History 1302 (1877-Present) Handout

• The Old West Links (History 1302 Helper Page)
• Helen Hunt Jackson
• A Poem
• BMHAWK Trip Report with Photos
• Dee Brown - BMHAWK (Purchase)

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Yo soy un pobre vaquero
Que no tiene ni alpargatas;
Pero me las voya hacer
Con'pellejo 'e garrapatas'...
...tan...tan, que cantaba la rana,
...tan...tan, que debajo del agua.

Vaquerito, vaquerito
Pide mies al mayoral,
Que el ganado se te pierde,
Que el ganado se te va'.
...tan...tan, que cantaba la rana,
...tan...tan, que debajo del agua.

I am a poor cowhand
And I haven't even shoes,
But I will make me some
Out of thick skin.
...tan...tan, sang the frog,
...tan...tan, under the water.

Shepherd, shepherd, Ask the boss for grain,
Because the cattle goes lost
Because the cattle will run away.
...tan...tan, sang the frog,
...tan...tan, under the water.

-from Traditional Mexican Songs
KWAYS Records Album No. FW8769 10023

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Homesteaders
Homesteaders' Song // Square Dance

How happy am I on my government claim,
Where I've nothing to lose and nothing to gain,
Nothing to eat and nothing to wear,
Nothing from nothing is honest and square.
But here I am stuck, and here I must stay,
My money's all gone and I can't get away;
There's nothing will make a man hard and profane
Like starving to death on a government claim.

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Bow to your partner.
Bow to your corner.
Do-sa do your corners all.
Do-sa do your partners all.
First gent out to the lady on your right.
Swing that gal, she's a fright.
Take her back home, circle three hands with your own.
Circle three hands with your sweet mountain gal.
It's out to the next lady over there.
Oh, you swing that little gal with the curly hair.
Take her back home,
Circle four hands with your sweet mountain gals.
Out to the next lady on your left.
Swing her, she's the only gal that's left.
Take her back home circle five hands with your sweet mountain gals.
First gent to the center of the ring.
Ladies circle four hands round and round.
Drop your hands and stop right there,
Tickle his ribs and muss his hair.
All step up and kill him if you dare.
Runaway hoe and everybody swing.
Promenade and you all sing.
She'll be coming around the mountain...
(Repeat with second gent
then bow, do-sa do again...
Repeat with third and fourth gent)

-from Square Dance Party with Don Durlacher
Gillette-Madison Co.

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"Though slavery was abolished, the wrongs of my people were not ended. Tough they were not slaves, they were not yet quite free. No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling, and action of others, and who has himself no means in his own hands for guarding, protecting, defending, and maintaining that liberty. Yet the Negro after his emancipation was precisely in this state of destitution...He was free from the individual master, but the slave of society. He had neither money, property, not friends. He was free from the old plantation, but he had nothing but the dusty road under his feet. He was free from the old quarter that once gave him shelter, but a slave to the rains of summer and the frosts of winter. He was, in a word, literally turned loose, naked, hungry and destitute, to the open sky."

RAILROAD SONGS & POEMS
I've Been Working on the Railroad // Sam Bass
Jesse James // Black Bart - Po8

I've Been Working on the Railroad

I've Been Working on the Railroad
I've been working on the railroad
All the live long day.
I've been working on the railroad,
Just to pass the time away.
Don't you hear the whistle blowing,
Rise up so early in the morn.
Don't you hear the captain shouting
Dinah blow your horn.

Dinah won't you blow,
Dinah won't you blow,
Dinah won't you blow your horn,

Dinah won't you blow,
Dinah won't you blow,
Dinah won't you blow your horn.

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah,
strummin' on the old banjo,
and singing fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o, fee, fie fiddl- e-i-o-o-o,
Fee, fie, fiddl-e-i-o, strummin' on the old banjo.

Repeat

-from America on the Move: A Treasury of Songs of Travel

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The following are excerpts from a folk song about train robber Sam Bass. The reference to Jim Murphy relates a former member of the Bass gang.

Sam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home;
And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam.
Sam first came out to Texas, a cowboy for to be --
A kinder-hearted fellow you seldom ever see.

Sam had four companions, each a bold and daring lad --
Underwood and Jackson, Joe Collins and Old Dad.
Four of the boldest cowboys the ranges ever knew --
They whipped the Texas Rangers and ran the boys in blue.

Sam had another companion, called Arkansas for short;
He was shot by a Texas Ranger b the name of Thomas Floyd.
Tom is a big six-footer, and he thinks he's might sly.
But I can tell you his racket - he's a deadbeat on the sly.

Jim Murphy was arrested and then released on bail;
He jumped his bond at Tyler and took the train for Terrell.
But Major Jones had posed Jim and that was all a stall;
'Twas only a plan to capture Sam before the coming fall.

Sam met his fate at Round Rock, July the twenty-first;
They pierced poor Sam with rifle balls and emptied out his purse.
Poor Sam he is a corpse and six foot under clay;
And Jackson's in the bushes, trying to get away.

Jim Murphy had used Sam's money and didn't want to pay;
He thought his only chance was to give poor Sam away.
He sold out Sam and Barnes and left their friends to mourn --
Oh, what a scorching Jim will get when Gabriel blows his horn!

And so he sold out Sam and Barnes and left their friends to mourn.
Oh, what a scorching Jim will get when Gabriel blows his horn!
Perhaps he's got to heaven, there's none of us can say;
But if I'm right in my surmise, he's gone the other way.

Jesse James was a man and he traveled in the land.
He stopped on the Rocky Mountain shoal.
Well he stole from the rich, and he gave to the poor;
But I'll never see my Jesse anymore.

CHORUS:
Oh, I don't know where my poor ole Jesse's gone.
Oh, I don't know where my poor ole Jesse's gone.
But I'll meet you in that land where I've never been before,
And I don't know where my poor ole Jesse's gone.

It was with his brother Frank that he robbed the Denver bank.
They carried the money from the town and the agent on his knees,
He delivered up the keys when Frank and his brother Jesse frowned.

REPEAT CHORUS

Jesse James was at home
He was standing up on high,
Trying to straighten out a picture frame.
And he thought he was alone, and he laid down his gun,
Then they laid down my poor Jesse James.
So Jesse's laid at rest with a hand across his chest,
And a smile was there upon his face.
He was born one day in the county of Clay,
And he came out of the wild and reckless race.

-from Typical American Boys
The Mitchell Trio

The Poetry of "Black Bart"
(Charles Boles - Po8)

(1.)
This is my way to get money and bread,
When I have a chance why should I refuse it.
I'll not need either when I'm dead,
And I only tax those who are able to lose it.

So blame me not for what I've done
I don't deserve your curses;
And if for some cause I must be hung
Let it be for my verses.

I'll start out tomorrow with another empty sack.
From Wells Fargo I will borrow
But I'll never pay it back.

(2.)
Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow.

Let come what will, I'll try it on,
My condition can't be worse,
And if there's money in that box,
'Tis money in my purse.

Foreign Policy and Patriotism in the Late 19th Century
America the Beautiful // Statue of Liberty
Aloha Oe

America the Beautiful

The words of this song were written in the summer of 1893 by Katherine Lee Bates after a trip to Pike's Peak. It was first printed in 1895 and soon after set to music. This tune is originally from "Materna" by Samuel A. Ward. Resource: The Golden Book of Favorite Songs

To Words and MIDI

Ever since 1886, when her great torch was lifted into place 305 feet above Bedloe's (now Liberty) Island, the statue has symbolized America for millions of eager newcomers. The statue was the work of Alsatian sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and was intended to commemorate both a century of amity between France and the United States and the concept of political freedom shared by the two nations. The book that Liberty holds in her left hand symbolizes the Declaration of Independence. The main figure is attached to an iron framework designed by Gustave Eiffel, builder of France's Eiffel Tower. The statue was paid for by French contributors; American schoolchildren participated in a nationwide drive to raise funds for the pedestal. On a tablet within are inscribed the last five lines of a sonnet, "The New Colossus," by Emma Lazarus, herself an immigrant:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

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Hawaiian Islands - "Aloha Oe"
("Farewell to Thee")
by Queen Liliuokalani

Farewell to thee, farewell to thee,
Thou charming one who dwells among the bowers,
One fond embrace, before I now depart,
Until we meet again.
-from All American Song Book
ed. Maddy/Meissner

LATE 19TH CENTURY POPULAR MUSIC
Minstrel Music //

(1.) Minstrel Music:

"Carve That Possum"
by Sam Lucas

Although minstrel music is usually associated with the antebellum "black face," after the Civil War, African-American entertainers like Sam Lucas became more frequent. This is one of his songs...
My dog treed, I went to see
Carve him to the heart,
There was a possum up that tree
Carve him to the heart;
And that possum begin to grin
Carve him to the heart.
I reached up and took a pin
Carve him to the heart.

CHORUS:
Oh, carve that possum,
Carve that possum children,
Carve that possum
Children, oh carve him to his heart.

Carried him home and dressed him off
(Carve...)
Hung him out that night in the frost;
But they say to cook the possum sound,
First parboil, then bake him brown.

REPEAT CHORUS

Possum meat am good to eat,
Always fat and good and sweet;
Grease potatoes in the pan,
Sweetest eating in the land.

REPEAT CHORUS

Some eat early and some eat soon,
Some like possum and some like coon;
That possum just the thing for me,
Old Rattler's got another one up a tree.

REPEAT CHORUS

- sung by Uncle Dave Macon and his Fruit Jar Drinkers (1927) from Going Down the Valley: Vocal and Instrumental Styles in Folk Music from the South album

(2.) Barbershop Quartet

"Sweet Adeline"

Sweet Adeline, my Adeline,
At night dear heart, For you I pine;
In all my dreams, your fair face beams,
You're the flower of my heart,
Sweet Adeline.

-Richard Gerard/Harry Armstrong

LATE 19TH CENTURY POLITICS

Quotes from Emma Goldman, Anarchist:

"...ask for work. If they do not give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you bread, then take bread."

"...the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves."

"Crime is only misdirected energy."

"Laziness results from special privileges."

"...no real social change has ever come about without a revolution."

-from Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman