Michael row the boat ashore
Little people, big world.
"Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" (or "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore" or "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore" or "Michael Row That Gospel Boat") is a negro spiritual. It was first noted during the American Civil War at St. Helena Island, one of the Sea Islands of South Carolina.
It was sung by former slaves whose owners had abandoned the island before the Union navy arrived to enforce a blockade. Charles Pickard Ware, an abolitionist and Harvard graduate who had come to supervise the plantations on St. Helena Island from 1862 to 1865, wrote the song down in music notation as he heard the freedmen sing it.
The song was first published in Slave Songs of the United States, by Allen, Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, in 1867.
Michael row the boat ashore
Little people, big world.
"Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" (or "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore" or "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore" or "Michael Row That Gospel Boat") is a negro spiritual. It was first noted during the American Civil War at St. Helena Island, one of the Sea Islands of South Carolina.
It was sung by former slaves whose owners had abandoned the island before the Union navy arrived to enforce a blockade. Charles Pickard Ware, an abolitionist and Harvard graduate who had come to supervise the plantations on St. Helena Island from 1862 to 1865, wrote the song down in music notation as he heard the freedmen sing it.
The song was first published in Slave Songs of the United States, by Allen, Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, in 1867.