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Okay, so, Michael rowed the boat ashore. Big deal! (Original Post) Yavin4 Nov 2013 OP
Sister helped to trim the sails. What kind of boat needs sails and oars, anyway? Arkansas Granny Nov 2013 #1
On a windless day... antiquie Nov 2013 #2
Wiki says: frogmarch Nov 2013 #3
I'm too busy trying to figure out rocktivity Nov 2013 #4
hallelujah! cyberswede Nov 2013 #5

Arkansas Granny

(31,483 posts)
1. Sister helped to trim the sails. What kind of boat needs sails and oars, anyway?
Mon Nov 25, 2013, 05:41 PM
Nov 2013

I mean, isn't that a little redundant?

frogmarch

(12,145 posts)
3. Wiki says:
Mon Nov 25, 2013, 05:44 PM
Nov 2013
"Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" (or "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore" or "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore" or "Michael Row That Gospel Boat&quot is an African-American spiritual. It was first noted during the American Civil War at St. Helena Island, one of the Sea Islands of South Carolina.[1]

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. Ware's cousin, William Francis Allen reported in 1863 that while he rode in a boat across Station Creek, the former slaves sang the song as they rowed.[2]

The song was first published in Slave Songs of the United States, by Allen, Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, in 1867.[3]

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