Soldier of the Jubilee

DESCRIPTION: Leader: "I'm a noble soldier (Too young to marry)." Response: "Soldier of the Jubilee." Leader: "I'm gettin' old and crippled in my knee." Response: "Soldier of the Cross"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1862 (see notes re Pearson)
KEYWORDS: nonballad worksong religious
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
ADDITIONAL: Elizabeth Ware Pearson, editor, _Letters From Port Royal_ (Boston: W.B. Clarke Co., 1906 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 28, "(Oh, Jacob's Ladder)" (1 text)
Marshall W. Taylor, _A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies" (Cincinnati, 1890 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), #26, pp. 49-50, "Christian Warfare" (1 text, 1 tune)
G.D. Pike, _The Jubilee Singers_ (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1873 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), p. 213, "I'm Going to Live with Jesus" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
James Cook, "Soldier of the Jubilee" (on McIntosh1)
NOTES [648 words]: Art Rosenbaum's liner notes to McIntosh1: "This is ... a work song, or shanty, that James Cook used early in the century when he worked as a stevedore in the port of Darien, stowing pine timbers that had been rafted down the Altahama River ...." (p. 5).
While not a religious song one of the responses is from hymns like "A Soldier of the Cross." The Jubilee reference to Emancipation is also a familiar theme in Black hymns.
Pearson includes a letter dated April 1862 from H.W. -- Hariet Ware, according to Epstein -- quoting a song that she assumes was created by the black man she talks to -- Cuffy. He deacons -- that is, lines out -- the verse "Oh Jacob's ladder, Climb high. Climb higher!" and the chorus "Oh sodier [sic] of de jubilee. When you get dere 'member me. Oh! sodier of de cross!" Pearson refers to the intentional omission of this song from Allen/Ware/Garrison-SlaveSongsUnitedStates. Page xviii of the introduction to that book says, "Cuffee at Pine Grove did, to be sure, confess himself the author 'Climb Jacob's Ladder;' unfortunately, we afterwards found it in a Northern hymn book." That is to say, the song was omitted because the authors thought it was not a black traditional spiritual. So far, I have only found the song in the ADDITIONAL references listed above and hope someone can find an earlier Northern hymnal source found by the authors of Allen/Ware/Garrison-SlaveSongsUnitedStates. It is ironic that this hymn survived long enough to be recorded by the traditionalist McIntosh County Shouters.
Was "Soldier of the Jubilee" a work song or a religious song? It was both. In an 1862 letter, Lucy McKim explained how that worked: "As the same songs are sung at every sort of work, of course the tempo is not always alike. On the water, the oars dip 'Poor Rosy' to an even andante; a stout boy and girl at the hominy-mill will make the same 'Poor Rosy' fly, to keep up with the whirling stone; and in the evening, after the day's work is done, 'Heab'n shall-a be my home' peals up slowly and mournfully from the distant quarters." (Lucy McKim, "Songs of the Port Royal 'Contrabands'" in Dwight's Journal of Music, Vol. 22, No. 6 (Whole No. 553), (Boston, Nov. 8, 1862 (Dwight's Journal of Music, Vol. 22, is "Digitized by Internet Archive")), p. 255). "Poor Rosy" is indexed here as a religious song.
The songs collected between the "Port Royal experiment" of the Civil War and Lydia Parrish's Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands of 1942 were collected by white observers. During those times, in that Sea Islands area, as seen by those observers, secular work songs had been replaced at work by black spirituals. Some verses could seem secular but the tone of the song remained religious. What verse text was acceptable was arguable, and, as reported by the white observers, was argued about. How this situation developed out of the Second Great Awakening and the influence of white Evangelical ministers is one story; how it survived the influence of white Northern school teachers and the influence of the white Northern church is another.
The best secondary source I know for this is Dena J. Epstein's Sinful Tunes and Spirituals (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981). Epstein quotes her primary sources, rather than just referring to them; now, almost all of her primary sources are available online, so you can dig into the context of her quotations. Facing the title page of her 1981 paperback is the following quotation: "I told them everything was sinful which was not done with a single eye to God's glory" from George Whitefield's Journal, December 6, 1739. Don't be fooled by the title: this is a history book and not one for song texts and tunes.
The McIntoshShouters-RingShoutSongs track is a work song. James Cook learned it working as a stevedore stowing pine timber aboard schooners early in the 20th century. - BS
Last updated in version 6.7
File: RcSootJu

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