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- This song was first published in 1928 and was supposedly used by an Underground Railroad operative to encode escape instructions and a map. These directions then enabled fleeing slaves to make their way north from Mobile, Alabama to the Ohio River and freedom.
- When it was published, it was claimed that an Underground Railroad operative, known as Peg Leg Joe, moved from plantation to plantation just north of the Mobile, Alabama area working as a journeyman laborer. This work was a front for Joe's true task: teaching slaves the Drinking Gourd song and marking an escape route.
- The "drinking gourd" refers to the hollowed out gourd used by slaves (and other rural Americans) as a water dipper. But here it is used as a code name for the Big Dipper star formation, which points to Polaris, the Pole Star, and North.
- It now appears unlikely that this song was sung before the Civil War in its current form and it is unclear whether Peg Leg Joe was a real person, fictional, or a composite character.
- Visit FollowtheDrinkingGourd.org for an in-depth study of the history of the song.
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