Joshua McCarter Simpson's Songs and Mid-Nineteenth Century Antislavery Activism

Abstract

The Ohio-based Black songwriter, Joshua Simpson, published two books of antislavery songs in the mid-nineteenth century, Original Anti-Slavery Songs in 1852 and Emancipation Car in 1854. Unlike most other known songsters, which were compilations of poetry from several authors, Simpson authored original lyrics for borrowed melodies, and he did so with extraordinary care, engaging the original song to enhance his activist messages. Employing the rhetorical practice of signification, his linkage of new lyrics with preexisting songs sometimes builds upon meaning from the original text, reusing it to add weight to the moral and political arguments against slavery. He also extends nature imagery and lyrics about the comforts of home and family in traditional ballads and contemporary sentimental songs to his new lyrics, but more often his signifying practice is ironic. He inverts the original song's sentimentality in deliberately discomforting ways that could persuade Americans to assist self-emancipating people and work toward wholescale abolition of slavery. Simpson's most radical songs talk back irreverently to the originals, especially minstrel tunes containing degrading caricatures and proslavery propaganda as well as patriotic anthems proclaiming hypocritical platitudes. Simpson did not simply write new songs; he transformed some of the most popular and beloved songs of his era, harnessing their renown to sharpen his activist messages.