We're Stole and Sold from Africa

DESCRIPTION: "We are stole and sold from Africa, Transported to America, Like hogs and sheep we're marched in drove." ""See how they take us from our wives, Small children from their mothers' side." "O Lord, have mercy and look down Upon the plight of the African"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1978 (recording, Addie Graham, according to Sing Out!)
KEYWORDS: slave hardtimes
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 38, #4 (1994), p, 30, "We're Stole & Sold from Africa (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [87 words]: According to Sing Out!, Addie Graham, who recorded what seems to be the only recording of this, sang it in an "Anglo-American" (i.e. White) style. And the song seems a little too carefully crafted to be a legitimate lament about slavery (someone who was actually imported from Africa would be neither a Christian nor such a good speaker of English!). The notes in Sing Out! suggest it is an abolitionist song. This strikes me as almost certainly true; the main question to me is how it managed to show up in tradition. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: SO38n4A

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