Will Ye Go To the Indies, My Mary?

DESCRIPTION: The singer must leave Scotland for India/the Indies. He asks Mary to go with him. She won't or can't go. "We hae plighted our troth ... In mutual affection to join"
AUTHOR: Robert Burns
EARLIEST DATE: 1792 (Kinsley)
KEYWORDS: love separation India nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #76, p. 1, ("Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary") (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: James Kinsley, editor, Burns: Complete Poems and Songs (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #387, pp. 524-525, "Song ('Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary" (1 text, 1 tune, from 1792)
Roud #V16277
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Will Ye Go to the Ewe-bughts, Marion?" (tune, per Burns)
NOTES [315 words]: At least some authorities seem to believe that the singer in this song is going to India, not the Indies. I'm fairly confident that it refers to the (West) Indies, though. It might even be autobiographical. Robert Burns was, of course, forever getting in trouble with women. According to Maurice Lindsay, The Burns Encyclopedia, 1959, 1970; third edition, revised and enlarged, St. Martin's Press, 1980, p. 65, the Mary of this song is likely Burns's beloved "Highland" Mary Campbell: "Burns may have asked Mary to go with him to Jamaica; that she consented, but died at Greenock before the plan could be put into action. We also learn, however, that on May Sunday Burns and Mary Campbell exchanged Bibles, and possibly some sort of matrimonial vows."
As for why Burns was going to Jamaica... well, even as he was wooing (and possibly knocking up) Mary Campbell, he had also impregnated, and seemingly promised marriage to, Jean Armour (Lindsay, pp. 50-51. This wasn't even the first time he had gotten a girl pregnant out of wedlock; the first one was Elizabeth Paton, and the child, Elizabeth Burns, or "Dear-Bought Bess," was born in 1784; Lindsay, p. 47). He conceived the idea of fleeing to Jamaica, perhaps with Mary Campbell, to get out of the mess. So this song sounds like an actual description of Burns's attempt to get out of the mess he had made of his life.
But then Mary died, and Burns ended up marrying Jean Armour. Also, according to Burns's brother Gilbert, even as he was making preparations to go to Jamaica, as this was going on, the Kilmarnock Edition of Burns's poems brought him enough income that he didn't have to flee his debts (Lindsay, p. 406). If only he had been willing to stick to one woman after that, he might have actually had an orderly life.
For a limited amount of additional background, see the notes to "Burns and His Highland Mary" [Laws O34]. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: Grg076b

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