Institute Quartet.  “Steal Away.”  Victor BVE-15172.  29 January 1927.

52.  Lydia Parrish.  Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands.  New York: Creative Age Press, 1942.  Reprint edition, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1992.  xxvi, 12, 17.

53.  Cambridge, Guyana.  95.
54.  Cambridge, Guyana.  136.