Simon Taylor

DESCRIPTION: Two-couplet verse. Each couplet is a call followed by the response "Simon Taylor, Hilo." See notes.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1890 (JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Bolton)
KEYWORDS: ship shanty
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1739-1813: life of Simon Taylor, wealthy Jamaica sugar plantation owner (see NOTES)
FOUND IN: Bermuda
REFERENCES (1 citation):
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, H. Carrington Bolton, "Gombay, a Festal Rite of Bermudian Negroes", Vol. 3, No. 10 (Jul-Sep 1890), pp. 225-226, "Simon Taylor" (5 texts)
NOTES [224 words]: Bolton's five fragments include calls about women -- "Nancy Green she dress so fine ... She dress herself in pumpkin vine," "Somerset girl ain't got no hair ... Take a bit of wool and stick it dere," "Paget girls are pretty girls ... Warwick girls, ugly girls"; daily chores -- "I caught that ship yesterday morning ... I took her about four o'clock in the morning" and "I'm gwine down de ribber to get some shads ... Mamie, Mamie give me some bread"; and the traveling verse "Hilo and away we go ... Hilo and away we go." Bolton always writes "high-lo" or "hy-lo" instead of "Hilo." As Stan Hugill writes, "it is on paper quite possible that many of these 'hilos' are nothing more than 'high-low' ... Take your pick." (Shanties from the Seven Seas (1994), p. 183). Of Hugill's "Hilo Group" this seems closest in form to "Can't Ye Hilo?"
"At his death he (Simon Taylor) was one of the wealthiest men in the British empire, and his massive personal fortune was built on the backs of the enslaved men, women, and children who laboured on the sugar estates and other properties that he owned or managed. He 'owned' over 2,000 slaves when he died." (Slavery and Revolution: Jamaica and Slavery in the Age of Revolution - Simon Taylor, @ https://blog.soton.ac.uk/slaveryandrevolution/simon-taylor-and-jamaican-slavery/ , downloaded Dec 28, 2019) - BS
Last updated in version 5.3
File: JAFSiTay

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