He's Gone Where the Slaveholders Go

DESCRIPTION: "Come all my brethren, let us take a rest... Old master has died, and lying in his grave... For he's gone where the slaveholders go." "Hang up the shovel and the hoe, Take down the fiddle and the bow, Old master has gone to the slaveholder's rest"
AUTHOR: William Wells Brown? (c. 1814-1884) (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1853 (William Wells Brown, Clotel)
KEYWORDS: music slave death freedom
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Greenway-FolkloreOfTheGreatWest, pp. 67-68, "(About half past four o'clock this morning)" (1 fragment)
NOTES [111 words]: William Wells Brown was an escaped slave who became an author; Clotel was one of his major works, and this song is found on pp. 149-150 of what seems to be the original edition (available on Google Books). He neither gives the song a title nor lists a tune, but I am almost certain that it is sung to "Uncle Ned," a song that was popular around this time.
Martin Delany's Blake seems to have a variant of this song which is explicitly said to have been sung to "Uncle Ned." The differences between the two texts are significant. Does this mean it was traditional? I suppose it's possible, but it seems more likely that Delany took and adapted Brown's song. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: GFGW067F

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