Peg Leg Joe is a legendary sailor and underground railroad conductor, popularly associated with the song "

Follow the Drinkin' Gourd ''Follow the Drinking Gourd'' is an African-American folk song first published in 1928. The "drinking gourd" is another name for the Big Dipper asterism. Folklore has it that enslaved people in the United States used it as a point of reference so ...

". According to the folklorist H.B. Parks, who collected the song in the 1910s, Peg Leg Joe was an

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was Kingdom of France, France in 1315, but it was later used ...

who led enslaved people through the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes and safe houses used by freedom seekers to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada. Enslaved Africans and African Americans escaped from slavery ...

to freedom during the last years of

American slavery The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Sl ...

. In popular history, he is usually connected with an escape route which led from

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

to the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

. He may have been a real person or composite of people, but there is no reliable historical evidence of his existence.Follow the Drinking Gourd - A cultural history
/ref> It is also possible that the story of Peg Leg Joe originates in the African mythical figure,

Papa Legba Papa Legba is a lwa, or loa, in West African Vodun and its diasporic derivatives ( Dominican Republic Vudú, Haitian Vodou, Louisiana Voodoo, and Winti), who serves as the intermediary between God and humanity. He stands at a spiritual crossroa ...

. As his name suggests, Peg Leg Joe is depicted as having a

prosthesis In medicine, a prosthesis (: prostheses; from ), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through physical trauma, disease, or a condition present at birth (Congenital, congenital disord ...

for his right leg.Kelley, James. Song, Story, or History: Resisting Claims of a Coded Message in the African American Spiritual "Follow the Drinking Gourd". ''The Journal of Popular Culture'' 41.2 (April 2008): 262–80.

Follow the drinking gourd

Peg Leg Joe is widely credited online and in popular history with authoring "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd", which was supposedly a set of instructions leading fugitive slaves to safety in the northern states. It is likely that

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

sang the tune in the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The lyrics were first collected by H.B Parks and published in 1928 in the journal of the Texas Folklore Society, with a slightly different version collected by

Lee Hays Lee Elhardt Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folk singer and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in soc ...

and recorded in 1947. Modern popular interpretations of the song, based on Parks' initial account, suggest that it encodes a route from Alabama to the northern states; specifying the time of year in which the journey should be undertaken, guiding the fugitives along the

Tombigbee River The Tombigbee River is a tributary of the Mobile River, approximately 200 mi (325 km) long, in the U.S. states of Mississippi and Alabama. Together with the Alabama, it merges to form the short Mobile River before the latter empties i ...

, across "the hills", then onto the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

and finally the

. These interpretations state that the escaped slaves would then be met by members of the Underground Railroad, possibly by Peg Leg Joe himself. The accounts also suggest that the song indicates that dead trees along the escape route may have been marked with a left foot and a peg foot sign, symbolising Peg Leg Joe. This interpretation relies on inferences from the obscure lyrics of the song as well as Parks' initial account of its collection.

Parks' account

The name Peg Leg Joe does not appear in the song, it instead mentions an "old man" who is waiting to "carry you to freedom", and includes the line "Left foot, peg foot, traveling on". Parks, in his 1928 article, stated that he had collected the song from African-American informants at various locations in the

American South The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is census regions United States Census Bureau. It is between the Atlantic Ocean and the ...

, with the fullest version obtained from a man in

College Station, Texas College Station is a city in Brazos County, Texas, United States, situated in East-Central Texas in the Brazos Valley, towards the eastern edge of the region known as the Texas Triangle. It is northwest of Houston and east-northeast of Austin, ...

. In his explanation of the song to Parks, the man described a peg-legged sailor who travelled through southern plantations, staying in one place for a few weeks working as a carpenter and teaching the song to the local slaves. He would then lay a trail north, marking dead trees on the route north with a footprint and a circle, representing the peg leg. The following spring, slaves would follow this trail to freedom in the north. Parks then writes that he mentioned the song to his unnamed

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

great-uncle who had heard it. Parks states that the great-uncle then informed him that he had seen written records connected to the song, and that it referred to "Peg Leg Joe", a member of the Underground Railroad, who he claimed was active "north of Mobile" and who had made his last trip to the South in 1859.

Historicity

The existence of Peg Leg Joe, and the analysis of the song as a coded guide for escaping enslaved people, has been repeated uncritically in popular history books, children's stories and on the internet. However, academic James Kelley argues that there is very slim evidence for Parks' original reading of the text. He suggests that the song may in fact have had a spiritual significance and express a more general desire for escape to freedom in the north, without encoding any specific information useful for escapees. Kelley is suspicious of Parks claim that his uncle knew of Peg Leg Joe and views his triple discovery of the song as "strained coincidences". He argues that mentioning the white great uncle's memory of reading about a sailor called "Peg leg Joe" was in fact designed to legitimise the story told to him by his black informant. Kelley further argues that Peg Leg Joe may represent the African lwa,

. Papa Legba is frequently depicted as an old man with a cane or crutch, who acts as a guide and dispenses wisdom which aids a traveller in reaching their destination. The editors of collections containing Parks' account of the song's discovery, B.A. Botkin and

Alan Dundes Alan Dundes (September 8, 1934 – March 30, 2005) was an American folklorist. He spent much of his career as a professional academic at the University of California, Berkeley and published his ideas in a wide range of books and articles. He ...

, also cast doubt on the historicity of Peg Leg Joe.

Literary depictions

In the children's book ''Follow the Drinking Gourd'' by Jeanette Winter, Peg Leg Joe would pretend to be a carpenter at a targeted plantation. There he would teach the enslaved people "Follow the Drinking Gourd", which contained a code leading the enslaved people to freedom along the Underground Railroad.

References

{{Underground Railroad Legendary American people Pre-emancipation African-American history Underground Railroad people

Follow the drinking gourd

Parks' account

Historicity

Literary depictions

See also

References