SongEra: Jim Crow

Stewball

Name: Stewball
Description: A racehorse ballad of 18th-century British/Irish broadside origin (not African-American), later reshaped by Black Southern laborers into a chain-gang work…

c. 1784(Approximate date)· Unknown (artist)

Artist: Unknown
Album: Jail House Bound: John Lomax's First Southern Prison Recordings, 1933

A racehorse ballad of 18th-century British/Irish broadside origin (not African-American), later reshaped by Black Southern laborers into a chain-gang work song; oldest identified broadside dated 1784.

Sources & citations

1.mainlynorfolk.infowebsite
2.alchetron.comwebsite
3.StewballwebsiteSpotify — Unidentified Mississippi State Penitentiary (Oakley) prisoners, Alan Lomax